A visit to the W&A RR North Branch

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit my best friend, Thom Radice, for almost an entire week. The week culminated in a Saturday operating session on his W&A RR (North Branch). There was a great group of guys operating that day. Even Dan & Bill from our ACWRRHS group! Here are some photos from that session.

Running a train is a serious occupation. Above, conductor Dan (left) and engineer Bill (right) run their train trough Big Shanty on their way South to Atlanta.

Dan and Bill congratulate each other on a job well done.

Having just completed their run North to Chattanooga, engineer Ed (left) and conductor Dave (right) pose for the photographer, satisfied with their accomplishment.

All trains having reached their final destinations, Dan and Dave engage in a friendly, animated discussion on the events of the day.

I strongly recommend a visit to Thom's blog at Western & Atlantic R.R., North Branch (western-and-atlantic-rr.blogspot.com) for more images of this great operating session. You can also learn more about what transpired by viewing the YouTube video of our ACWRRHS 11/17/22 zoom call.

While visiting Thom, I had the opportunity to add a new depot to the layout to enhance operations. Over the course of a couple of years, I have been constructing entrenchments between the cut that runs along the base of Kennesaw Mountain and the isle. To help supply the troops at this encampment, I built a stop where supplies could be off-loaded by the privates and lifted up to the growing fort without taking the arduous road up the slopes. Here are a couple of images of the finished structure.

View from the isle.

A closer look at the upper platform. Except for the pulley wheel and the barrels, everything else was scratch built from strip wood, an index card, scrap styrene, and a straight pin. The original pulley was designed to attach to the side of a building. I filed & sanded off the cast-on nut/bolt/washers from the original casting that were designed for showing the pulley mounted to a wall. I then lengthened the casting to reflect it mounted to a pivot pole with a piece o styrene from Thom's scrap box. Before I super glued the 2 pieces together, I drilled a hole in the base of the original casting and the top of the styrene extension. Into this I glued a piece of the straight pin to reinforce the joint. Finally, I drilled holes in both the top and bottom of the pivot pole and superglued in short pieces of straight pin. The pedestal on which the pivot pole rotates was made with a piece of scrap styrene I squared and then drilled holes in each of its 4 corners to enable inserting Tichy Train n/b/w castings. Yes, the pole does actually rotate. The "iron" reinforcement hardware at the top & bottom of the pole was cut from an old index file card.

Another view of the depot looking North toward Big Shanty. The ladder is from Central Valley. The upper platform was built in place. I did the rockwork about 2 decades ago. It was the 1st project Thom had me engaged in on his layout (and my 1st time ever doing rockwork).

Looking down the cut from the opposite direction (looking South towards Atlanta). I did not get a chance to add the rope before the end of my visit. My plan is to have a barrel suspended mid-air in the process of being hauled up. The hard part may be to find the appropriate figures to represent the troops pulling the barrel up.