The PRR-style stone bridge on my layout was inspired by many such bridges on the real Pennsy Middle Division. I had a nice color shot in the book Lewistown and the Pennsylvania Railroad that showed an I1s 2-10-0 crossing the 8-arch, 4 track Granville bridge over the Juniata River just below Lewistown, PA, that was my inspiration for coloring my own bridge. I couldn’t really see the south (railroad west) abutment of the bridge, but just figured the bridge crossed the river and nothing else.
In order to fit the stone bridge into the MR (Lou Sassi) inspired trackplan, I had to have it cross a road as well as the river. I wasn’t sure if this was prototypical, especially since I had the road make a sharp curve just before ducking under. Now, to be fair, I’ve seen many, many PRR single-span stone arch bridges crossing a road at a sharp turn, some even with a creek alongside the road (think Northern Central branch between York and Hannover Jct, Atglen & Susquehanna branch along Pennsy Road in Lancaster, and the Middle Division itself near Spruce Creek), but I wasn’t aware of a multi-span stone arch crossing a curved road and river at the same time. But, I figured it wasn’t that far out of the realm of possibility:
Well, last month chasing trains on the former Middle Division with Ed K and Sean McDonnell (Conrail Historical Society Spring Rail-B-Q), we actually drove under the Granville Bridge. Yep. On a sharply curved road, no less:
Sorry about the lighting; the weather was crappy all day. Blended in with the featureless sky is an Enola-bound intermodal train that snuck up on us, crossing both the road and the Juniata River. The concrete reinforcements were added some time after Conrail took over.
So there is a prototype after all. I love that feeling!
Now, I really have to go and get a scanner in here and get some of my older pix done!–dang it, Dave![(-D]
There is something similar to that in Dundas ON where Highway 8 takes a sharp right --if you’re North bound–and goes under a bridge that is the one for the doubletrack CN main that would be crawling up the side of the Niagara Escarpment. On the other side of Dundas, Sydenham St goes over that same line on a curved flying type bridge-----
Thanks, but I must admit to judicious use of the clone brush in Paint Shop Pro in that photo; the original shows both the layout edge and the far wall.
I’m new to the forum, and a true beginner to model railroading, but I just wanted to say your layout is the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Its truly an inspiration. Thanks so much for posting your videos of it on youtube! Keep up the excellent work!
Wow, thanks! It’s really not all that. I share it mainly because I like sharing my love of the hobby and my love for railroading in central Pennsylvania. But I don’t do anything particularly special. I just try to keep everything tied together in keeping with a unified theme. -Dave
I was able to see Dave’s layout at a recent NMRA train show in the area, and I can tell you it looks even better in person. Excellent job of detail and weathering. Having grown up in Pennsylvania, he has captured the look of the area very well.
Very nice! That also reminds me a lot of Lewistown with the high-tension power lines.
I love that T1! Wish they made them in N. I got to see Max Magliaro’s scratchbuilt N scale T1 in action on Todd Treater’s NYS&A layout in Lewistown last year; a real work of art.
In 1980/81(?) I was at that very site with my friends John Lohr and Gary Smith. We were in John’s 74 Duster, (ironically, Conrail Blue with a white vinyl top). There was a lot less foliage there, and as we came around that bend we caught a glimpse of a distant headlight. We pulled onto that grass patch in the foreground, and scrambled up the embankment just in time to see a westbound Trailvan overtaking a drag of empty hoppers, and then an eastbound came up on us for a three way meet. It was awesome, and inspired this little diorama, on which I used the same Atlas bridge kit you used, Dave…
My original Laurel Valley paint scheme… black car body, red ends, and a yellow band with black press type lettering!
I just sold that bridge on ebay about a year ago… It was a very good bridge!
It was a safe bet it existed somewhere, Dave. It looks very typical of a road sneaking beneath a northeastern stone arch span to me.
If you think your arrangement is odd, there’s the Backwards Tunnel in Ogdensburg, NJ, so called because the single lane bore for the road is smaller than the one for the river. Even the photos look like a modeler’s mistake. While it’s not PRR, it shows there usually is a prototype for just about anything.
Those were my ancient and venerable Bachmann Crap Masters… The staple of my fleet back when the choice was them or Mehano one truck drives… Have I mentioned that I built a shrine to the Atlas RS-3 back in 1988?
Here’s a somewhat “naked” shot of the area back in the Spring of 2006. I built the layout in my garage so I could make a mess (evidenced by the condition of the floor below the layout). The bridge is held in place by a thin slurry of dyed plaster.
If you look reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeal hard you can see a blue colored marking crossing the center abutment riser thingy. The part that holds the bridge up, just to the left of the road. I didn’t believe it either till I saw that marking. And if you have good eyes, or approprietly pre-scribed glasses, right by the label you can see some very slight lines outlinging the space between a pair of cars. I’m a little suprised I noticed all that, I was quite enamored by the beautiful green of freshly rained on vegetation. And then I read it was a door sized N layout and my mind was too blown to concentrate on anything else. I have decided to switch from N to HO but this is inspiring me a bit to make some sort of hide-away N scale layout. I do have a nicely sized door, but then again the landlord might get if I use that. Putting a door on the refrigerator sized closet in the bathroom was just kind of wasteful. Well, except the fact it could give me a nice door to build in N [:-,]
There was once a similar setup on the PRR’s “Peter’s Creek Branch” before it was abandoned in the 1960s. Not sure why, but the rail tunnel (locally known as Green Man’s Tunnel, because it’s supposedly haunted) seems to be a tight fit. But, the adjacent road/stream tunnel (known as Corvette Tunnel, again, supposely haunted…because of a drag racing accident years ago) is huge. Granted, the road tunnel is shared with the stream, but still.
