Category Archives: News

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Georgetown Branch lead at Georgetown Junction

Georgetown Branch Odyssey

History, News, Prototype

A couple weeks ago Kelly R. & I spent a day hunting the Georgetown Branch. It dawned on me that the Rock Creek trestle was either gone or not long for this world. I knew that with the Purple Line construction plowing ahead (literally) much of the Georgetown Branch right of way is either gone or soon-to-be gone forever, or forever changed. So, we finally nailed down a time and made a day trip of it. (*Note – if you’d like to see all of my photos from the outing, you can visit my Gallery HERE.)

We started at the Junction (naturally) to document what was there. This was one of the more delightful spots, as much of the Junction is untouched and actually opened up due to some recent brush clearing by CSX and MDOT. You can see that they have topped many of the large trees at the Junction along Talbot Ave. The Talbot Ave bridge still stands (yay!) and is open to pedestrian traffic.  We managed to locate the old team track switches (wow!) still in place in the original rails. VERY cool. We walked down the Branch and found the switch lead for the E.C. Keys (now T.W. Perry) siding. Too bad they don’t still take deliveries!

Georgetown Branch lead at Georgetown Junction
Georgetown Branch lead at Georgetown Junction
Frog and guard rail for team track turnout at Junction
Frog and guard rail for team track turnout at Junction
Here we stand at the end of the Georgetown Branch. Originally, the branch extended all the way down to where the 16th St. bridge crosses in the distance. In Feb 1996 this was the site of the rail disaster where an EB commuter train collided with the WB Capitol Limited, resulting in 8 deaths and 26 injured. The lead for the GB was never rebuilt to its original length and instead was shortened to where it is now, near the Talbot Ave. bridge.

We visited several of the Branch crossings between the Junction and Rock Creek, but there just isn’t much to see besides the new Lyttonsville Rd. bridge (which had opened the day before we arrived) as well as the massive brush-clearing they have done. It was neat to see the RoW in a state closest to the original 1890’s appearance for one last time.

But then we arrived at Jones Mill Rd. and got our first taste of sadness:

The Western approach to the Rock Creek trestle has been forever changed, as MDOT removes much of the fill to allow for the new Purple Line right of way. Here, at Rock Creek, the line will go *under* Jones Mill rd. and proceed across the Creek at a much lower level than the current trestle does. The trestle is being demolished.

They have gutted the right of way. For reference, the tracks used to sit atop that concrete abutment and continued to the level I was standing on. All of the dirt you see in this picture is fresh. It’s as if they sliced the top of the fill off. And they’re just getting started. The Rock Creek trestle (in the distance) is not long for this world. It’s already in the process of being demolished when this photo was taken.

Not long for this world. The Trestle, build in 1928 and modified over the years due to fire and flood damage, still stands. A section of the trestle has already been demolished, visible to the right. MDOT will be removing the pedestrian deck from the top and then demolishing the rest of the trestle in the near future.

Here is the trestle, or what’s left of it for now. The missing section on the right has been removed already and MDOT will be taking the pedestrian bridge off of the top and re-using it elsewhere. Then, the rest of the trestle will be disassembled and removed in preparation for the new Purple Line bridge and pedestrian bridge. So sad to see the end of an era that spans over 130 years in this location. (pun intended) 🙂

While I was taking pictures, I noticed I happened to be standing next to the twisted wreckage of the old escape platform for the East end of the trestle. This small platform is made of steel and timber and closely resembles a standard plan I found in a B&O plans book. Pretty neat!

We then hopped in the car and visited Connecticut Ave. The carnage here is massive and I didn’t feel like taking photos or getting out due to the hostile construction zone. MDOT has set up cameras and guards in these areas to protect the NEW equipment they bought, no doubt. (wow!) I can report that the old T.W. Perry property has been gutted and is being leveled. The old bridge just South of T.W. Perry has been completely removed and nothing but a dip in the ground remains. Sad!

Our next stop was Bethesda where we drove through town on our way to lunch. Bethesda was very busy and we chose not to stop in the downtown area, as with all the construction it is particularly difficult to get park. There’s not much left to see there, anyway, as it has REALLY become so built up over the last several years. We drove across the Little Falls crossing, then to River Road where we parked and hit McDonalds to refuel. We met a Penn Central hat-wearing railfan there who was dining with family. We shared some stories about the GB and some photos of a PC box car at Conn. Ave. which he enjoyed!

