Rattlesnake Creek (G scale)
Rattlesnake Creek Timber Trestle forced indoors by our
brilliant summer!
The layout was originally intended as a relatively straightforward ready to
run outside exhibit to attract attention to our exhibition, however like so
many railway layouts the original idea seems to have grown a little!
The layout is intended as an easily portable, quick to erect G Scale layout
to illustrate what G Scale is about, providing a big layout which can be in
or outdoors and with the large G Scale stock is something a bit different
from the more normal 00, etc. layouts.
The most impressive feature is the seven foot long 20 inch high Rattlesnake
Timber Trestle roughly based on a similarly named prototype in Colorado. If
you look out you may even see one of the rattlers somewhere underneath the
trestle, but be careful we don't have any cure for snakebite!
Built to fill a specific space only a half the bridge's length is modelled,
a local gang of western bandits having blown up the centre section so they
could rob a bullion train! If used in a continuous form the blown-up section
is replaced with a girder bridge running into a timber supported tunnel
mouth.
The layout is free format so that at it's maximum it can fill a space nearly
seventy feet long or twenty five feet square. If any exhibition managers are
interested it's best to discuss it potential formations.
Track is a mixture of Aristocraft and Peco. Stock a mixture of Bachmann, USA
Trains, LGB, Hartland Loco Works and scratchbuilt. Only a few basic
buildings appear as this purely a track & stock type layout.
As
the title suggests the layout is set somewhere in North America (not
necessarily the USA), so in general American or Canadian stock is the order
of the day. Though occasional other visitors may appear!
If you're expecting severe weather the maintenance department even have both
a static and rotary snowplough to keep the trains running!
Just to show it's not all steam action a GP38-2 heads a short freight
consist towards the tunnel mouth.
This layout has attended DHMRS Exhibitions in Welwyn Garden City 2011& 2012,
plus Sheredes School, Hoddesdon, July 2012