Hello all- wanted to post some pretty exciting news-
The worst railroad bridge and train disaster in United States history happened in Ashtabula, Ohio on December 29, 1876 during a raging blizzard. In this town off the shores of Lake Erie, an all-iron railroad bridge collapsed sending a luxury train, The Pacific Express No. 5, plummeting 70ft into a frozen river. Of the 172 souls that were on board, only 75 survived, most with serious injuries. Of the 97 who perished, 47 were identified, 50 were unidentifiable.
This bit of Railroad History is being made into a PBS documentary, named Engineering Tragedy.
Now what does this have to do with Scenery & Structures?
I am part of "The Team" that is involved with this production. My small part in this is history & explaination of the fire department & service they provided during the disaster, (and now the fun part), on our property we are building an outdoor layout of the disaster. Specifically, the bridge, the river valley, and about a scale mile of railroad line. We are also doing about 1/2 scale mile of RR line that runs through the farm lands of Ohio & PA. Now at this point, lots of preplanning & design are being done.
The rolling stock & locomotives are G Scale Bachmann, (Yes, I know this is O gauge forums). These will need painted & weathered in the same scheme as the LS&MS Pacific Express #5.
When the time comes to get the "hands in the dirt", volunteers are welcome to help with the movie set construction of this outdoor model railroad. Volunteers would be able to get their photo taken, working on the actual layout & bridge that is going to be on PBS, and possibly the History Channel. Pretty cool, if you ask me! If you live in NE Ohio, feel free to send me a message. I will put together an email list that would let the volunteers know when things would be happening.
Check out the site-
http://www.engineeringtragedy.com/Welcome.html
Enjoy-
Roger
