Marty,
I am not sure how to effectively say this...but I truly want you to succeed.
Cause I wish to do the same.
We once had a fundamentally successful Can't & Nary System in Muddville, California.
It even was able to run during floods, for it was an apparent concept to have a secondary gasoline engine on board as well.
So it was noted the entire electrical grid for Muddville, would shut down but the Street Cars were still running.
What we today might refer to as a Hybrid System.
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For me...I used a Bachmann Acela to get it all up and running....with some success, before proceeding with even more troublesome models.
So for me...I went through this whole test with Kato Unitram track set back with actual asphalt. to the outside rails.
Asphalt between the rails doesn't work even in prototype, but a rubber like mat between the rails does.
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Dust it with dirt or not depending on the era.
Just getting it all to run was my first challenge.
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Running the Can't & Nary system was a whole other approach to both Mathematics and Physics and testing then more testing.
More adjustments besides attempting to do the math.
I wanted to eventually go to a single electrical line and single pole from the trolley.
This then took even more work and reconstruction to each of my trolleys.
Ugh!
Which is how it got it's name...Reminded me a of Mule a Contrary, not a Catenary.
I get more cooperation from Cats leaving the Canary alone than I can get a mule to water.
At least without a lot of cussing. I was for a time a Civil War Re-enactor and I swear, mules only understand a few choice cuss words.
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While at University I rode the San Francisco System for many years and was greatly impressed with it.
:)) Mark
Modeling Muddville, ?founded by an ancestor of Harcourt Fenton Mudd, cousin to Dr Samual Mudd.
Two D's are needed where as one was good enough for God.
Here is circa 1900 picture of Lindsey Slough...which later was a-forded an underground drain pipe system and became Harding Way or not.
I often find photographs which are miss-marked.
Look to the other side of the bridge/road - El Dorado Ave.....Note also the bent track.
Here is yet another earlier view....with Mud and more Mudd.
The entire town was set to these horse-trolley rails and bridges.
This may be yet a different than marked street...with my 1908 House to one side. The house facing with the pillars in front has changed somewhat and moved and now faces mine.
Maybe?
Or I could be entirely wrong.
Cause....
The neighborhood was not fleshed out so to speak, but in a constant state of construction from 1878 to 1940 and beyond.
During all this time....?
Floods and more floods.
Houses were moved at times, even after construction.
Foundations were often weakened by flooding and had to be totally reconstructed with the house above taken to another location, while a new basement/foundation was constructed; and then set with a different house.
...And I had thought this time...we had placed the foundation/basement on the hard-pan (Clay) below.
A trolley ran directly out front.
In order to model it properly to before 1885-1900 and the beginning of asphalt....
They began as Horse Drawn Systems but began to be electrified with more robust rails and ballast circa 1878.
Round Top streets as high as 23 inches to the center above the gutters were created so the Trolleys could appear to walk on water.
Asphalt began in the 1890's but was not entirely in use until after the 1906 earthquake; when much of the rail throughout the area had to be again replaced.
Garth Hamilton
Mark Cartwright