Right of Way Surveyed

After a lot of tinkering around, I finally have a track plan that I'm happy with.  It's not a total inch for inch recreation of the GHC in N scale, but it's the basic gist.  Again, the same functionality is there, with a few extra twists thrown in--namely, an extra spur in the lower left hand corner.  As mentioned in my last post, I was omitting the curved turnouts from the plan which changed things around a bit.  For one, my structure locations will have to be slightly different, which is fine by me because I will most likely use some different structures altogether.  Here is the current level of progress as of today:

The roadbed is in place and turnouts are staged for review.  I decided to go with Woodland Scenics foam roadbed as its got some nice sound deadening properties.  It's also a little easier to deal with than cork as you don't have to soak it first!  The stuff goes down nicely with Alene's tacky glue, which can be sourced from any local craft shop.

The next step will be to put some basic landforms in place and carve out the riverbed.  You can see where the trestle will go at the top as there is a gap in the roadbed.  The original GHC used a steel girder bridge here, but I'm back dating a little.

Speaking of the original GHC design...  I found that the original MR articles describing Art Curren's excellent GHC structures appears in Kitbashing HO Model Railroad Structures.  Cool!  This is a great resource and the articles have wonderful tips on structure kitbashing.  I may even try my hand at a few.