Digging a big ditch

My Dad always warned me to stay in school or I would become a ditch digger. Well I did and now I am digging a big ditch. I love bridges on model railroads. Simple. But they need to cross something. Since I am modeling the west, I thought I needed to span a shallow ditch or arroyo. Thanks to my thick styrofoam base I could start cutting and digging. What this blip shows is the rough outline of the arroyo. There will be water at the bottom following the stream bank you might be able to see. In order to build the adjoining village, they needed to reroute the stream so put in a large culvert - that is in the lower left corner of the blip. It will exit a little to the left and then go under a timber trestle. No - there is no place I have visited that looks like this but it is my world.

The steel thru-bridges and the steel trestle in the back ground are set there for now to check alignment. Then they go to the paint shop for new paint and lots of weathering.

On top of the very rough coutours under the bridges I will put in a layer of sculptamold. Then lots of rock and plants and a few trees. and some water. You see I need to fully landscape this portion before I can install the bridges and then lay the track. Way easier to do scenery when there is no bridge in the way. Also is hard to mess up a paint job on the bridges when they are not in the way. Yes - been there done that.

So I still have a small overpass and the wood trestle to go in but they are coming along. Next blip will be a short low trestle at another location.