Sorry. Just showing off a little I guess. Bridge 1A is the bridge I am building right now. This is the first 20 feet of a 60 foot long bridge. I was thinking I will update my avitar periodically with photos of progress on the railroad. This bridge is based upon the RGS bridge practice - just scaled down to use dimensional lumber so it is fairly close yet maintains the look of the original.
I always prefered the RGS so I just decided to call my 2.5" to the foot scale railroad the "Rio Grande Southern of North Carolina." This railroad is to haul wood from down in our woods to the water wood stove which we run year round. I already have hauled loads on it. Works well for me.
I have RGS #20 in the barn that I REALLY need to get around to working on but I really wanted to get the bridge and engine house done first. I can build more track later... I have enough track in right now to move out enough wood for the winter.
Anyways, I wanted to get the end of the bridge up so I can build the abuttment and use the spoils from my digging the bridge footings as fill dirt. I'd rather move it one time and not have to shift a pile over and over. Extra dirt is heading to the engine house site and the lower end of the switchback down near the creek.
After this bridge is done it will allow me to offload materials directly from my trailer or the tractor into the gons so I can continue construction without throwing out my back. I need to move a lot of the cinderblocks and a BUNCH of the 80 lb bags of concrete to build the engine house. It's also easier to load the ballast from the trailer into the train instead of moving the rock in 5 gallon buckets down the hill to the Wood Spur. I still use the buckets to lay the subroad bed ahead of my track building. I can't get my tractor into these places because the hill is too steep, trees are too close together and SWMBO has gardens all over the place she'd kill me if I drove over them.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2007 11:27AM by Robert Herronen.
