Laying Track on the Cheat River Grade

In the blog entry "To The West" (Nov. 2009) I showed the construction of the benchwork for the beginning of the Cheat River Grade. From Oct. 2009 to Feb. 2010 I laid the track on this section of benchwork. Why did it take so long to accomplish this task? Between October and February you have: Hunting Season (It comes but once a year!); Thanksgiving (and a field trip to Rowlesburg, WV to study the real railroad); Christmas (my order for flex track arrived towards the end of the vacation period) and, finally, the Springfield Train Show.

In addition, as I started this bit of work I got the bright idea to record my progress as a video tutorial on track laying. That meant that instead of being able to just go downstairs and do one or two operations on the next section of track, I had to wait until I had time to video my progress in more or less logical order. I did complete the outer track of the two-track grade during Christmas shutdown; but I was making the video of the inner track in the foreground and progress on that was paced by the recording.

Be that as it may, here is the result for you to see. Because it was recorded over five months, there are some continuity errors, mostly in the form of some repetition and one segment that had to be repositioned to show the proper sequence of operations.

For best results, click on the "Play" icon then click the "Pause" icon that replaces it and let the video buffer somewhat before returning to "Play". Yes, I know that it's a pain; but this is a 50+ minute tutorial that you didn't have to buy on DVD.



I started this video using my point-and-shoot still camera and had to finish the shooting using it. I now have an HD camcorder that I used at Springfield and I will use it for future documentaries of my railroad.