We parked at River Road on the South side of the crossing there. We discovered many old remnants of the branch, which was truly exciting! Probably the neatest find was the old Metropolitan Fuel Co. siding tracks which R. Pearlman had shown me photos of from last Fall. The REALLY neat thing is we discovered the old unloading valves and apparatus which still sits in the dirt by the siding. The siding would take loaded tank cars which would be hooked up to the unloading pipes. Valves would be opened, allowing the fuel to gravity-feed down, under the GB track and down hill to tanks below at the fuel depot. Much of the remains of this operation are still in place, buried in the brush. VERY cool to find and photograph. Who knows how long this relic will be there. I think it’s pretty special!

A survivor – this siding, which once served the Metropolitan Fuel Co., is still there. Even the stops at the end of the rails survive! Tank cars were spotted here and unloaded using hoses and pipes which ran down the siding and under the Branch mainline to tanks downhill on the other side of the tracks.
In Bethesda at the Metropolitan Fuel Co siding, one of the valves which was connected to the tank cars survives! In fact, we found two of them still in place, along with all the piping. Really special to find these parts there today!

We departed Bethesda, crossed under the Branch at Mass Ave, hooked a Left and followed the Branch through the neighborhoods that back up to the RoW. We arrived at the Dalecarlia Tunnel and hopped out to hike around the area. What fun! First stop was the “bridge over nothing” at the Reservoir.

But we all know it’s actually the bridge laid in around 1908 which spans the old stone aqueduct feeder for the Dalecarlia Reservoir, which is just out of view to the left.

We then walked down to the Tunnel, which is always a treat. I will have to figure out how I am going to model those large brick abutments!

The ornate North portal which reads “DALECARLIA” and “19” and “10”. This portal was built to B&O standards and includes interesting brick abutments/buttresses (?)

Through the tunnel, past the Army Map siding and at the location where the Capital Traction Co. / DC Transit “Cabin John” branch passed beneath the GB we came to the original bridges, still in place, carrying the Capital Crescent Trail up and over a vehicle access road.

These two bridges once spanned the Capital Traction Co./DC Transit double track Cabin John trolley line and a feeder line for the Dalecarlia Reservoir. They are still in use today, carrying the Capital Crescent Trail traffic up and over a vehicle access road. They are on a slightly different alignment.

The bridge on the left is massive – a good 9-10′ height! The shorter bridge is the one that spanned the DCT trolley line.

We walked back up to the “bridge over nothing” and I remembered that there were some old freight car remains just about a half mile up the line. So we started walking. My “abandoned rails” eyes caught something out of the corner… an old right of way! We’re not sure what this was for, but best we can tell it was an old unloading trestle that spanned a small creek. There were remains of abutments, ties and roadbed. There were some concrete blocks and posts in the ground down below, perhaps for pipes or conveyors of some kind. Remember, the Reservoir project was massive and involved lots of concrete for the various ponds. I’m not entirely sure but that’s my best guess!

This was probably the coolest thing we found. While poking around near the Reservoir, we found the remains of a siding and trestle that I had never seen before, either in person or on maps. The siding was located right next to the Reservoir and appears to be either an old alignment or perhaps a spot for delivering goods to the Reservoir construction project. Mystery!

Walking a bit further up the Branch we came to the abandoned box car. This carcass appears to be from a wreck and exists in three pieces. The underframe and two ends. Parts of the couplers and much of the frame are all there. Even decking from the floor are still in place. My best guess is that this car was damaged in a flood down near the River at some point in the 40s. (or maybe earlier) The RR cut the car up, loaded it on a flat car and dumped it for some reason. Not sure why they didn’t just transport the entire thing back to the yard, but maybe someone out there knows. Also, we looked for more cars in the weeds but didn’t find any.

This box car was cut up and dumped off the side of the right of way. Best guess is that it was damaged in one of the floods and dumped here after being stripped of useful materials.
This box car was cut up and dumped off the side of the right of way. Best guess is that it was damaged in one of the floods and dumped here after being stripped of useful materials.

 

This box car was cut up and dumped off the side of the right of way. Best guess is that it was damaged in one of the floods and dumped here after being stripped of useful materials.

