After a long layoff from railroading I am back to working on my layout. Reminding those that were following along, I had just bought a very nice double track truss bridge, and also started construction of an ME viaduct kit when I fell off the grid. Since I haven’t posted any progress for a long time just want to share how its going- just for fun. Both of the bridges are on the same section of track and are the focal pieces to phase 2 of my design.
The ME viaducts have been covered here a bunch in the past. This one is very simple, just meant to break up a long elevated run close to the backdrop. It went together pretty easily and I topped it off with Walthers bridge track. I cast the piers from plaster and the next step is to get them to fit up to the bridge trusses. (The level is just there to keep the track flat while I work on the support.) The area under the bridge will be heavily scenic’d with brush and trees, with rip-rap on the sides. We’ll see how it all turns out in a few weeks.
I searched for months for a double-track through truss bridge kit to fit my layout design without much luck when I finally ran across this brass bridge. Pricy, but a very nice piece. And at the time my budget was not a big issue.
The brass is very pretty but it has just enough patina to look realistic, and after finding a prototype on the web that is painted a similar color I decided not to re-finish it. But it was not obvious how to support the track properly, the tie width on the sections of ME and Central Valley bridge track that I had on hand was too wide, and the brass walkway and platforms looked just wrong. So there were some challenges to resolve that I haven’t seen address
I’ve got the track for the truss bridge painted now, and connecting track laid down around the curve between the bridges so I can test run a train back and forth. I really like the way this one is turning out. I’ll get back to work on the viaduct this weekend.
I just spent some time on your site Lion and took a ride around your latest video. Looks like you have been staying busy since I’ve been off the grid.
I took the photo with my I-phone. I used to pull out the SLR and do all sorts of color adjustments but I have the lighting in the room balanced nicely now, so its just point and shoot. All the track painting was hand-brushed using a various shades of Model Master acrylics. Actually quite easy.
The viaduct bridge piers are fixed in place now. I just used a bit of Sculptamold to set the heights and secure them and I’ll use some Gypsolite to really lock them in place once I get to finishing the terrain. With the bridges functional I went ahead and laid connecting track to phase 1 of my layout. This is letting me run all of my locos and long cars through and over both the bridges and to check curves and clearances. Of course the bridges will have to be removed while I work underneath, but its been fun running trains on them.
The biggest unexpected challenge- I built a stone wall two years ago that now needs to extend to the viaduct, and don’t remember exactly how I finished it. I figured on “planting” some more ivy on the wall to help hide the seam but I have yet to get close to matching the colors on new castings. The wall really needs to go up before getting to work on finishing the bridge abutment so a bit frustrating. Hopefully this photo will make a good “before” picture and the “after” will look much better.
It took me five tries but I finally was able to match the colors of the original wall on new castings. A little static grass, some more vegetation, and ballast on the track and this section will be finished. Now moving on around the bend and concentrating on the landscape under the truss bridge… Its a whole lot more complicated and will take a bunch more time.
My layout plan has six bridges. Three have been in service for some time now and this is the fourth. In every case so far I’ve found managing the abutments to be trickier than building the actual bridges. This time I just continued the plaster wall and formed the terrain with foam. May not be prototypical for a viaduct but as long as it is believable I am happy.
I decided to go with silver to blend in with the “dirty gray” wall color. I just hit the structure with some old automotive engine paint that I had around for years, then weathered it with some powders to give it a hint of rust, concentrating on where the bents meet the main structure . I brushed some soy sauce on the plaster piers to simulate rust and dirt and sealed them with some matte acrylic spray before setting them in place. All-in-all I am pretty happy with how it turned out especially considering it was a quick project.
When I did my tall steel trestle I built the thing and then I cut the plaster piers to aprox. size and put them up to the bents with shims under them to the foam base and filled in over the shims with plaster to match the plaster cloth that I used as a top coat over the foam, no muss no fuss.
That’s more or less what I did, except this time I used Sculptamold underneath and on top of the shims instead of plaster. The Sculptamold worked really well. I used enough to set the piers a little high, then set the bridge in place which pushed them down into the Sculptamold a bit. I made some minor adjustments to level and center them and let it dry. The Sculptamold is nice and gooey and has a long working time so it was easy to get them all set correctly.
