Playing catch-up 1

Playing catch up!

With the forums down for awhile, and my mom's passing, missed posting so will begin catching up some.

Just going to go tie wise so it is easier to see how I got where I did.

Sunday Update 10-28-12

One of the areas I mentioned before was a desire to convey the feeling of how little room there was in Clear Creek Canyon. Even riding down the highway today does not do it justice. When we walked the old grade to Tough Cuss Pass you could really get a feel for how tight it was.


This image is going upgrade where bridge crossed over. Roadbed would be under highway (I believe) down a good 15-20 ft. Pretty tight when you consider the road was not there so mountains sloped down at roughly the same angle.  Old right-of-way is lower left.


Now this is the steep one! This runs through to Beaver Brook and is almost vertical. The overcast really kills the reads in the rocks. One of my challenges was picking exactly when to model. So I chose between 11-3 as that is when the light best shows the trains, and spring early summer 1916-18 as I wanted the creek higher than late summer from snow melt.

So with the prototype photos in hand, I set about trying to make some foreground walls to try and recreate the feel.


So here is the turn on the middle peninsula deck 2 looking downgrade. One of my thoughts here is I wonder if I should have made the rock wall go all the way up to the next deck and fill-in the center (with maybe a removable section). Opinions appreciated: Pro look, Con access.


Here it is from the aisle, the black really helps the look.

Next we go around the corner and work on the back side of deck 2. This is where Beaver Brook is and will have some of the iconic rock formations like Hanging rock and Mother Grundy.


This long shot gives you a good idea of the scale. This run is 11-13 ft long with solid rock work. Most rock work in-place in this shot.

Here are some details:


This was tight, had to do a lot of carving to get loco to clear. Plan on using a "rented" 2-8-2 Mike to Forks Creek then split the train with 2-8-0's taking to Black Hawk or Idaho Springs / Georgetown depending on load. It was normal practice on C&S but no 2-8-2's used.


Hanging rock carved out. Looks better. Relying on pictures in Colorado Central book for most of these spots. As I get better at carving it maybe replaced.


Starting to form in the tunnel. Couple of mistakes here. Should have built liner first and the front support will have to go. Got a wild idea: the real Clear Creek Branch had no tunnels (until cars came). I used 1 for two reasons, to hide a support and I like tunnels.

Thinking about having old road bed extend to left around mountain then show a massive washout to justify tunnel (tell a story). Thoughts?

More catch-up to come later.

Thanks Cameron