Another curved railroad bridge part 1

It often seems that on a small layout or on a module the track must make curves and if you want to have a bridge scene of any length some of the curve may need to go over the bridge as well.

On the Hot Springs Junction Ntrak module I had this situation on the AsiaNrail connection to the Ntrak mountain division track.  On that one I started with the sides cut from an old Atlas bridge and built a straight bridge wide enough to accommodate the slight curve.  A couple of posts from November of 2012 cover how I built this bridge.

For the rail bridge over the highway I again started with sides cut from old Atlas through girder bridges.  These were glued to a base of tempered hard board which was the same thickness as the cork road bed.  This would be a ballasted deck curved bridge made from two straight sections.

Each of the Atlas bridge sides had to be shortened.  I put the cut off ends in the middle and added a section of .080 x .030 styrene strip between to match the other ribs on the sides.

As this is a two section bridge, it would need support columns where the sections join.  For this I used a pair of used Rix bridge columns salvaged from past projects.

After some cleaning up I spliced the two together into a single unit with 4 columns to match the width of the bridge.  Styrene strip was added to the beam on each side to strengthen the splice.

In this photo the darker line is the center line of the track and the lighter line is the center line of the highway.  Holes were drilled into the module base for the bridge columns along the highway center line.

Here the bridge is set loosely in place on the support column structure.  Everything seems to fit fine and is ready for paint and maybe some weathering.

Second update on the new module

With the plan to do the layout in Sacramento in September progress on this module has been jump started.  This is what has been accomplished within the past few days.

Masonite fascia boards have been added on both sides and all exposed surfaces have been re-sealed with a primer coat.   With both ends being held straight for 5 inches, the bent stick method was used to mark the track center line.

Then the outside of the module frame was given a coat of black enamel.   Cork road bed was installed along the track center line.  The base of the bridge over the highway made was from a scrap of Masonite.

The bridge will be a two section through girder type on a curve.  To double check the clearances I temporarily pinned down some track and I used an 89 ft American passenger car which is longer than any of the stock that would run over this bridge.

I also ordered and received some Green Max retaining wall sections which are are the gray pieces shown set loosely in place in this photo.  Both the bridge and retaining walls will be covered in more detail in future posts.

AsiaNrail returning to Sacramento

My wife and I were in Japan during the time of the Hiller Trains and Planes show in March so I missed that setup of the AsiaNrail layout.  Then the Los Altos History Museum notified us that they will not be able to have the Train Days event this year because of construction so it looked like I might not get my AsiaNrail modules out at all this year.

Then came an invite to set up our AsiaNrail layout at the 39th annual National Narrow Gauge being held in Sacramento in early September.  It seems that technically we are narrow gauge as Japanese standard gauge for example is 1067mm.

This is a return to Sacramento for us as we had the layout there at the convention center for the National Train show in 2011.

A link to the convention website is HERE


The Narrow Gauge convention will be held at the Hilton Double Tree Hotel, 2001 West Point Way, Sacramento, CA.  It will be September 4-7, 2019.  So I will have all summer to finish the new module I have been working on and have it ready by then.

First update on the new module

Several things have been accomplished over the last week or so in the rebuilding of this module. The modification to the module that I started to give it a channel for a highway underpass is now complete.

The underside has been re-sealed with some left over paint and the aluminum brackets for the electrical connections pointed out here with the blue arrows are done.

I finished a new set of legs for this module.  This is a copy of the set I built for the first module last year and is covered in some detail in THIS POST.

These legs are adjustable to the 2 heights we set the layout up at.  Both sets are shown here with each being at a different height.

Starting the 2nd 45 degree module

I know I've been away from this blog for awhile working on my American Prototype home layout and also doing some traveling.  Over the course of this summer I will be rebuilding the second of the two 45 degree modules for the AsiaNrail layout.   These modules were originally built in the 1970's by Jim FitzGearld.  I rebuilt the first of these two modules last year and call it the Kaigan or Shoreline module as the scene I created is a shoreline.  The blog posts on it's re-construction can be see HERE.

This is what both modules looked like when I got them.  These were about 40 years old at that point.

As with the first module, I wanted to use the depth of the module frame to some effect so I decided to create a highway underpass.  In this photo the cuts have been made and base lowered for the highway.  More posts to follow as this project progresses.

Report from Train Days 2018

This past weekend we had an AsiaNrail layout setup for the 10th annual Los Altos Train Days event. As we have done before, the Peninsula Ntrak club also had a layout in the same room with the mountain division track on my Hot Springs Junction Ntrak module being one of the 5 branches of the AsiaNrail layout.

Here is an overall view of the AsiaNrail layout taken on Sunday morning before the show opened.  This layout was like a 4 point fork with the link to the Hot Springs module being the handle of the fork for a 5th branch.

With no connecting tracks to install the setup and tear down went more quickly.  We did have to play around in the beginning keeping the alignment of the rails whenever modules got bumped.  It seemed by late Saturday everything had settled in fine and we had no further derailments.

In past layouts with this configuration I had mounted the control panel on the front of the Hot Springs module but this time it got mounted on the back inside the Ntrak loop to keep the kids from messing with it.  One of the Ntrak guys would move the points when needed.

This photo is actually from the Hiller exhibit last spring but shows Paul's junction module which allows for two independent point to point operations or interchange.    For this layout one long point to point operation was between my Hot Springs and Mushahi-Koyama modules.

Besides Paul and myself, we had 4 other operators so a total crew of 6 which was just right for this setup. 

The public attendance was estimated by the museum to have been about 3,000.

Thanks to Junior Flores and Julia Jackson for letting me use some of their photos.

Update on the Kaigan module

I had wanted to test both the track and electrical interfaces on the new module with the Hot Springs Junction module.  When I was setting this up I realized that I had never installed the trolley poles on the small interface module and the scenery seemed a bit lite or faded compared the the main module.

So after a bit of work here is the view after adding a bit of greener scenery to the small interface module along with the trolley poles.

The track and electrical interfaces worked fine with repeated testing so this new module is ready for exhibit.

Last I had 1/4 inch Acrylic shields made for this module and attached to each side with 8-32 thumb screws.  These won't been needed in every layout setup but I wanted them for this next show as we won't have any rope barriers.