Montezuma Lumber Spur

July 2, 1024

With only a few inches between the spur and the edge of the bench work, there isn't much room for anything more the a simple loading dock. Once again, Bruce Hanley came to the rescue with the cool little covered shed. Like all of the other scenes on the layout, the Montezuma Lumber Spur still needs a little work but, at this point, it looks pretty good.

Train Time at Matterhorn

July 5,2024

RGS Goose #3 Northbound at Matterhorn across from the Montezuma Lumber Spur. Goose #3 is an old PFM import. I added wipers for better pickup, a Tsunami2 sound system and the TCS keep alive for smooth and reliable operation.

Goose #3 southbound at Matterhorn. A new 4000K LED lighting fixture has replaced the old fluorescent lighting above Matterhorn. I think the color, without any adjustments using Photoshop. is much better.

RGS 2-8-0 #42 leading a southbound freight just beyond the Montezuma Lumber Spur at Matterhorn siding. The empty tank cars, bound for the Continental refinery at Farmington, will be turned over to the D&RGW at Durango.

Bridge 46E and Bridge 46F

June 9,2024

There were six bridges between the south end of Ophir siding and Matterhorn. During the period I model, they were typical RGS wood trestles. This stretch of track is typically referred to as the "High Line". Unfortunately, I don't have anywhere near enough room to accurately model this scenic stretch of the railroad. As a result, the two bridges I do have room for are Bridge 46E and 45F.

On my old Alaska Pacific Sn3 layout I built a curved steel deck girder bridge using a core made from laminated strips of styrene. Micro Scale HO Scale steel girders were then glued to the outside of the core to form a deck girder bridge supported by HO Scale Micro Engineering tall viaducts. The bridge was on a 26" radius and worked flawlessly. For the RGS 1st District I decided to build bridge 46E and 46F using the same method.

Small blocks of styrene were glued to a piece of .080" to form a 32" radius curve.

Six pieces of .060" x .325" styrene, three on each side, separated by small blocks of styrene were placed in the fixture and glued together to make the inner stringers. The joints were staggered for added strength.

The 16' stringers; a little shorter for the inside of the curve and a little longer for the outside, were cut from Northeastern Scale Lumber and stained with Builders In Scale Silverwood.

The wood stingers were then glued to the outer and inner sides of the styrene stringer with ACC.

Ties were cut from scale 8" x 8" strip wood, stained with Silverwood and glued to the top of the stringers about 4" apart.

The Cut between Bridges 46E/46F and Ophir Siding - The Aspen Grove

July 9, 2024

Scenery work has started in the cut between Matterhorn and Ophir Siding. Exiting the cut will be a large grove of Aspen trees. A few Aspens were temporarily placed on the hillside to get an idea how the scene would look. Eventually about 40 Aspens will be used.

I decided to add a rock slide between two groups of Aspens. Since it was going to be difficult to glue the slide in place due to the slope, some larger rocks were glued in place to help hold the slide in place while the glue dries. The Aspens were originally purchased from K&S Scenery about 15 years ago.