March 30, 2005

I got to play on the pike for a few hours Tuesday, April 29, and Thursday, April 30. Most of the work was on the trestle on the west end of Black Widow Gultch. Most of the bents are ones I took from the original westside (of the house) layout. I only had to build three new bents and some cribbing.

One of the new bents has this retaining wall behind it.

I custom fit the trestle to the space. As in a prototype, I had to cut away hillside to make the bents fit or build bents to fit the space available. Here is the entire trestle at the west end of Black Widow Gultch. I haven't finished the cross bracing on the inside, and the stringers under the track are not yet in place.

One of the best purchases I have made for construction of trestles and cribbing is an air brad-nailer. I paid $19 for mine at Harbor Freight. This cribbing that shores up the south end of the trestle went together almost effortlessly with the help of the nailer. You can really see the "floating" rail here. That gap will disappear when I add the stringers.

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