Culvert

Despite back issues and a very inconsiderate mole, work on the PE&A continued this week. The roadbed on the loop around the Western Redcedar is essentially complete and ready for track. I would have put the track down by now but my very annoying mole is giving me pause; until I can extricate it I think I'll wait to finish the track work.


Here's another picture showing the view from train level. Just ahead where the roadbed curves by the lawn will be the highest point on the railroad (for now).


As I continue to move dirt around I realized I needed to put a culvert in to help with drainage, something I probably should have thought of earlier. At first I thought I would just sink a two-inch PVC pipe in a block on concrete. But then an article on the morning news reminded me the State of Washington was in the process of removing old pipe culverts like that and replacing them with larger salmon-friendly box culverts. So just in case any 1:29 scale salmon happen to make it into my watershed, the PE&A won't be an obstacle to their progress.

A box culvert would typically be precast concrete, but as that won't work well at this scale I opted instead to use some half-inch cedar I found in the garage and cut out eight pieces.


I angled the corners, glued the sidewalls together and held them in place with staples.


And while I had my miter saw out to cut the culvert pieces, I thought I would put together a lumber load for my centerbeam flat car!

I had thought about using a textured spray paint to try and give the culvert it the look of concrete. But then it occurred to me the most realistic material would be concrete itself. Using mortar I created a slurry and dipped all of the pieces in. I knew it probably wouldn't stick well to the wood so I first used a primer on the wood to help it adhere. I used a gray shade of primer so that if pieces of mortar chipped off, the undercoat would make any damage less noticeable.

The culvert is going on the curve where I had used bricks to support the roadbed. I knocked two of them out of the way.


After curing for a day I put the pieces in place and filled all gaps with ballast.


Then came a hose down to settle the ballast. This also served as a drainage test to ensure that the culvert was indeed doing the job it was designed for. I will in time continue the dry creek bed down the hill from the culvert.


Here's a picture of the culvert in context showing the roadbed and the dry pond/catchment basin.


Next up may be some trestle work. I was planning to use a causeway here, but as I was attempting to build it up to the level of where the rails, I realized it wasn't realistic as I didn't have enough horizontal space on either side to support the height I needed. So I either needed to put in cribbing to hold up the roadbed, or build retaining walls, or put in a trestle. Of the three options I think a trestle would be the most attractive solution at this location, even if it will be only a few inches above the ground. In the photo below I've position stringers to see what it would look like. I'll give this some more thought before deciding on a solution.