The Little Rock Line

[basementcalling]

It looks a lot sharper than it really is due to the angle of the camera.  That's a large PECO turnout so it's pretty shallow as is the radius behind the turnout. 
When we switch the Jct. it'll be at reduced speeds and the cars are no longer than 50'. The original design was much tighter and we never had any issues.
 
Here's another shot of the overall area which might explain the closeness of the crossing.



LOL, yes and your spelling isn't much better!  

That looks awesome from that angle. I knew you probably had a reason.

The typos are inserted just to test if you are reading my posts.

[soo]

I love all the twisty curvy track man!! Far out!!

I swear that RI bankrupsty blue is skyblue also.

Cya , Y-it

[Bendtracker1]

I love all the twisty curvy track man!! Far out!!

I swear that RI bankrupsty blue is skyblue also.

Cya , Y-it

Thanks Y-it.
It could be, it could just be.....

[Bendtracker1]

After getting the trackage at Dubach wired up this morning I moved over to just North of El Dorado.
This is where I've planned to have the tracks cross the Ouachita river.

This has been the longest tangent on the layout. When I get done with it there will be a nice gentle sway in the tracks after leaving El Dorado and before it reaches Calion. I also plan to realign "MQ" siding and the layout of Calion Lumber.



This afternoon I got started on the first bridge.



More on the blog.

[Bendtracker1]

Last week and today, I continued to work on the first of the two bridges just north of El Dorado. The first Bridge will be for the mainline and it consists of three 80' Micro Engineering open deck bridges.

This was my inspiration.




While this looks to be a ballasted deck, I'm shooting for an open deck version without railings.

Here are the three bridges after getting them glued together (I hadn't found the bridge flex yet).




I started out using the supplied ME bridge shoes but gave up after the second one. Trying to file off the excess flash became a PIA real fast. I wound up using 1/8" chunks of Evergreen "H" channel instead.




This should be close to what I'll wind up with when I'm done.




Still need to paint, weather the bridge, track and abutments.
More on the blog...

[Ed Kapuscinski]

If it's not too late, I really can't recommend the Keystone Details bridge shoes enough. They're fantastic.

[Bendtracker1]

It might be on this one Ed?
I looked around for some but was in kind of a hurry to get this bridge under way.

I don't recall seeing the Keystone shoes, got a link to them?
I do have another bridge to build after this one, a Central Valley Pratt Truss.  Maybe I'll try them on that one?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

These, although now I need to update the article with post-paint photos.

http://conrail1285.com/keystone-details-bridge-shoes/

[Chris333]

These, although now I need to update the article with post-paint photos.

http://conrail1285.com/keystone-details-bridge-shoes/

And how to mount so they hang in mid air 

I like the bridge scene. Long ago I cut the shoes off a Kato bridge and made a mold. Long before Shapeways.

[Bendtracker1]

These, although now I need to update the article with post-paint photos.

http://conrail1285.com/keystone-details-bridge-shoes/

Hey Ed, looked around and I can't find what the actual dimensions are for the shoes.
Can I trouble you for the sizes of each shoe?

[Bendtracker1]

I like the bridge scene. Long ago I cut the shoes off a Kato bridge and made a mold. Long before Shapeways.

Thanks Chris!
D'oh!  Now you tell me about the KATO shoes!  Several months ago I sold off a bunch of KATO stuff I had lying around as I thought I'd have no need for it.......

[Chris333]

Well cutting the Kato shoes off was a pain in the a$$. If you see how they are molded on you'll see. If I re-did it I would use John's Keystone shoes on Shapeways.

[Bendtracker1]

Yeah I seen that!
I went to google and found some pics of them, it looks like there is only one side that has the details, the other side is molded into the pier?
Oh well it was a good thought, thanks anyway.

[Bendtracker1]

OK with the bridge built, it was time to start on the painting and weathering.

Not really sure what I wanted or how to go about getting there (I had some ideas but nothing that jumped out at me) I started surfing Google images. I found several pics I liked but wasn't really what I was after. First off, I couldn't decide what color I wanted paint it? Silver, Black or just leave it Red Oxide? Then I stumbled across an article that some guy did to his Deck bridge that struck a cord.
He used a product called "AK Interactive - Heavy Chipping Effects". From what I gathered it gave the same effect as the Hairspray method would, that being of chipped and peeling paint. His bridge looked very good so I thought I'd give it a go.

Instead of using the AK product, I decided to try the Hairspray method mixed with some Salt weathering.
I found a couple of El Cheapo Atlas Plate Girder bridges in my stash to be my Guinea Pigs.

The first thing I did was paint the bridge with Red Oxide, then I added a bit of Roof Brown to the Red Oxide for a shadowed rust around the ribs.

 

This was the effect after I removed the salt and scrubbed some of the black paint off with a brush and warm water.

 

Kind of a stark difference, so I grabbed some of my Pan Pastels to see if I could even things out a bit.



I'm pretty happy how these turned out, albeit I got a little too much brown over the black paint.
Damn, those Pan Pastels are strong! Much stronger than the Bragdon powders I've used before.

For more pictures and explanations of the process I used you can see it on the Blog...

I think I'm ready to attack the actual bridge!

[Bendtracker1]

I took a bit of a break from weathering the bridge and installed my guardrails.
I tried something new (for me).  Using PCB Ties I soldered my C55 guardrails to my Bridge Flex instead of using glue.  After chatting with a few members about attaching guardrails using different methods, I decided to try the PCB ties.  Took a little bit to get my coordination together, but I think it worked very good once I did. Very happy with this method, less messier than glue.......and not one melted tie!

I removed one tie on the flex, tinned the PCB tie with a nice pillow of solder and attached the tie to the rails.



Repeated this every 2"- 3" then I laid the first guardrail in place and attached it.



Repeated that again for the second guardrail.



Now I have to figure out how I want to the rails to come together without a short and fix them in place after I get the bridge installed.