@Rickf:
Yes, there were telegraph lines that looked like that back then, but no, there should be no telegraph lines in the shot, but I couldn't be bothered to make my own route so I actually used a 1930s/40s(or somewhere around there) route. It's only thanks to clever placement that you can't see a massive industrial estate or a huge steel drawbridge.
As for your route, you could get away with using a smaller telegraph line, they did often but not always follow the railroad for three good reasons:
1.) It was easier to maintain along a line that HAD to be well-kept.
2.) The depots all had telegraph booths - it was important so that if a train got into trouble, the depot staff could alert each other all down the line.
3.) Some engine crews were given telegraph tappers, so that in the event of an accident on an isolated part of the line, they could attach a temporary device and tell the stations in either direction what had happened and where they were. It was a very effective safety feature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Fortunately or not there was not enough need on the V&T for this to be put into use along that line(and the road was laid through an easier place to build) but many a line did have it.
And yeah, have fun trying to explain that mistake away...hence why I always wait in or near the kitchen when cooking. Heckuva lot easier to tell when something's ready.
@Saturn
I'm not actually sure that Ben's model is accurate to any era; in the 1870s she would have had (to the best of my knowledge) Wine paint with full Style 1 lining, a varnished walnut cab, polished iron rods and pilot braces, even a brass nameplate with red backing on the cab! But by 1877 or 1878 or somewhere abouts(I wanna say) she'd got her nameplate replaced with paint, had lost some of the lining, got a toolbox on the back of the tender(she wasn't delivered with one) and her iconic huge smoke riser(she wasn't delivered with that either), as well as airbrakes and some other stuff. By 1885 most of the engines had lost their tender lining(Inyo included) so although I'm not sure, she would've been painted brown sometime between 1885 and 1890. Along with that would've come an ash cab(walnut cabs were never painted) and a couple other things. She lost all her lining when she was painted brown, so that particular model of Inyo is not accurate anywhere.
Good job with the dual gauge as well, that's exactly what I had in mind.
And before any of y'all ask I just heard all this from the V&T Historical Society conference last year, as well as from my good friend Andrew, who knows more about this stuff than anyone I've ever heard. So yeah, it's impossible for almost any V&T train to be accurate.:hehe: Until Curtis finishes his mogul updates, that is, and knowing how busy he is, it won't be for a while yet.
