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This is a very fascinating topic. When you consider how electrified passenger transport in the USA once was. It's sad...   ...but of course great for model making. Just like your pictures.

Thomas, That's a great video of the Korean train. So nice to see you running trains, and the railway itself is looking very good.  Well done for all that hard work.  And the way you've securing the new bridge section is very ingenious. Andrew  

Interurbans are coming Some railway people, even in America, don't know what these are.  In Britain they are even more of a niche interest.  But they caught my imagination a few years ago.   I now do a short talk called "America's Interurban Interlude". Anyway, what are the implications for modelling?  There are no ready to run models.  The main option seems to be the HO Japanese brass models of the kind that were very popular for US outline railroads in the 1960s and '70s.  As well as mainstream railroads, there were plenty of interurban models commissioned 50 years ago - and they're still around in secondhand form.  Mind you, most of them are unpainted and unglazed, which is not to everyone's taste.   But I was fortunate to get hold of a pair of nicely painted brass interurban cars from America recently:   And they look even better when posed on what remains of my railway:     Here are some useful further sources:  

Hi Thomas, I’ve just been having a great catch up! It’s really good to see how much progress you’ve made and I’m very pleased that the bridge from Italy finally arrived, it looks fantastic.  Keep up the good work, John  

So, despite the fall, I've made a little more progress with the new cutoff. Since my Korean KTX wants a minimum radius of 730mm, I had to build a bypass around the only curve <730mm.  The removable part of the bridge is held in position by the four specially made catenary poles.

To clarify, I use 25mm L-section raw aluminium for this.  I think I said somewhere in the past that I used 15mm aluminium L section, so apologies if anyone has bought the incorrect materials, it's definitely 25mm. Also I think that is 2mm thick so that is 6" in scale which is reasonable for the type of wall being recreated. 

Not much to report. I've cut the roofing felt to fit between the aluminium L-section. I've also managed to collect 5x 2l drinks bottles and cut them to provide some cover, they seem to have stayed on despite the windy weather. I think that is helped by the lip created from the overhang on the L-section. I stuck an old Joueff Mk3 under them to see if it got wet and it didn't. I've reclaimed a full length of flexi-track from elsewhere and cut that to fit in place of a broken one. Next job is to solder it in. Some repairs to the staging sidings are necessary but it looks like I may get a train to run before the end of the week.