The Nolan River is named after Phillip Nolan. Nolan was killed in an Indian attack in 1801. The Nolan River’s head waters are in Johnson County, it flows into the Pat Cleburne Reservoir and then the river terminates at the Brazos River / Lake Whitney.

The module is actually a pair of ninety degree, outside corners that are more or less permanently bolted together. Together these modules play a part of making a larger club or show layout having two main lines. On each module is an interpretation of the bridge I always enjoyed seeing on my trips to the area. On one module is a small farm with a tractor about to plow the small parcel of land and on the other module is a camping scene with tents and canoes. I have campers in my plans for the future but the paint is drying still (or something like that). As I was nearing completion of the river and some its high banks my wife remarked that the banks looked unnaturally white while the farmland was dark. My response was that the farmland all around this area is generally like black gumbo while rivers carve into the white bedrock. She was unimpressed.

Construction starts with a frame of 1x3 poplar wood with glue-blocks that form leg pockets and provide strength for the module. The wood is glued and screwed together for strength. The deck is below the standard height so that the riverbed could be below the tracks and thus make possible the pair of bridges. The track sub-roadbed is ¾" plywood with cork as the roadbed. My first attempt at laying track for this module did not work out since I let flat spots into the 14 and 15-inch radius curves. Test runs really proved out how important it is to have no flat spots in the radius of curves. At the junction of the pair of modules are tangent track with semi-permanent expansion tracks. Should the time ever come that I want to separate the modules I can do so.

The fascia is primed, sanded, primed, sanded, painted brown, sanded and painted brown one last time. The underside of the module pair is painted with tow coats of primer to minimize absorption of moisture when the humidity swings wildly in my garage. This also helps to minimize shrinkage and expansion as well as to minimize potential for warping.

Three quarter inch foam was used to build up the terrain and plaster-cloth was used to create the ground on which scenery was place. One-part water formed the water in the riverbed. I did not much like this material because for me the surface dried with a slightly tacky surface that collects and keeps dust.

The electrical is composed of three busses. The red bus is for the outside main, the yellow buss is for the inside main and the green buss is for auxiliary DCC power. No auxiliary DCC power is used on this module pair but the buss permits distributing power to adjacent modules. Connections to other modules use Molex 093 two circuit connectors. The original approach used the Cinch-Jones connectors. When upgrading, I used the old CJ connectors to make adaptors that could be used to connect to modules having CJ connectors instead of Molex.

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