I was reading an older MR mag (Oct, 1999), and there was a “new” item in the showcase for an HO BridgeMaster kit from Three Brothers, PO Box 0772 Libertyville, IL.
This particular kit can be made in one of five different configurations of bridge (through- or deck- type), up to 142’ long.
It appears that this company no longer exists, but maybe the bridge kit does in another name brand. Does anyone know if these are still available? If so, what name are they being produced for. I really like the heavy duty appearance of this bridge.
The only BridgeMaster product found by Google is for G-scale and is based in California, and the only thing found using the term Three Brothers are a brand of pizza, wineries and restaurants.
I looked at the photo in the magazine and it looks like a pretty heavy duty through truss bridge as built. Are you looking for a through truss, or were you interested in the deck truss option?
If you go to the Walther website, www.walthers.com, and put truss bridge in the search box, you can see a lot of what is available.
Three Brothers, which went through a number of address changes in its relatively brief existence, and was variously in Wisconsin and Illinois, appears to be gone for good. Their primary product was a revival of the old Holgate & Reynolds Chicago-style bi-level commuter car kits, both the smooth side such as C&NW and Rock Island, and the fluted stainless steel type of the CB&Q and Milwaukee Road. Some of the castings were fairly crude although if the person matched the paint on the sides they could be built up into rather nice looking cars. The Walthers plastic cars of similar prototypes however probably killed much of the market for the Three Bros versions.
Another product was billed as road material, or roof material, and it indeed looked like a piece of roofing shingle. The asphalt without the particles, I mean.
As to the bridge, I actually bought one – from the Walthers “discontinued product” bin so I did not pay full price. It would have called for a level of patience and care in assembly which I do not possess. What it was was sheets of astoundingly thin dark plastic with various rivet patterns stamped into it. You were expected to cut out the pieces of your bridge from this. I am not exactly sure where the actual structural strength of the bridge was supposed to come from, but I got far enough to see that my bridge trusses were going to look like bacon strips because they themselves lacked any rigidity. Someone, somewhere, surely built up on of these and can perhaps post a photo or two but frankly, as wonderful looking as the bridge looked in the sales literature, I am not sure I know a single craftsman who could have made my kit look like that.
So my frank advice is to not even go looking for an unbuilt kit on Ebay or such unless you are up for a real challenge.
I did make use of at least some of the material however, needing certain rivet patterns on a smaller girder bridge I was buildi