1. Curved steel trestle (#4 not used)
Curved steel trestles like this one which suggests the famous Georgetown Loop were used to replace wooden trestles in the late 1800s. They were often composed of varying sections, as this one is. Here we see a combination of plate girder and truss construction supported on steel piers.
5. Small Howe truss bridges
This is very similar to the Hermosa Creek bridge on the Durango & Silverton. I have built a model of this bridge. See post on same in list.
6. King Post (top) and Queen Post (bottom) truss bridges
I have built two identical Queen Post Truss bridges from one balsa wood kit from Australia. See post for miscellaneous bridges.
7. Wood Trestle bridge
What narrow gauge (or standard gauge western railroad for that matter) would be complete without one of these beautifully crafted wood trestle bridges. They were used in the early days of western railroading, because wood was plentiful, construction techniques were sound, and they were relatively quick to build. They came in all sizes depending on the area that needed to be crossed.
14. The High Line Curve
This section of the route between Durango and Silverton is famous for its beautiful scenery, incredible engineering feat in construction, and considerable cost to put together. With the line located 400 vertical feet above the Animas River, workers were lowered over the top of the hill on lines to blast and dig a narrow shelf for the railroad. The cost of this effort, in 1882, was over $1,000. a foot. When prices for new locomotives averaged only $4,500. each, the D&RGW could have bought a new engine for every four and one-half feet of track they laid here. This scenic highlight will be featured on the “roll-under” section in the middle of my layout.
Silverton, Colorado
Silverton, Colorado, is a small town high in the San Juan mountains (just over 9300 feet) that started its existence in 1860 with Charles Baker’s discovery of gold in the area. However, it wasn’t until the 1873 treaty with the local Native American tribe, the Utes, that the area was opened to settlement. Even then, being in the high mountains without any easy route to market, large-scale mining wasn’t practical. However, a wagon road in opened in 1879 provided some access, and prospectors quickly realized the potential held by the area – not in the gold originally sought by Baker, but primarily in silver, hence the town’s name. I’ll only have room to model the railroad facilities at Silverton, but I hope to get some of the sense of the grandeur of the place in my curved corner background. Silverton is about 45 miles due north of Durango.
17. Mining structure…..shown here: the tipple, head frame, hoist house, and bull wheel at the top of the head frame. I will be using my low-side gondolas to carry this ore to Denver, rather than the high side gon shown here. If I can manage the space, there were eventually smelters located in Durango, and even in Silverton, but for operational purposes, having to ship the ore to Denver is good.
17B. This photo shows a typical western mine entrance with timber shoring, and a track for (probably) hand-pushed mining cars. These cars usually tipped into a facility with a sloped floor that slid the ore into an open gondola. I’ll be using one of my small Porter locomotives to move these gondolas around in the mining area.
I think I’ll model this little water wagon some where in the mining area.
18. The helix to Denver/Farmington hidden return yard….is located under Silverton. The one to Farmington will be located under the Durango yard. A helix is used to take trains up or down grade without using a lot of lateral run space. Helixes are always out of sight, because nothing like this exists in the real world of railroading.
21. Plate Girder Deck Bridge…..A plate girder bridge is a bridge supported by two or more plate girders. These can be placed above and to the sides of the tracks, as shown here, or under the rails and ties. These are quite common, even today, so keep an eye out for them as you drive around. The plate girders are typically I-beams made up from separate structural steel plates (rather than rolled as a single cross-section), which are welded or, in older bridges, bolted or riveted together to form the vertical web and horizontal flanges of the beam. Railroads sometimes used rounded corners on the bridges or sometimes left them square. I will have at least one bridge of this type on my layout.
23. Snow Shed…..In mountainous areas, snow could seriously affect winter operations. Average snowfall along some stretches of the track was just more than the rotary snow plow could handle. There were also areas where snow slides (avalanches) could be predicted to happen every year. In that case, wooden snow sheds were built over the tracks to keep them clear in heavy snows.
24. The Silverton Station…..There isn’t even as much room here as there was in Durango for a station, but you can hardly have a railroad town without one. Pictured below is the real station at Silverton.
…..and here is a compressed (model) version of it, although they didn’t use the right windows…..anyway, it’s interesting, and about all I would have room for, although I could save room by modeling a combination depot/freight house in one building.
29C. This Engine House, or something like it, would service the mine Porter. Here is one shown with a Porter inside.
33. Sawmill at the Lumber Camp…..Sawmills are always interesting structures, and I figure, although most of the timber is sent to Denver, they might have a small mill here for cutting logs to dimension lumber for local use. It also makes for another kind of load to ship from the lumber camp….flatcars with cut lumber. One item that mills provided in this area was ties for the railroads.
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