I went to Old CowTown Museum, in Wichita,KS, to observe a Civil War reinactment that my niece’s husband was participating in as a Union soldier [… and he’s from Memphas?]. At the entrance to the museum, there is an interesting use of rail and ties for the cover over the walkway to the display area.
My nephew-in-law died early in the reinactment. I got an interesting shot of cannon fire.
JimC
That does look odd…the ties are just wooden boards but i wonder if the rails are real or not? I guess its a unique way of doing things. The photo of the cannon firing is amazing…you took the picture at just the right time there.
Cool looking way to cover a sidewalk. A little broad gauge is it? How wide is it really?
Pete
A perfect “Foamer’s Pergola”. Cool! I’ll bet we see more of them.
Hays
Great shot of the cannon at the split second of firing. Back during the Vietnam War (I think) a National Geographic photographer caught a similar shot of a modern howitzer firing . . . only it was at night. Holy crap that was impressive!! I’ve also seen video of battleships firing at night, which even more impressive.
The pergola effect is at the Entrance/Exit area at the Old Cow Town visitor’s center in Downtown Wichita. Have not measured the gauge, but it looks to be about 6 or 7 feet as I recall. It really caught my attention on the way thru. The museum is a compliation of Old West Wichita, and does have Docents in period costume, and a number of old structures have been moved in and refurbished. There is a very elderly wooden box car, and an ancient hand car. It was an interesting place.
You were right about night firing artillery. from a distance it can be really strikinly beautiful, and up close teeth jaring! I guess the most impressive display of fireworks was watching the USS Coronade(IFS-1) do fire missions around DucPho,over the top of where we were. A + pucker factor!
It is interesting that it appears they are using tie plates to affix the rails to the cross pieces…even with the rail being in the upside down configuration. I wonder what sort of securement they are using to affix the rails to the vertical posts?
BaltACD:
If memory serve me correctly, and I did not closely examin the parts.
I think I noted at the time that the rails are welded to the heavy metal caps on the posts,
which are then bolted to the upright posts.