Slowly but surely Options

[Brad Korando]

Well, I think I captured the nature of my progress in the title of this thread! I'm plodding along here, but wanted to share with you what I've been up to. Here are some pictures of the work to date on the underpass that allows team transport trucks to enter the paddock without driving across the track. This underpass is located just past the pit lane exit, near the end of the main straight on my track plan.











There will be two main components to the underpass. The first are the two retaining walls and road that will lead to the paddock. The road will be depressed under the track and will rise up to the level of the paddock. The walls are made up of segmented pieces of wood that will be detailed to look like cast in place concrete. They are segmented rather then curved because I want them to look authentic to what might have been built for a rural North American track in the 1950's - 1960's. Curved walls were certainly a possibility then, but would have cost more to make than segmented walls. This track and support buildings are to have been built by a retired farmer/current track owner. I imagine the farmer as wanting to make a nice facility, but being frugal and stubborn enough to build it himself! I 'll put wood batten strips over the segmented joints to simulate concrete buttresses. The horizontal concrete form lines will be burned into the wood with a woodbruner. The wood will then be painted and weathered to look like concrete.

The second component of the underpass is the bridge. It will be modeled to look like a concrete road (track) deck supported by steel girders and beams. The girders will span between two concrete walls. The railing of the bridge will look like cast in place concrete with metal railing components.

As you can see, I have a long way to go. I have most of the wood parts made. I will be building it in two modules that I can build and paint on my work table and then drop into place on the track table. The road base will be built into the retaining wall module. I will add the final road surface detailing to it after it is set in place. I'll post more pictures as things develop. Thanks for looking and please share any advice you may have. This is definately a first for me, I can use all of the help you can offer....

Brad