Gary, please, I beg you - whatever you do, DO NOT FORGET THE SHOES!!!! Put that bridge on some pedestal feet! If you model the terrain down to the last blade of grass and get every nugget of balast in the right spot but do not get the pedestals on the bridge you deserve some sort of malicious punishment. :evil:

The reason I get so heated about this is because it's such an overlooked detail on so many layouts but so simple to include and so vital to railroad right-of-way realism, like ditches or culverts. And on your particular prototype, seem to be the source of some serious rust! hock:

So don't leave off the shoes. Don't they come with the CV kit? It's been a while since I built one.

Oh, the rest looks fantastic, btw.

Galen

Richard, forgive me, I missed your post earlier - thank you for the wonderful comment and I agree, I like the new supports with the wider columns!

Reinhard, Thank you, and welcome home!

biL, I suppose I am pretty fast on these things considering, may be my "extremely focused" nature. Although I have had tons of interests in my life, they generally come along one at a time and I devote 100% to it at the time.

S-two-fiddy, I too hope the day comes when we could see your pair of N&W Y3's, and a long string of coal hoppers 'cross those bridges.

Tetters, GoogleEarth is such a great tool to use for modeling, and yes, the measuring function is very useful!

Galen, the shoes will definitely be installed. The CV kit has them, but they are like 3 times taller than what is on the proto-type bridge. I am planning to cut the CV shoes down and use them. In the next few photos, you can see where I set the supports just a little bit lower than the bottom of the girders, to allow for the shoes when the time comes. The supports aren't glued in place, I just stuck some modeling clay in the holes and pushed the supports down to see how things are fitting together.

So here are some progress photos. Along with the supports, also got the abutments installed. This is shaping up well. Still need to add the I-beams under the concrete sections. QUESTION: on this type of bridge, are the supports still called "bents" or is that just for timber type bridges?

[attachment=21716]

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The rust on the bridge is very convincing. Bridges don't rust like that around here!

Kevin, I've still got alot of work to do on the girders. What is on there now is just several coats of spray paint of various brands and shades of brown primer. I'll probably use the "hair spray and acrylic paint scraped off" method to mimic the prototype. The real bridge has some whitish paint areas on it, as if the bridge was painted at one time but over the years, has fallen off as the bridge rusted. Even so, almost the entire girder is nothing but rust.

On that note, still need to paint and weather everything. The supports are just gray right now, but will weather them up per the proto photos, same with the concrete and such.

Bridges wear shoes?

What kinda shoes? Nike, Reebok, Addidas? Can they choose to wear a stylish pump or hot open toed stiletto heel? Or maybe some sandals or flip flops? Perhaps its an older bridge and needs to wear orthopedic shoes? What do bridges in Canada wear? Surely in the winter time they have boots and not shoes. Their feets will get cold...

Do bridges have feets?

:|






BTW - Nice work.

Aw, c'mon, Tetters! Even every Yankee knows damn well that in the winter, Canuck Bridges wear Ice Skates!!

Geeesh!

Ya can't play no hockey in boots -- unless deres blades unner 'em!

Quote:Galen, the shoes will definitely be installed. The CV kit has them, but they are like 3 times taller than what is on the proto-type bridge. I am planning to cut the CV shoes down and use them. In the next few photos, you can see where I set the supports just a little bit lower than the bottom of the girders, to allow for the shoes when the time comes. The supports aren't glued in place, I just stuck some modeling clay in the holes and pushed the supports down to see how things are fitting together.

So here are some progress photos. Along with the supports, also got the abutments installed. This is shaping up well. Still need to add the I-beams under the concrete sections. QUESTION: on this type of bridge, are the supports still called "bents" or is that just for timber type bridges?

Gary - thanks for allowing room for the bridge supports/feet/shoes. If I had to guess, that's why more folks probably leave them off than ignorance - they simply forget to allow room and build the abutments or piers (that's what you can call them even though they're not in a river) first without planning ahead. Then they think, "Ah, nobody'll notice except the rivet counters and why should I care about them". These same modelers will count rivets on other models but skip out on basic right-of-way engineering rather than make an adjustment or rebuild an abutment. Go figure.

You are to be commended for your dogged devotion to fidelity and accuracy, sir. I know some people couldn't care less and I guess that's okay too. But to me they are an element that contributes to the 'rightness' of things, like the aforementioned ditches and culverts. Drainage is so important to the real railroads...why shouldn't we include it on ours?

Galen

ocalicreek Wrote:like the aforementioned ditches and culverts. Drainage is so important to the real railroads...why shouldn't we include it on ours?

Which is why I like the 2" foam on top of the shelves. Easy to cut ditches and make variations in elevation. I've said it before, but modeling the flat Houston area means most of the elevation changes go down, not up. Instead of cutting into plywood, just scrape out the foam.

Exactly!!!

Galen

Threw some weathering on the piers and the girders tonight.

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oooo that's niceeeee

Where are the shoes...the world wants to know....

Gary S Wrote:Threw some weathering on the piers and the girders tonight.

That looks great. Will there be some bearings between the steel bridge and the concrete? They should be fixed on one side and movable on the other side. Something like this http://www.buntbahn.de/fotos/data/6907/1...cke_09.JPG and this http://www.buntbahn.de/fotos/data/6907/1...cke_10.JPG

Here's what the shoes look like. I'll either cut off the shoes from the CV kit or fabricate some. Tomorrow I will stop by the LHS and get the I-beams which go under the concrete sections. Looks likethose will be fun to weather.

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Gary S Wrote:Here's what the shoes look like. ...

Shoes... a German/English dictionary is not always really helpful...

This detail shot would be the fixed end. Do you have one of the hinged or movable end? They could both be movable but faraway is correct - one is usually fixed, the other able to move with expansion and contraction.

The weathering looks terrific!

Galen