We drove a bit further and took a peek at the C&O Canal bridges but did not stop. By then it was getting late, it had started snowing (we ended up getting 14″ up in Brookeville!) and we were tired. But, wow, what a journey. We had a blast. It was bittersweet, though, to see all of the old areas being demolished and changed forever. It’s been a special part of me for the last 20 years, this line. Seeing it destroyed is a bit melancholy for me. But, rest assured, when the Purple Line opens, I will be in line for a ticket to experience the Georgetown Branch as I never was able to; a passenger. It’s the closest I’ll get! 🙂

Layout Update: Jan 24, 2019 – Turnouts, Turnouts, Turnouts

Model RR, News

Happy New Year! I’m catching up on a LOT of updates for this site. I’ve got tons to share and just trying to find the time to get it all online. I had a great work session with Matt R. where we disconnected the DCC system and hooked up a regular power pack to the layout so I could run some of my non-DCC-equipped trains. This served a couple purposes. One, it was cool! Two, it gave me a chance to see how the “biggest” steam engine I have (a B&O Q1c Mikado) did going around the curves of the layout. What did I learn? Well, some of the curves, especially at the Junction are WAY too tight for the Mike. But, I also had some great brainstorming, realizing that I had laid out the track at the Junction in a way that wasn’t prototypical and could be done better to ease the curve and allow for a more prototypical arrangement. I’ve ripped out about 80% of the track I need to remove and am in the process of redoing the roadbed and arranging the tracks. I need to test fit a couple #8 RH turnouts, so that is the next step.

But, the big thing is that I’ve laid track all the way to Bethesda! (yay!) The bad news, I hit a snag. The curve coming into Bethesda is a broad compound curve. On the prototype there were three turnouts. From right to left, a turnout that served Griffith Fuel & Oil and included a long coal trestle. Next is another siding. I’m not certain what this served.  The third turnout is the lead for the passing siding, which also led to more sidings serving Maloney Concrete, Frito-Lay and some team tracks among others. 

I had originally planned on using some modified Micro Engineering and Walthers #6 turnouts (webbing removed to allow minor “curving” of the turnouts). See here, from last Feb:

But, upon closer inspection, and now that I actually have a lead into Bethesda, I realized these just do not work for me. The #6’s are way too abrupt. The “main” would become the “diverging” route on the turnouts. This looks way too wonky to me. The curve of the #6 is very sharp and it doesn’t flow well, even with bending. I tried some of the broadest curved turnouts that Walthers/Shinohara offers and they are too tight. So what’s left? Are you hearing that? It’s the call of the old-school model railroader… that’s right; Hand laying track!

FastTracks is a modern supplier of tools, jigs, and supplies for hand laying track. They have just about anything you could imagine in this realm. I have seen their stuff before and it’s very nice, but also very pricey. I can’t afford to buy a few of the CNC-cut jigs, but I will use their free templates as guides to get my turnouts close to what I need. I printed out about every template that was close to what I am looking for and test-fitted them on the layout. A few of them come close to what I need. Matt and I used a piece of spline to draw a nice curve from the existing track on into Bethesda. This gives me a baseline for the curve of the turnout I need to build. To give you an idea, here is the overall ROUGH arrangement of the tracks in Bethesda:

Next steps: Now that I’ve got the curve drawn on the roadbed, I’m going to cut and remove the roadbed section where the curves are and mount it to a small piece of plywood. This will allow me to take it to the workbench and work there versus on the layout itself. I then need to start test fitting ties and figure out the layout of the turnouts themselves. Alternatively, I may just build three turnouts of the same size and then place them together like sectional track. This will also allow for simplicity, but I won’t be able to achieve the nice compound curve I am following. Either way, I have my work cut out for me this weekend.

As a final note, next weekend (Feb 2-3) will be the Great Scale Model Train Show at Timonium, MD. I will be there and will have some table space to sell some old equipment. If you are going, drop me a line so we can meet up and say hello!

 

One Last Sunset

History, Model RR, News, Prototype
The Rock Creek Trestle, as it stands on January 16, 2019. The trestle is currently in the process of being demolished.
The Rock Creek Trestle, as it stands on January 16, 2019. The trestle is currently in the process of being demolished.

I spent all day Saturday visiting the Georgetown Branch to see some of the construction changes. It was a glorious day. Kelly R. and I found some amazing things. I took hundreds of photos. I’m planning many future blog posts.