When I built the wood trestle I marked the position of every leg and made wooden “pilings” to support them, and glued the pilings into holes in the foam at the proper height for each leg. It made the bridge removable and very solidly supported, but what a huge pain. Way too many legs to deal with at once.
Might as well throw this one in too- its the last bridge in my plan. A very simple ME kit that I built in one night last weekend and then airbrushed with gloss black the next day. I haven’t decided on weathering yet- depends on how it looks once the terrain and landscaping are finished and I see how it looks against the backdrop. I’ve got a bunch of foam carving to do but been distracted the past few days nursing a sick Alco engine back to health.
I think I used the same Overland bridge but painted it. I also used Micro Engineering bridge track and added my own scratch-built guard rails and points, and timer guards. There were about 900 nut and bolt castings. The planks and guard rails are distressed and painted styrene. I also added fish plates for the rails.
Hopefully, the links for photos posted here at the Model Railroader site will work. My bridge abutments were cast from Hydrocal and stained with India ink and Soy Sauce. http://cs.trains.com/mrr/m/mrr-layouts/2044675.aspx http://cs.trains.com/mrr/m/mrr-layouts/2044670.aspx http://cs.trains.com/mrr/m/mrr-layouts/2044677.aspx
Victor A. Baird
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Here it is Victor. Had to mess around a bunch to get it to show up on the thread- I found out that for some reason links to photos within this site don’t work.
Very cool to find someone else with the same bridge. Overland didn’t make many of this model and that was quite a few years back now. A different look for sure with the black color and heavily weathered ties. And a ton of detail on your trackwork.
The abutments for my truss bridge will be plaster but I haven’t decided yet whether they will be cut rock face or concrete. I’ll be carving foam in the area during the next few weeks and decide as it all comes together.
Thanks for making one of the links work. I’d like to share photos of how I made my abutments for my version of the Overland bridge. Though I have my photos on photobucket, I don’t get the richtext editing function as an option here at Model Railroader to upload them. I don’t know why.
Hmm, I can embed photos posted on other sites like photobucket and even video from youtube with the editor that comes up here. Not sure how to fix your editor problem but I’d like to see what you did with the abutments. Can you post a cut and paste link like you did for the photos?
It’ sad that I can’t share my techinques with others but perhaps you can send me a private message on this site and I’ll make contact with you and send you the photos and a write-up. I am very happy with the results.
rrebell
When I did my tall steel trestle I built the thing and then I cut the plaster piers to aprox. size and put them up to the bents with shims under them to the foam base and filled in over the shims with plaster to match the plaster cloth that I used as a top coat over the foam, no muss no fuss.
That’s more or less what I did, except this time I used Sculptamold underneath and on top of the shims instead of plaster. The Sculptamold worked really well. I used enough to set the piers a little high, then set the bridge in place which pushed them down into the Sculptamold a bit. I made some minor adjustments to level and center them and let it dry. The Sculptamold is nice and gooey and has a long working time so it was easy to get them all set correctly.
When I built the wood trestle I marked the position of every leg and made wooden “pilings” to support them, and glued the pilings into holes in the foam at the proper height for each leg. It made the bridge removable and very solidly supported, but what a huge pain. Way too many legs to deal with at once.
Might as well throw this one in too- its the last bridge in my plan. A very simple ME kit that I built in one night last weekend and then airbrushed with gloss black the next day. I haven’t decided on weathering yet- depends on how it looks once the terrain and landscaping are finished and I see how it looks against the backdrop. I’ve got a bunch of foam carving to do but been distracted the past few days nursing a sick Alco engine back to health.
I built the trestle even though I was not sure any were still in use in the eastern US during the transition period. But my railroad is freelance, and I like trestles so I went with it. Anyway, I was out playing golf today and took these pics looking into the woods at the edge of the golf course.
It looks to be in very good shape, and I could see rails on the track leading up to it with pretty nice ballast, not overgrown. I would not be surprised to find out that the trestle was actually still being used sometime in the relatively recent past.
The cool part is that construction is very similar to the way I built mine, with bents built from very heavy square lumber, same sort of cross bracing, similar color, etc. I wonder if there is a way to get over there to take a really good look?
The golf course is in North Augusta, SC just a few miles away from home.
Edit- I got curious and did a search on the web. That wood trestle connects to a drawbridge over the Savannah River that was built in 1912 by the Southern Railroad, so the line is over 100 years old. And it is still in use by the Norfolk Southern.
