Model Railroading > IAIS's West End - Progress on first bridge

I finally made some progress on my first bridge, at Walnut Creek, about halfway between Atlantic and Hancock, IA. To maintain the integrity of the Homasote splines, I just thinned them vertically here, added a piece of aluminum stock for reinforcement, and built the Micro Engineering girders around the splines.

Photo 1 - Prototype view showing the tie arrangement I set out to recreate.
2 - In-progress model view. For the bottom course, I cut the ends off of several dozen ties and glued them in place individually to represent the exposed ends seen in the first pic. I then added two courses of ties parallel to the rail.

Joe Atkinson
Council Bluffs, IA
www.iaisrailfans.org/../Sub4WestEnd

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3 - Overall view of the prototype scene.
4 - Layout view with the creek roughed in.

Joe Atkinson
Council Bluffs, IA
www.iaisrailfans.org/../Sub4WestEnd

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Really nice job on the bridge and whole scene Joe!

Ryan Wilkerson
Fair Oaks, CA

Hi Joe,

Fantastic as usual! How do you go about weathering your ties/track? Did you cover this in your blog somewhere already? =)

Cheers,
Harry

cool, stream is probably too muddy to work about putting the catfish in the bottom. ;^D

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Thank you gentlemen.

tracktime Wrote:
> How do you go about weathering your ties/track?

I went the lazy route. :-) I use Micro Engineering pre-weathered rail and pre-stained ties. Once the ties are in place and the glue has dried, before ballasting, I sand the tops to remove any height variations, then re-stain the tops with Minwax Ebony. Even though I stain them all a uniform color, the differences in wood density from tie to tie result in natural variegation.

Joe Atkinson
Council Bluffs, IA
www.iaisrailfans.org/../Sub4WestEnd

Looks like you have a good start and I'll be waiting for the progress photos. Great looking scene!

Shannon Crabtree
Fredericksburg, VA
Virginia Midland Railroad Blog

Looking good!

- Jeff

Show off! I think most people call this art. It is neat how you have really captured the flavor or feel of Iowa short line railroading. Can't wait to see more.

Wow, looks great! Love the timbers on top of the bridge ties - Great work. Keep us posed on the progress.

John Parker
Longmont, CO
BNSF Fall River Division

Thank you! You guys are a great encouragement.

In my last update about the backdrop pics, I think I said I was going to keep working on them until I'd finished the entire layout, and only THEN come back to bridges. However, learning a few things about the processes of both bridge-building and water modeling - neither of which I've done before - has given me some confidence to start down this path. It's amazing how I can get used to looking at an unfinished part of the layout - sometimes for years - and not even think twice about it, but it sure is nice seeing it start to come together.

Joe Atkinson
Council Bluffs, IA
www.iaisrailfans.org/../Sub4WestEnd

That looks real good Joe! I love the progress on your layout.
Glenn hoover

Looking real good Joe. That's going to be a great scene when you are finished!

Mike Peters
Brentwood, MO

Great job as usual Joe. I notice the trees growing up the side of the bridge. You're not going to model that are you?

Thank you all very much.

> I notice the trees growing
> up the side of the bridge. You're not going to
> model that are you?

Do you mean that little guy on top of the deck timbers in the first pic? How could I not? ;)

Posted from iPhone

Joe Atkinson
Council Bluffs, IA
www.iaisrailfans.org/../Sub4WestEnd

Sorry, I didn't write it the way I wanted to. Joe, I meant the groups of trees encroaching on both ends of the bridge.

I look forward to your coming for a visit so you can do all of my backdrops :)

Beautiful work.....

Bob

Once again, your modeling skills amaze me. Feel free to coke over and work on my layout, I have not started it so you can do it all. :)

Posted from Android