The impetus for the journey was that I remembered that the Rock Creek trestle was going to be demolished to make way for a new grade for the purple line. I had no idea if it was already down, but Kelly and I headed over to the site. Much to my joy, it is still partially standing, although about 8 of the trestle bents are gone from the East end.

The venerable structure is not long for this world. Massive mobile cranes are staging nearby to remove the pedestrian path atop the trestle and on the west end, well, the original right of way has been completely decimated. It’s heartbreaking for me to see. This trestle has stood the test of time. Survived fire, flood, hurricane and countless storms and seasons. Since it’s original incarnation as a long wood trestle to what it is today, a bridge has spanned this valley since the early 1890s. It’s a beautiful structure and is showing its age, with rot starting to really take its toll.

I visited today after work to take some final measurements and as many photos as I could snag with the limited sunlight I had. It’s a special bridge for me. Something of wonder. If it’s of any consolation, it will live on in model form on my layout as best as I can manage.

Film of DC Transit at Dalecarlia

Georgetown Branch related links, History, News, Prototype

This neat video showing various railfan excursions from the 1950s to 1970s in the DC area shows a wide variety of subjects, including a brief, rare color film shot of the trolley approaching its crossing of the B&O’s Georgetown Branch, which crossed the trolley tracks on a deck girder bridge. The trolley last ran to Glen Echo on Jan 3, 1960 and the area beneath the bridge would be filled in later that year. (I walked the line back in 1991 and witnessed this deck girder bridge sitting only a few feet off the ground. It was a strange sight.)

Video begins at the 5:54 mark and is only a few seconds long, but it’s neat to see. In the background you can see the GB bridge crossing over the tracks. There was a second deck girder bridge to the left which extended the crossing.

Layout progress report: 12/26/18

Model RR, News

Merry Christmas! Some more great progress has been made. I know it doesn’t look like much but I am making great headway considering the fits and spurts of attention the layout gets. All of the trackage at Chevy Chase is done and wired up. (Minus the turnout frogs, switch machines and the coal trestle at T.W. Perry.) the trains can now run all the way to just before Bethesda. Track is half way through the curve at the end of the room. Feels good to make such progress.

My goal is to get the upper deck done by the end of the year and I’m very close. I have already cut and prepped all of the track in Bethesda but had to rip it up so I could wire frogs and holes for switch machines. I also spent a day working with my friend Matt who helped me add some more prototypical curvature at the east end and rework my sidings. These changes are already in place, I just need to get the track in. One more week? Can he do it? Stay tuned.

Layout progress report: 12/23/18

Model RR, News

Made some great progress this past week. The area around Chevy Chase is taking shape. I laid track halfway through the area and finished fitting the rest of the main and passing siding. I ran out of time to complete laying it. Still need to solder the drops to the rail bottoms and spike into place. After that I will install the team track which will go on the curvy bit of roadbed I installed.

I also installed a new-to-me Digitrax system that was graciously given to me. It’s an Empire Builder 2, about 15 years old but nearly new. Unfortunately the DT300 throttle suffers from the capacitor plague and I will have to have it repaired by Digitrax. Since they were badly hit by hurricane Michael it will not be for a few months. No worries for now, I have an old UT1 to play with. 🙂

Did some cleaning up and consolidating of scenery materials and storage in the layout room and a few other layout tasks. It’s been a productive week! More soon.

Friday view of work completed, showing the roadbed for the T.W. Perry siding (to the right) and the mainline and passing siding (to the Left) laid down as well. Ignore the jumper cables; they were just there to test the track as I hasn’t soldered the feeder wires yet.)
Sunday evening update. The track is laid in for the second half (West end) of the Chevy Chase section. This “boxcar-eye-view” of the track is looking geographic West, with the T.W. Perry siding on the right and the passing siding branching off of the main to the left.
An overview pic from Sunday evening showing the progress. The curved roadbed coming off of the passing siding is the team track. This track is slightly sunken as the prototype was.

River Road Metropolitan Fuel Co. Siding Survivor

History, News, Prototype

Another relic from the Georgetown Branch surfaces as a siding in Bethesda at River Road emerges from the brush.

Note the wheel blocks fastened to the rail so the cars would not roll off the end of the siding.

Eagle-eyed viewer, contributor and friend Rich Pearlman went exploring the area around the crossing at River Rd. and came across the tracks on the South side of the intersection. I had a sneaking suspicion there were tracks there as I had previously seen and photographed rails buried in the dirt but I hadn’t seen them listed/shown on the maps I have, nor do I have period photos of them.

