There it is, in stark view, right on the beautiful cover; trouble!
It is a shot of the Fairplex Garden Railroad, a beautiful piece of work over 70 years old in L.A. or Lala land. I was amazed in reading about the early design of the railway, and the one black and white photo inside, captured the essense of railroading even better than the magnificent layout that replaced it decades later.
The first railway was Gauge 3, which is 2.5 inches, ties made of wood and rails from strapiron. Rolling stock and locomotives made from original blueprints by a teacher and his students; one piece of rolling stock per pupil. Why can’t we have this type of hands-on, realistic training today!!!
The single track (now replaced my multitrack work) winds thru bucolic scenery and a handbuilt dairy farm, replaced now by more plastic scenery. Ah, the good old days.
Oh, I almost forgot about that little bit of trouble. Marc wrote about it in the last issue and since then, I studied up on it by reading multiple books about concrete casting and reflecting on my own work in casting concrete from unusual molds like drain pipes (see photo of one of my castings).
In concrete work, it is important to reinforce the concrete. This usually is done with steel rebar. It is important to embed the rebar inside the cement and it should not come within about 6 inches of the outside of the concrete, for if it does, it is prone to rusting and expansion up to 3 times its volume. That according to my readings. When this happens, as appears evident in the cover shot, which shows a very nasty crack, the bridge or other structure is compromised.
A workaround would be to embed something that is not rust prone like chicken wire, in the concrete. The other thing I noticed about the bridge supports on the cover is the large holes caused by aggregates. Proper mixing of the concrete and tapping the form will help to alleviate this to some extent.