Over the months after ballasting the track, I sorted out how I wanted to model the difference scenes in the layout, specifically, I decided on an intermodal yard, and also the routing of the power transimission lines, the roadway into and out of the yard, and utility lines across the water effects, etc.
But a couple problems came together, to force a major rethink of the whole project - all for the better. First, I noticed early on that the truss bridges weren't going to play nice with the pantographs of my beloved GG1
Then, in my search for realistic scenery accessories, I ran into Don, who grew up around the New Haven, and New York Central lines; and who makes awesome scale catenary for legacy northeast corridor (Pennsy/Conrail/Amtrak/New haven) railroads. So I decided, as long as I was having to rip out the bridges, I might as well would add catenary!
The problem quickly became where to find 70' and 85' scale foot deck girder bridges, the width of the stream as it cut through the gap. Fortunately, ExactRail makes a 72' deck girder, with Chessie road markings even! And I found a 85' open deck bridge made by Micro-Engineering.
The ExactRail comes fully assembled and is beautifully detailed. The longer Micro-Engineering bridges comes as kits, and needed to be assembled. I weathered all three, even though it's difficult to see much of the Micro-Engineering bridges from anywhere on the layout.
The next step was to realign the track along the back stretch of the inner loop, so both tracks would fit under the catenary bridges. This turned out to be far less difficult than I thought. A lot of mess, but Elmer's glue is very forgiving. I sprayed a 50% water, Isopropol alcohol solution to soften up and removed the old ballast, realigned and hand-laid a new track segment. I use new track, as moving the line towards the outer edge of the layout lengthened the radius of the curves on the back sides.
The decision to run the two catenary lines as I did was based on a couple factors. The GG1 is over 80' long. So the outer tracks are the best radii for running it. Also, these bridges are along the wall, and the back end of the layout. I wanted to add catenary, but also keep at least one, the more interesting arched truss bridgeo, and the 72' Chessie deck girder span, visible to the front of the layout. To do this, the inner loop got moved back towards the outer loop.
The next step was to, while the bridges were out of the way, pour the water effect. (these photos were taken before the product had cured). Once cured, I added waves and ripples, using Woodland Scenics' Surface Water Waves.
Finally, I could fit the new bridges into place.
