Canadian Pacific Viaduct

So now the track is hanging in mid-air over blank plywood, preventing me from running trains.

Before starting the bridge, I gussied up the bank with earth colored craft paint - grays, burnt sienna, tan and brown. Then I added a bunch of ground foam with Elmer's glue to represent shrubs and bushes.

I also put in the retaining wall on the hill. This is a piece of styrene cut to the shape of the triangle formed by the level RR track and the downward slope of the road.

Next I added a piece of road and painted the blank plywood. Many different combinations were tried here before I arrived at my final plan for the area. Here is a mock-up of one of those combos, with a gas station and a small snack shack worked into the area. The buildings were just taped together and put in place temporarily to see how they fit into the area.

To build the bridge, I cut more styrene into strips about 3/4" wide. These were superglued to the side of the gray plastic roadbed. They will bond quickly if you just stand a moment and hold them. No need for clamps.

I then used styrene rod - about 1/16" square - to make the beams along the top and bottom horizontally along the sides. The same material was used for all of the upright braces used to show the many panels that make up the sides of the bridge. If you are going to letter the bridge, either with graffiti or with the name of a railroad, now is a good time to make sure you space the uprights on the sides of the bridge so you have enough panels for your lettering. The floor section of an old HO bridge from my scrap box is shown here as a temporary support braced against the bluff.



After this part of the project was done, I put in two simple temporary uprights (ex-paintbrush handles) to hold up the bridge so that I could run trains . The two retaining walls - one under each end of the bridge - were from an O scale road crossing also in my scrap box. These were painted gray with a wash of brown to bring out the detailed texture of the two pieces. After letting this sit for a few days and trying different combinations of mocked up buildings and different road layouts, I finalized the plan for the area.

I finished the road - cutting white styrene to fit. I then used HO scale girder pieces to fashion the uprights and cross members that hold the bridge up in its final form. The area's infrastructure is in place and has been zoned for business.




Next time: Northlake Tavern Pizza