Pearl River Railroad, MS
This layout has a total main line run of more than 700 ft. All engines run on battery power and are controlled by a DCC AirWire system.
05-17-2011
We had a "blank canvas" here.
05-18-2011
Before we could even start to think about laying track, we had to set up a retaining wall for the layout. Thankfully we had lots of helpers who could do the heavy lifting. Mississippi soil is mainly red clay: sticky and heavy when wet and hard as concrete when sun-baked...
Rebar for the wall footings.
A bit of concrete coming in to pour the footings.
And up goes the retaining wall.
The Bridges we are going to use on this layout. The wooden bridges are scratch-built and the steel bridges are made by EagleWings in AZ.
05-19-2011
Well, the railroad area has been filled with dirt and compacted. Now it is time for some real-time track planning as the owner wanted a couple of changes to the original track plan.
05-21-2011
The hard part: Trenching out the right of way and the water features.
05-22-2011
As soon as a trench got dug out, it was filled with fine crushed limestone on top of coarse gravel, and track was laid.
06-01-2011
It was hot this day in June 2011: about 98 degrees F and 80% humidity... But there had to more digging done for the water feature, then rocks had to be placed to build up the waterfalls (two of them).
06-04-2011
This day (and the week before) was all about getting the bridges positioned, building abutments and piers for them, and do more plumbing for the water features.
10-10-2011
It is October now and finally the layout starts looking like a garden railroad. The track is tidied up and properly ballasted, the first plants went in, and the first train ran a couple of loops.
10-13-2011
Three days later, and our work is almost done. Just a few touch-ups here and there, and of course more running tests :-).