Well, Rich did the heavy lifting, digging through the B&O Railroad Yahoo! Group site to uncover a comment from Christopher Parker outlining a brief history of that siding. Here is what he wrote:

The siding, which was quite long (more than 10 cars), once served Metropolitan Fuel Company, across the tracks. By 1980 it was grown over and disconnected from the main, but the pipes and connections for
unloading tank cars were all still present. Metropolitan Fuel Company was purchased by Stuart Petroleum along with next-door Washington Fuel
sometime in the early eighties.

A red wooden caboose sat on this siding all through the seventies. When I first got a look at it in the late seventies, it was quite abandoned and didn’t have a road name on it. Around 1982, give or take a few
years, it was damaged by fire.

In 1981 or 1982, this siding was re-connected and the first 100′ was used by Jack’s Roofing Co to unload Cedar Shingles. They’d get a box car about every two weeks, sometimes less. UP, BN, BCOL, SP. Jack’s
Roofing also used piggyback service (unloaded elsewhere) to get a truckload of shingles every day. Jack’s Roofing company was located a bit behind Roy Rogers, a few buildings away from the tracks. I recall
them using a two axle flatbed truck and forklift.

So there you have it – the siding had multiple purposes and served a few industries over the years. It’s a neat story and a neat relic! I should really get down there and see it myself, because the fact that someone cleared the brush and put up those small red survey markers leads me to believe it won’t be around for long. 🙁

Layout Update: October, 14, 2018

Model RR, News

Have been really making some great progress on the layout these last few weeks and it feels great. I last updated that I had got my DCC system up and running and after a little tweaking it is working flawlessly. I power up the system, turn the layout power on, open WiThrottle on my phone, acquire a loco and away I go! And on that note…

Power at Georgetown Junction
A visiting Maine Central U18B and B&O 730 prepare to switch the Junction.

I’ve completed the Junction area as well as nearly all the trackage in the first section of the layout. Bus wires and feeders are in place and trains are running! There are a few trouble areas that I am working on- the biggest being the sharp curve leading from the Junction on to the branch. Not sure how I’m going to solve this but I’ll work on the major issues when I get closer to them. I can see my steam engines having a hard time negotiating that tight turnout. In the meantime, here’s more…

Wide shot of layout progress
Here you can see all of the new trackage and lay of the land.
B&O 730 crossing Rock Creek
Here you have a nice view of the construction of the lowered section of benchwork. A fully scale representation of the Rock Creek Trestle will go here.

I created the temporary bridge from some plywood with an old 2×2 screwed to the bottom for rigidity. The bridge is easily removable with two wood screws. Feeder wires are screwed into a terminal block for easy removal. Right now track is laid semi-permanently on top of the bridge for operational purposes. Once I have the trestle model complete, I will “cut out” the old bridge and replace it with the model. Since that is far off, the temporary bridge is solid.

The drop down area is where the creek bed will be located. The trestle will be built to scale, an exact representation of the prototype as it stood in the 1940s.

B&O 730 crosses Rock Creek with its train
The first train across the temporary bridge over Rock Creek
The area around Georgetown Junction
Just after the junction we have the E.C. Keys siding, the coal trestle and the “main line” of the branch.

In this wide view you can make out the approximate location of the long coal trestle which will branch off from the main right after the junction. I really like how the re-worked grades turned out for the junction area. Originally I had the mainline up very high and it presented some real challenges down grade. My friend Matt helped to re-work the Junction completely. We spent a few hours looking at photos and studying maps to come up with the existing layout, which more realistically follows the prototype, where the Branch drops off quickly from the Metropolitan Branch mainline and is sunken between sidings. (E.C. Keys and the coal trestle) So far, everything is working smoothly. It feels great to make real progress. It feels even better to be able to run a locomotive on the layout! 🙂

Next up I’m going to continue track laying into Chevy Chase and on into Bethesda. If I stay on track, I should make my goal of completing all of the upper-deck track work before Christmas. 🙂

Hello, World! (DCC++ & JMRI) * UPDATED 1/2/2022

Model RR, News

** UPDATES BELOW **

The prototype DCC system is up and running. I decided to home brew my DCC when I read about DCC++ and realized I had an Arduino laying around with no real purpose. I bought a motor shield and hooked up my laptop and an old power pack to test it out. It worked but I knew I had to come up with a more complete and permanent setup.

