It's been an interesting year and I realized this is my first post in quite some time. With Karen's mom passing away very unexpectedly in February most of my railroad time was used in trips to AZ with family business.
But I have managed to get some work done on the layout this year all be it time consuming on building a swing gate for access into the train room without having to duck under the section of track in front of the door.
This first photo sows the gate in the closed position. I used the same general construction that Charlie Comstock used in his model railroad Bear Creek & South Jackson. I have one bridge in place with the start of scenery underneath the bridges.
When the gate is in the closed position it's held in place with the brass road in the back just to the right of the bridge end. The small micro switch will be used for cutting the power to the tracks when the gate is opened. Wouldn't want a nice brass locomotive or any loco crashing to the floor when the gate is open.
I have removed the second bridge for now to allow for easier access to complete the scenery for the river bottom. The black paint will be where the rive water will be after I finish painting some more detail before adding the resin which will give it the final look of water flowing down the river.
With the gate fully open it allows easy access into the train room with out having to duck under a rather low bench work. It's been fun getting to this point as I have spent most all of my time working on this gate and building a second through truss bridge. The one on the left is just sitting in place for the photo and is the second one I have built. Once this section is completed and operational I will get back to working on the helix.
