Trip to Feather River Canyon

Karen and I went to Feather River Canyon today for some fall colors. But we were about one to two weeks early as there was not any trees turning yet. We did enjoy one of the most scenic drives we have ever had. It was fun to follow the railroad as it cuts through solid rock tunnels and steal bridges. Past hydro electric stations and old mining and lumber camps this is one of the most amazing displays of engineering around. It took 9 years for the railroad to go 70 miles in 1937 at a cost of $100K/mile in 1937 dollars. I can't even imagine what it would cost in todays dollars. We ended up in Quincy and had pizza for lunch then toured the town a bit and visited the museum. One can't visit a town without going into the drug store. And one of the treats was some pumpkin fudge. Now it's not what you think it is down right delicious so we just had to buy some.

This is one of the places where the highway bridge crosses over the railroad bridge below. Up the canyon the railroad passes over the highway which is one of the interesting things about this drive. As the highway and railroad take turns crossing back and forth from one side of the canyon to the other. Sometimes they are on the same side of the canyon but for the most part each one is on ti's own side of the north fork of the Feather River as it cascades down the canyon.
The highlight of the trip for following the railroad was the famous Y steal truss bridge at Keddie. This is a west bound train of hopper cars crossing over the bridge. Karen and I had spent about a half hour at this bridge as I hiked down to it and took several photos. Then we headed back to Quincy to see if we could find a water fall as we got about a mile from this bridge I heard this train so we turned around an beelined it back to the bridge to get this photo. It was fun racing back to get out and get some quick shots of a train crossing this one of kind bridge.
The high light of Quincy was this 78 year old Sequoia gigantea. Planted in 1932 as a sapling by John Loring who was a zealous worker for the Methodist Church. Karen and I thought it was the most beautiful tree we have ever seen. Lots of history in Quincy as gold mining and logging were the reasons for people to settle in this area.

What does this all have to do with model railroading you may ask? Well a good model railroader will spend time doing research to find out how to model the prototype. I have been wanting to make this trip for several months to see the bridges and especially the steal truss Y bridge at Keddie. So all in al it was a fun day and we are planing a trip to see the fall colors as soon as we can.

Hand made turnouts take 2

After my first attempt to assemble turnouts I decided to give PC board ties a try. I went to Fry's electronics and bought two PC boards and cut my own ties and assembled my first turnout using this method.

This is the first one I have made with PC ties. The frog is a little to far forward but over all it's working ok. I stll need to make some adjustments like soldering the rails to the PC ties first since my PC board is just a tad bit thinner than the wood ties. I think I could have had a better fit had I done all the soldering first.

This is looking west of what will be the main yard on the lower level. The track in the background is ready for ballast.

This is my home made cutting table for cutting out the PC board ties. I just used some old drawer slides for the table and mounted my Dremel tool and used a cutoff blade to cut each tie at 1/10th of an inch wide then cut them to length with a wire cutters.