Late August update: Drop girder bridge, dry creek bed

The first of the two drop girder bridge segments is now complete and in place next to the Warren truss bridge. It is 24 inches long (58 scale feet) and a second identical one will be placed on the other side of the truss bridge -- it was delayed as I had not purchased enough supplies to finish both. I think it looks absolutely perfect next to the truss bridge, especially now that they are now painted to match. The bricks, as I mentioned earlier, are just temporary supports and will eventually be replaced by concrete piers.



Here is a close-up showing the end cross section. Normally a drop girder bridge like this would consist of two long girders that were connected by multiple cross braces, not a solid top and bottom which is used here to provide more support for the weight of the train. So this bridge segment only looks realistic from the side view, which is what the viewer will see.


This was my first experience building with styrene which I found to be much more difficult to work with than wood. But in this case the styrene is significantly stronger, should be more durable, and provides far more detail than wood, so it is worth the effort for this bridge. For buildings, however, I'll probably stick to wood. The design and plan for this bridge came from John Morrison's 2012 PSGRS Clinic "Bridges: How to Build a Simple Span Using Styrene" (members can find this in the online PSGRS Library under the 2012 clinics).

Also this week I finished building the dry creek bed down slope to the fence line. Here's a photo of the work in progress as I was stockpiling rocks, some of which had a beautiful coat of moss. I wanted to use only rounded river rocks for this feature and was surprised by how many I was able to find as I was looking around the yard, many of which were overgrown with vegetation and long forgotten. Most of these rounded rocks originally came from the Nisqually River near Elbe.

Once I had boulders in place I created an even slope for the creek bed and then covered it using 7/8" river rock like I had used earlier. Note that I also put some more substantial supports on either side of the temporary bridge so that I could remove the middle PVC support which looked funny coming down right in the middle of the creek bed.


Here is a broader view showing the entire east end. I've decided to place my grain elevator, once I build it, next to the tangent on the right side of the photo.


And here's a picture of Alki checking out the trees in the new landscaping. Somewhere new to pee!


Dead mole. How can this little thing move up to 40 pounds of dirt in one night?