The connector
that passes through the wormhole between Michigan and Maryland is complete and installed on the layout. This is the longest connector on the layout. It is also the only connector that has accessory and control bus wiring owing to its length.
The big curve nearest in the picture above and the section of the Lapeer module penetrating the wall will be inside a mountain and not visible. The connector track will enter a tunnel portal just as the curve begins. How about some quick down-n-dirty Photoshop work to help visualize.
Cut me some slack here. A total of maybe 10 minutes was spent shop’in the photo with images found on the first page of Google searches. Crude as it may be it does convey the basic overall scenic arrangement. I’m hoping the tunnel entrance angle and having 90% of the curve hidden will disguise the fact the train is making a big 180° turn around the end of the wall. So many model railroads have the big blob curve at the end of a view break. I don’t care at all for that look. It screams “toy train” to me.
The tunnel through the big ole mountain has a secondary benefit of allowing me to use a relatively sharp 24″ radius curve inside. If the track was visible it would be viewed from the outside of the curve. Sharp curves viewed from the outside look bad because the sharpness of the curve accentuates the spacing between the cars. Viewing sharp curves from the inside of the curve okay, sharp curves viewed from the outside of the curve not okay. The 24″ radius curve then permitted relaxing the curve radius on the Lapeer side to 30″ making it look better. The curve transitions from 30″ to 24″ after it goes through the wall.
View from the Lapeer side:
Next up – module #13 Kitzmiller MD. With it, the upper deck trackwork will be complete!!!
I’ll close for today with a few build pics.
