Over the months after ballasting the track, I sorted out a fair amount of detail as to how I wanted to model the difference scenes in the layout, especially the intermodal yard, but 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 girder bridges I'd designed to dramatically cross the water effect, 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 all the northeast corridor (Pennsy/Conrail/Amtrak) railroads. So, as long as I'm having to rip out these bridges, I figured I may as well add catenary!
The problem quickly became where to find girder bridges, 70' and 85' scale feet in length. Fortunately, I'd widthof the stream, as it cut through the gap was what it was; since ExactRail makes a 72' deck girder, with C&O road marking 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 come as kits, and needed to be glued together. 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 one of the two tracks, so that two lines would fit between the catenary bridges. This turned out to be far less drama than I thought it'd be. A lot of mess, but Elmer's glue is very forgiving. I sprayed a 50% water, 50% alcohol solution to soften up the ballasted, and started over. I did need to use new track, as moving the line towards the outer edge of the layout lengthened the radius of the curves on the back side of the layout.
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 use at least on girder bridge, the arched one is the most interesting, and I wanted it and the 72' C&O deck girder span both to be highly visible. So..., the inner loop got moved out towards the outer loop.
The next step was to pour the water effect, while the bridges were out of the way. These photos were taken before the product had cured. Once cured, and added waves and ripples, using Woodland Scenics' Surface Water Water Waves.
Finally, I could fit the new bridges into place.
