June 19, 2020
Thunderlake and Outasite Railroad’s famed Gauntlet Trestle
by R.G. Blocks, Photos by author
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Ours is a narrow gauge railroad being constructed in On30 by myself as Chief Engineer with the advice and assistance of T&O shareholders, erstwhile known as my relatives.
A few of the bents or columns comprised of five posts (tall hedge), three
horizontal sash’s and one top cap. We rubber banded a small block of wood
as a spacer for the stringers and deck ties to be added later.
T&O’s eastern terminus, is located in Three Lakes, elevation 1636 MSL, where it provides storage, loading and conveyance of potato’s and raw lumber while receiving and distributing alloy materials for its custom knife industry. A modest yard and round table, provide support for T&O steam equipment. Sidings acknowledge local industry and a mine. Maintenance and storage for a small roster of passenger cars as well as homes for the T&O’s minuscule staff describe much of what we see at the eastern end of the line.
As the T&O swings westerly it crosses a chasm while climbing. One branch climbs to 1688 feet MSL as it crosses south of Barb’s Butte en-route to the valley north of Mt Bessy and spills out at the Roger’s Park Interchange (elevation 1660 Ft MSL) with the TR-C&NW. The chasm is unfortunately located where two east-west routes of the T&O merge. Experience suggested that turnouts located on grades are unduly risky. The board of directors authorized a singe track bridge be built at the lowest possible cost. They also encouraged and authorized a gauntlet track to cross the bridge without a turnout. Thus the merger of routes could take place with the gauntlet acting as a ‘safe way’ to merge routes on a grade and cross the chasm on an inexpensive single track structure.
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Lumber for the bridge was harvested by shareholders while doing landscaping of our family
home in Racine, WI. The trestle would be built using suitably dried “Wisconsin tall hedge”
posts. Ours dried several years while shareholder actions blocked progress (no pun intended).
Posts comprise roughly half the lumber requirements of any common trestle design. Our posts are typically 12 to our 16 scale inches in diameter and many were as long as 56 to 60 feet in
height. They were set in a plaster base and hung from a straight edge, plumbed and fixed in
place with girts added as the plaster set.
A makeshift straight edge was used to strike the grade line and provide for bent spacing and as a suspension device for truing vertical alignment.
Grandson Samuel Ivankovic installs anti-sway bracing between two of
several bents or columns of posts.
Girts, are dimensional lumber that serve as horizontal stabilizers between columns or bents. We chose these to be of basswood and are 6 x 6 scale inches. Sway braces, 2” x 12” were installed on each of the several five post bents. These were located between the horizontal 12 x 12 inch sash beams holding the columns together. Further, 2” x 12” anti sway bracing was affixed between sash lines running parallel to the tracks. Thus, the bents are prevented from swaying from side to side and longitudinally alone the rail line from bent to bent.
The bridge, while incomplete at the moment still needs six parallel 12” x 24” stringers placed
atop the columns and atop them, cross ties, for support of the gauntlet track placed upon the
stringers. These stringers are supported by the columns and sit on caps. Each column is
topped by a 12 x 12 inch cap.
Columns or bents are spaced 16 scale feet apart on center. Columns are nominally 56 scale
feet tall across the bottom of the chasm. The trestle spans roughly 256 scale feet in length. The
gauntlet track extends beyond both ends of the trestle and chasm.
The T&O’s western expanse has both a north and south interchange component. The southernmost branch begins immediately after crossing the chasm and serves both mining and lumber industries as well as a very modest interchange with the TR-C&NW RR.
The northernmost branch involves some expensive mountain tunneling and bridging across
tortuous real-estate that less energetic rail entrepreneurs might well forego. The railroad
terminus at Three Lakes has an elevation of 1636 feet. The T&O railroad rises to 1644 MSL at
the eastern foot of the gauntlet trestle and rises to 1646 feet MSL on the western end of the
gauntlet. Thereafter, the railroad branch rises at a 4% grade to reach an altitude of 1688 ft
where it crosses the Furnace Mountain before dropping to reach the interchange at Roger’s
Park at 1660 ft MSL.
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There is no turntable at the westernmost Roger’s Park terminus. However, a modest return loopexists as a result of the T&O serving mining activity at Mount Millie.
None of the T&O’s western expansion would be possible were it not for the gauntlet bridge. The bridge, in itself, simply isn’t remarkable. But, when you step back, and look in the mirror, a huge north-west appears. It’s nice to have such a reflective moment.
Written by Roger G Blocks, P.E. and Chief Engineer of both the TR-C&NW and T&O Rail Roads
on June 11, 2020 knowing there is plenty of work to be done and he’s up to the task.
Enjoy,
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