Big progress on the White River and Northern

By 1974, construction had reached about the 80% mark, as can be seen in this wide-angle view. Trains were still not running, however, owing to a lack of a control panel. I was also stumped about how to power the turnouts; I'd wanted to use slow-motion switch machines, but at the time nothing was available commercially that would do the job. Worse, I had in some places about four inches of layout to bore through for linkage. No matter; I was content planting weeds and taking bad photographs of my work.

Image specs: Underexposed as well as acutely color-shifted, this image was so bad that I almost didn't publish it. However, it was one of a very few photos that captured the entire layout. It was a considerable challenge getting anything useful out of the original Polaroid print.

Continue to the next image
Return to Chapter 3