.... which can best be described as "Carl plans; and God laughs (at him)."
So here are a couple of photos of the Christmas Bridge and Trestle loop (mostly complete, but with some further mods under consideration).
The loop looks pretty good IMO. A vintage LIONEL 6-2122 bridge was gifted to me by Apples55 in response to a WTB listing on the forum seeking bridge piers. Not only did Paul (Apples55) have a pair of bridge piers for my Plastruct truss bridge, he gifted me the LIONEL bridge and its piers as well.
So Paul's bridge arrives and it has no effect on my REAL plan which is to make the Plastruct bridge the focal point of the upper loop. After all, I built it from HO plans from Plastruct since they hadn't yet offered it as a kit in O scale. And I had repaired the bridge in order to have an elevated loop around one of the Christmas trees.
To connect the two bridges I needed trestles, so another WTB went up and Harmonyards (Pat) responded--and boy did he respond. I didn't know how many "A" trestles I'd need so Pat filled to capacity a box with trestles in perfect gray,PW condition (a total of 15).
Faced with a shiny Oxide Red Lionel bridge and gray trestles, I painted the bridge silver and the piers Rustoleum gloss Apple Red (pretty neat color selection, Paul).
When I first installed the piers, I put one at each rail junction. But sending a PW F3 around the upper loop caused me to place another trestle in the middle of each curved section of Ross track. Alas, I was one trestle short--as evident in the photo above . A quick call to Pat (Harmonyards), and he's pulled the trestles, an extra one just in case, and prepares the shipping label while I'm talking to him on the phone--USPS says they'll be here Monday. The upper loop is now as solid as the lower loop.
Each trestle received one hole which was used to pass a zip tie through to secure the track to the trestle.
I started with an Oxide Red bridge and gray piers. Then I had a silver bridge and red trestles at which point I remembered I had purchased a quantity (turns out to be a total of 8 cards with 8 wreaths per card=64 wreaths total--what was I thinking) of Dept. 56 wreaths several years ago. And with them I found a group of ceramic garlands salvaged from a group of Starbucks Christmas tree carrying Mack flatbed trucks.
The bridge and trestles are basically done for this Christmas. Due to the absence of a comprehensive plan (I started only intending to have gray PW trestles supporting the would-be star of the show-=my repaired Plastruct bridge and track--the silver bridge and red trestles are the layout stars. I haven't done the other side of the bridge--due to my poor planning it would be awkward to apply the wreaths even if I removed the tree, and I'm not going to disassemble the track and trestles-- and I have insufficient Starbucks Mack truck garland to finish the other side--I do have 55 wreaths left!!!
I am considering some lighting options, but overall it's turned out fine, albeit by accident. More importantly, it would not be where it is without the help and generosity of forum members Apples55 and Harmon yards--THANKS to you both.
