A Bridge Runs Over It

Last night I completed the two lane wide M-13 highway overpass that crosses the St. Clair Subdivision east of Bay Yard. While the bridge is meant to set a location geographically it is also designed to seperate scenes.

Looking west towards Bay Yard with lead on right and main on left. 

Construction was straight forward using Rix Products modern overpass parts and a sheet of .040 styrene for the bridge deck. 

To the right of the scene the track heads into the helix. With SuperTrees and this bridge I hope to conceal or take focus off the entrance to the helix. Left of the bridge is Bay Yard and Lakes Forest Products which is another focus point.

I still need to paint and weather the bridge which will come soon with the scene. Not bad for the first completed kitbash in over 2 years.

GM

End of May Update

Well June is almost upon us and the capital maintenance gangs are out in full force on the "Clair". This past week the gangs wrapped up laying track on the storage siding between Grays Lake and Buhler. This siding is used for setting out or picking up cars from manifest freights for the Grays Lake Switcher (L-GLBU).

Storage track with cut of cars left by Grays Lake Switcher for pickup.

The gangs were also working on the Upper Huron Wye. Focus for the project was to broaden the curve radius more originally built. While working the west leg, the gangs also rebuilt the east leg including a new switch and lead for the Sugar Beet / Cogeneration plant.

This morning was the first enroute pickup made at Gray's Lake, MI utilizing the new trackwork recently installed. The M-PHBA-31 made the headend fill. 

Everyone have a safe summer, stay tuned for another post next week on Upper Huron trackwork.

GM

Mid-April Update 3

Finished all primary trackwork at Buhler as planned, hope to install the industry sidings and blue point controllers tomorrow.

Gotta love flowing trackwork - looking west from atop backdrop wall. The Elevator Facility in town will be a fictional terminal for "Cooperative Elevator" who has numerous facilities in Michigan's thumb.

             Track level looking west.

View looking east towards staging "Gerhard and beyond to Port Huron"

Sweeping curve heading west towards Grays Lake. Tracks left to right: "one track aka. Setout / pickup", passing siding which was the old main, and the mainline now consisting of concrete ties.

Mid-April Update 2

As promised I wanted to keep up on my updates as track goes in the upper deck at Buhler. Made great progress yesterday and I wanted to share the just a few photos of the almost end result.

Great progress has been made in the past few days - the switches in the background and foreground on the passing siding and "Long Lead" are installed along with the flextrack on the "Long Lead with connects as the continuous run for the upper deck.

Cab view of the switches - the connector track between the mainline and passing siding switch still need to be connected and is currently held in place with the red thumb tacks. Concrete flex track on the main will be installed tonight getting rid of the "kinked" looked that you see in the photo.

Weekly Ops. photo showing off one of the many fleet workhorses. Stay tuned; next week for a post about the EMD SD40-2 fleet.



M-BAPH-22 (manifest train Bay City to Port Huron of 22nd) led by EMD SD40-2 4052 and EMD SD45-2 4571 holds the main at Grays Lake awaiting the U-MYPB-21 (unit train Marysville to Port Belle of 21st) to clear the east wye switch heading back for another aggregate loadout.



Mid-April Update

Quick update on the trackwork being completed at Buhler. 

Roadbed has been installed for the mainline, passing siding, and storage siding. Beyond Buhler in East Staging roadbed work has also been completed for the connection to staging and continuous run / Upper Huron North wye track. The last two nights have been spent sanding the cork to ensure smooth transitions and level surfaces.

The main will consist of concrete flex track and the passing / sidings will be standard Atlas code 83 flew track.

My goal will be to get the mainline this week - stay tuned more updates to follow.

Looking down at Buhler - back to front mainline, passing siding, industry spur.



Tracklevel view from east staging looking into the station of Buhler.



Viewing the workarea facing west - we can see right to left the main, siding, industry track / storage siding.