Description

by Gil Brauch

After five years, I decided that I wanted to build another module and start bringing it to setups instead of my 5-year-old pair of mountain return loop modules.   [DD&D Mine - Ed.]  This leaves the club in the position of being able to support only a part of a mountain division loop with Cat Creek and Mountain Corner.  After discussing this with John Drye, we decided that the club needed two more mountain corners and I volunteered to build one during the GATS and Greenberg shows this past summer.  Kudzu Korner is the product of that decision.

The module is an NTRAK standard three-foot corner with a mountain division.   It is built almost "straight out of the book."  The major feature that makes it a little different is that it does not have a flat top under the scenery.   The roadbed for the NTRAK mains and the mountain division is cut from 3/4" plywood, but the rest of the module is "open grid" to reduce weight.

The idea behind the scenery is to keep it very simple and easy to maintain.   This is because the module will "live" in one of our trailers nearly all of the time and it will be handled and banged around quite a bit without anyone specifically keeping an eye on its appearance.  What could be easier to replace than kudzu?

For those of you who don't know what kudzu is, it is the "Plague of the South" in many people's minds.  Back in the 1950's and 1960's, when there was major secondary road construction taking place all over the South, kudzu was used as a fast-growing vine for erosion control on freshly-cut banks. Little did they know that the main problem with kudzu is that it NEVER stops growing.  There are a few places around here where you can see some kudzu, but in southern North Carolina where I grew up and on south from there, you can find areas where kudzu has literally overtaken everything.  In Atlanta, they even have the "Kudzu Police" who's mission is to find and eradicate all kudzu within the city limits.

Back to the module.  Rodney Smith helped me build the frame. He's real good at that and is willing to help anyone who would like to get started on a module, but doesn't have the carpentry tools or skills to do it alone.  John Drye and others helped with the scenery one afternoon when I had to leave early.  Dave Freshwater and Dave Greenacre gave a go at the wiring.  We had everything done in four work sessions during the two shows except putting the finishing touches on the scenery (water and more kudzu) and painting the framework.

I learned that low temp hot glue works better than carpenter's glue for building up the foam blocks and laying cork roadbed.  We also learned that it costs about $150 to build a module like this:  $50 for the benchwork; $50 for the electrical and trackwork; and $50 for the scenery.  It took SIX PACKAGES of Woodland Scenics foliage material for the kudzu alone -- and it still could use some more for density.

Now all we need is for someone to volunteer to build one more "plain ole' mountain corner" and we will be able to support a complete loop for the mountain division.