1. The Williams Creek bridge scene, which has been
featured in
Model Railroad Hobbyist
is currently the
most recognizable scene on my HO scale Central
Vermont – if for no other reason than it’s the first
scene that was “done.”
Getting Real Column - 2
1
remove the freelanced paper mill scene in favor of a prototype-
inspired scene based on Randolph, VT. Extending the Randolph
passing siding quickly became one of those “might as well”
projects. Only problem was, the Williams Creek bridge (ironi-
cally one of the few finished parts of the layout) was firmly in
the way [1].
Rather than destroy the bridge scene, I wanted to see if it
could be salvaged and reused. Although we managed to
remove the bridge intact, I didn’t know exactly where it would
end up, meaning from January until late March the Williams
Creek scene sat unceremoniously on a shelf in our utility room
“awaiting disposition.”
I know, from prior experience moving and rearranging layout
pieces, oftentimes it’s a difficult, if not impossible, task to reuse
an existing chunk of layout. Based on the width of the bridge
section, the shape and width of the layout, and the location of
various towns and other elements I couldn’t locate a new home
for the bridge scene anywhere on the layout. Or so I thought.
I traced the section full-size on a piece of paper, being careful
to accurately mark the outline of the section and the track cen-
terlines at each edge, as well as the position of the river. The
2. The Williams Creek section was too bulky and
heavy to slide around on top of the layout – and doing
so would play havoc with the track and trees – so I
made a full-sized cutout of the section to determine a
good spot to locate the section.
2
MRH-Jun 2014
