Here's my hat in the ring.
I had contemplated a turntable or perhaps an enginehouse, but that's for a section of the layout farther in the future. More immediately I need a bridge across an as-yet-unnamed creek. I have, as mentioned on my layout thread a few weeks back, a Tyco plastic 'steel' pony truss bridge that looks okay :? but it just doesn't suit my fancy. Since this branch leads to the little hamlet of Pinto where the Ocali Creek Railway interchanges with the Big Tujunga Lumber Company, I can surmise that lumber was more available in the timeframe this bridge would have been constructed (1900's) and became the default construction material.
I'll be following the old Whit Towers article from MR, since reprinted in the Bridge & Trestle handbook from Kalmbach. He actually used 00-90 rod which he threaded and then fastened & tensioned with tiny little nuts & washers. I'm crazy, but not that crazy! Besides, 00-90 scales out a little too large. Haha.
No timeline on when I'll get started, but I hope to be done by the 9/7 deadline. There's still a few outdoors & home repair projects to complete, but I want to press on toward the goal of laying some track and getting trains running, hence this little bridge project to get me back on track, literally. The layout effort has stalled with all the summer fun...too many things to do!
Galen
Unnamed creek..?? How about Ocali Creek..??
Looking forward to your build....
Yes, Gus, that would seem an obvious choice...
More likely it'll be Little Tujunga Creek, to reinforce the connection at Pinto with the Big Tujunga Lumber Company, named for the major creek along which the BTLC runs up into the hills.
I want to save the Ocali Creek name for a larger creek/river along which the OCRy will run. This current layout doesn't leave much room for the actual Ocali Creek. Perhaps in a future incarnation of the layout...
For now my first task is to make up a drawing and parts list. I may have to order nbw's from my LHS if I don't want to scratch build them from styrene & wire. We'll see how many will actually be modeled and how many will be inked.
I knocked out another honey-do project this morning so hopefully I can dive into the bridge project tonight!
Galen
Geez, Galen ... let's give ourselves a right proper amount of stress by starting halfway through!
You guys all build stuff much faster that I do though so ... Hey ... Welcome to the Challenge ... now ...
GET TO WORK!
P5se Camelback Wrote:Geez, Galen ... let's give ourselves a right proper amount of stress by starting halfway through!
You guys all build stuff much faster that I do though so ... Hey ... Welcome to the Challenge ... now ...
GET TO WORK!
Gotta tell ya, biL, I'm not the fastest worker either. Nor am I the most organized person in the world. It takes me a while just to get things ready and by then I'm out of time, energy, or both. But that's okay. It's all good as long as I'm moving toward a goal and getting a project closer to completion.
Stress has been work related, lately, so I've been itching to get going on this bridge project for too long now. I WILL have drawings & a parts list by tonight. If I can get the scanner working in order to share them...well, that's another matter...
Galen
ocalicreek Galen Wrote:... I'm not the fastest worker either. Nor am I the most organized person in the world. It takes me a while just to get things ready and by then I'm out of time, energy, or both ...
Holy Cow! You sound frighteningly like me ...
hock:
hock:
I used to drive my former wife crazy having to have everything super organized (did you see the inside of the kitchen cabinets in that movie from a few years back, "
Sleeping with the Enemy" ... well ... 8-) ... but I never chased after her or tried to kill her or anything when she left!) But my cabinets and drawers and closets are all very organized.
It's an ADD thing!
I always put things in the same place and then I don't have to frustrate myself wasting an hour looking for something I need, but can't remember where I put it after I used it last!!!!!
Or give up toatally and go buy a new one!!!
Now, my workbench when I'm in the middle of a build ... that's a different story altogether!!
So, Galen, I'll never poke at you about the speed with which you work or don't work, or how long things take to get done or procrastination (my father once told me that henceforth, "Procrastination" was my new middle name!) or any of that stuff ever again!!!
:oops:
Just take your time, get everything where it needs to be, get relaxed, line things up, work at a comfortable, steady pace ........
Well, necessity may be the mother of invention, but perhaps procrastination's the wierd uncle? :?
SO I am going back on my word. I do not, nor will I, have a drawing to share tonight. Not because I haven't pursued that avenue - I went as far as getting out the paper & pencil and ruler, scanning pages from a book with a suitable drawing, opening up Photoshop and starting to stitch the pages together with the drawing on them, even taking an inventory of my stripwood stock. No, what cinched it in the end was the width of the bridge I was planning on building.
The thing's too wide!
Measure ten, cut one. That's what saved me from perhaps some serious heartache, or at least a major grade realignment. Time to call the lining bar gang!
So I've decided to 'build' that Tyco plastic truss bridge afterall. It's in need of a little TLC but I think with some paint and weathering it'll do just fine.
Tomorrow I begin the physical rebuild work. There are a few tabs designed for holding track in place which will be sawed off. Also I may thin down the top chord H beam and perhaps add a few more rivet plates. After that I can clean it, prime it, and begin painting it. There are wood walkways that will get a sun-bleached creosote look, and the bridge itself will be silver with signs of rust & dust.
This is a much more 'do-able' project by the September deadline. Plus it'll get trains up and running sooner. AND, it's a bridge in the back of the layout. If I'm going to bust out the serious scratchbuilding skills I want it to be on a foreground model.
Galen
OH, and I stumbled across two great websites for bridge ideas, while trying to hunt down suitable plans & drawings. (In the end I plunked down hobby cash for an excellent bridge book by Kalmbach - the older one, not the newer one.)
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.historicbridges.org/index.htm">http://www.historicbridges.org/index.htm</a><!-- m -->
and
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://bridgehunter.com/">http://bridgehunter.com/</a><!-- m -->
The second site has a railroad listing so if you know the pedigree or heritage of the bridge you seek, then you can search that way. Otherwise it's a mix of railroad and vehicular road bridges to sift through. Hundreds of thousands of bridges, each with multiple photos.
Fun fun fun!
Galen
