I needed a way to hide the exit tunnels for the yard lead and the mainline into the other room on my layout.  Not knowing what to put in the vacant corner, whether it be an urban area or tree covered hills, I decided to build a partial railroad lift bridge as I thought it would fit into either scenario.

Design

The layout of the bridge came from different pictures I picked off the Internet especially one in Chicago which spans a river and a three track mainline right next to the river, very similar to the situation I have here.

Construction

I built it from Evergreen beams and strip styrene with a combination of extra parts from the scrap box and kitbashed kits.  There’s probably a few technical errors with the lift bridge but I don’t care. I don’t do rivets let alone count them.

Control Building & Abutments

N scale brick sheet from I believe Walthers was used for the abutments and control building.  I bought about 10 packs of them with 3 sheets in each pack years ago at a train show and have since put them all together in a clear bag so I would be able to find them easier so I don’t have a name or number of the sheets.  I caped off the abutments with sheet styrene after I had finished gluing and sanding.  I used Grandt Line windows and doors on the control building and then added Gold Medal Models brass railings that circled the pier for the tower.

Tower

The 2 larger front vertical beams that take the weight of the counterweight are .156″ H columns with .100″ channel beams on the fronts for the guides for the lift bridge.  The two rear columns are .125″ H columns.  The cross-members are .100″ H columns.  I used .312″ I beams across the front and back to support the girder bridge.  The steel gusset plates are .010″ sheet styrene.  The counterweight is a rectangular box made from .040″ sheet styrene with I beams and channel beams wrapped around it and held at the top by 6 strands of .015″ brass wire.  The counterweight rides up and down on vertical angle beams.

I can’t remember where the spoked wheels at the top of the tower came from, I think they were from an HO farm vehicle and ended up in the scrap box.  There is 2 sets of the spoked wheels on each side joined together with a short piece of .344″  tubing in order for the brass wire to wrap around from the counterweight down to the lift part of the bridge. The tower from the water is 11″ or about 147 scale feet high. That leaves a clearance of 100′ for the freighter if the bridge was able rise.

Girders and Trusses

The truss bridge is a Kato bridge with all the support beams and track removed.  They didn’t make it easy to take it apart either, just started hacking at it with a razor saw.  In the photo to the right you can see towards the top of the photo .312″ white cross beams joined with .188″ I beams which ended up under the rails sitting on the piers and what remained of the original bridge at the top of the picture.

Atlas code 55 track was used for the close tie spacing with code 40 rail for the jordan rails along the entire length of the bridges.  The tie spacing still doesn’t come close to prototype spacing but it looks good.  The original rail and tie spacing on the Kato bridge looked pretty bad.  The reason I kept the upper part of the Kato bridge is the fact that it is pretty flexible and now slips over top of the new structure underneath as I wanted it removable.  The walkways are strips of .080″ square strip with etched railings.

The girders for the girder bridge and the very top of the bridge tower came out of the scrap box. I think they were old Atlas girder bridges from the 70′s.

Painting & Weathering

Everything was sprayed a flat black.  I then sprayed all steel parts with grimy black.  The bridge piers and counterweight were also sprayed flat black then sprayed with Floquil concrete and weathered with oil pastels.

Conclusion

The bridge tower still needs Gold Medal industrial caged ladders for the platforms that were installed.  When the whole thing becomes more permanent I’ll also install power lines to the control building and bridge as well as a walkway from the seawall to the control building.  I will add other small details such as a life preserver or two for the little plastic people.  The round concrete filled steel pile in the river needed in case of a collision with a wayward freighter also needs a proper navigation light on it.

I can’t finish the far bridge abutment until I figure out what to do in the open area next to it.  Still a lot of stuff to do. I find it hard to permanently install anything on the layout as I’m always moving something to get at everything else.  Every once in a while the whole steel mill ends up on the washer and dryer when such as when I added ballast to the track.