I immediately considered the Raspberry Pi (RPi) as it’s a low cost, full featured Linux computer and I can run JMRI on it! I needed a power supply and a bit of research found others doing similar things using various inexpensive devices. I also wanted a proper booster so I chose a Tam Valley unit. I’ll invest in a second one for my other power district in the future. EDIT: I used Steve Todd’s “JMRI RaspberryPi as Access Point” which is a pre-built configuration for RPi which sets it up by default as an access point, connects to the DCC++ system and runs PanelPro, etc. It’s fantastic and worked right away.

Today I spent several hours putting all the pieces together that I had collected over the last couple years. The monitor was a donor from my dad. The mouse, keyboard and cabling was all old stuff laying around. I put everything onto a board, first laying it out and planning the cable routing. Once everything was good, I screwed the pieces into place.

Next was to test voltages and see what worked. A bit of tinkering and everything looked good. I set it all in place and started configuring things in the RPi. A bit of trial and error getting things to talk to each other, with some luck, and it’s working!

There are still lots of kinks to work out and I need to experiment with a lot of the features. My intention is for this to be a fun project and provide a robust DCC system to get me started for the Georgetown Branch. We will see how it works in the long run.

incidentally, I had planned on taking apart my Proto2000 GP7 to have a look at the plastic gears, as last time I ran it it was making lots of noise.

Wouldn’t you know it, all four gears were cracked! I replaced them with Athearn units, like a charm. Here’s one of the cracked units:

I was asked to give some more details about parts and prices so here is a list. Building this setup requires many things that you probably already have on hand, so the cost will vary. Also, you can find things on sale occasionally and you can simplify or streamline it with your own skills or modifications. I included rough estimates for a few things which you will need just to get the ball rolling. Feel free to reach out with any questions you have.

List of parts: (Updated 1/2/2022)

A few more things

Updates: (1/2/2022) – this is not definitive, but rather a couple notes.

DCC++ Issues

I ran into issues with my DCC++ setup, essentially it would read some decoders and not read others. I spent hours troubleshooting it and eventually moved on. I suspect it has to do with my power settings, but as I am not a programmer by nature, I didn’t feel like spending more time figuring it out. I’ve moved on from using DCC++ but would VERY much like to revisit it in the near future as I think there have been some wonderful developments with the growth of the DCC++ EX project; essentially an updated version of the old DCC++ project. They even have a Discord! I have tried DCC++ EX but still have issues. Again, I’d like to revisit this.

Raspberry Pi / Arduino Availablity

I don’t know why Arduino and Raspberry Pi units are so hard to come by right now. I basically couldn’t find ANY for sale right now, anywhere. I’m not sure if this is a result of the global chip shortage, the global shipping crisis, a combination of the two, or something else entirely. If you are in the market for one of these, you’ll have to get creative. It really is a frustrating situation! Let me know if you see things change.

JMRI RaspberryPi as Access Point

Model Railroader and programmer Steve Todd has designed and offers totally free a whole lot of cool stuff on his website. This includes Engine Driver, the awesome Android app you can use to run trains on a WiFi-equipped DCC system! In addition, he offers a completely self-contained, packaged solution for using a Raspberry Pi as an access point to run your layout with JMRI and WiThrottle. Simply write the image to your RPi SD card, boot it up, point it at your DCC system (with WiFi enabled), configure your throttles (smart phones) and you are running trains. It’s amazing. You don’t even “need” a keyboard/mouse to do this. Here is a link to the page with all the info you’ll need: https://mstevetodd.com/rpi I have set this up on my layout and it works great. Really awesome!

That’s all for updates for now. Good luck with your DCC++ adventures. I’d love to hear more about what you all are up to!

The Metropolitan Branch is Complete

Model RR, News

Even though it’s a short stretch of track and is purely cosmetic on my layout, it feels great to get it done. The track is some Micro Engineering weathered code 100 flex track that I received in a lot of very old track. It’s probably over 20-some years old, if not older. As such, it required me to drill all of the spike holes, which I did about every 4-5″ with a Dremel. Soldered the joints and pre-bent the curves. This stuff is very stiff and tough to bend smoothly! All in all, it turned out nicely. It will be a great spot to stage a mainline passenger train.

Next is to work on bus wiring, roadbed at the Junction and getting more track down.