Breakthrough at The Hole!

Last May I posted on the railroad's emergence from the porch for the first time, noting that I intended to disguise the hole and exposed frame as if it were a street crossing - specifically Chattahoochee Street.





















This was always a problematic idea, as it was going to be hard to get a traffic scene right visually when the lip along that wall is so narrow. The other problem with the street crossing idea is that the locos would still have to pass under the wooden framework and out through the hole. This would be visually jarring and serve to snap the viewer out of the little diorama I am trying to compose. An overpass or similar structure would be a much better disguise for the hole, if such a thing had existed anywhere near this spot on the TFRR, as it would allow the viewer's brain to feel happy and perhaps even a little pleased to see a miniature version of that common visual experience - something passing out of sight as it passes under a foreground structure. With the street scene the train would pass in front of a truck and disappear into the Twilight Zone.

So I was flipping through some photos I had taken around the TFRR terminus, Cornelia, and came upon this exquisite detail near the depot. Its a northbound view of the block signal tower on parent company Southern Railway's Crescent Route - their mainline between Washington DC and New Orleans.






















A model of this signal bridge is the perfect solution for the hole! One only has to make the tiniest speculative leap to imagine that the Southern may have decided to have built at least one signal tower for its loyal subsidiary somewhere along the way. Turning the wooden frame into a believable tower will only require painting it a dark color, covering it with a lattice of styrene plastic and topping it with one signal post for the one northbound track.

As a bonus, the simple free standing structure will open up the blank spot to the left of the hole to be decorated with a flat-front model of the machine shop that is noted on the 1922 Sanborn map of this spot in the yard, a much more believable alternative to the too-thin street scene.






























As an additional bonus, using this model here will have terrific visual symmetry with the model of the Cornelia depot that will be located on the other end of that hole, helping to tie the inside and outside views together for that tiny minority of viewers that will recognize both elements. Welcome to that exclusive club, good readers!