I have just about finished what has been taking virtually all of my time recently! I now have a 6 foot trestle, and at one end of that a 4 foot Howe Truss bridge, These will with another aluminium bridge complete the extension.
It took rather a longer time than I anticipated but that is due to an excess of precipitation (even for the rainy Northwest!) that stopped play, as my large circular saw, that was the only thing to cut up the red cedar from and old greenhouse was being used for the 10 bent trestle and 2 bent bridge support at the end . The saw makes a great dwl of sawdust so I was using it outside in the garden; needless to say it was swiftly hidden in the shed when necessary.
The trestle is 6 feet long and the end has a pair for the Howe Truss to sit on. The bents are sat on a couple of layers of 8mm thick PVC foam sheet which is painted grey to represent concrete, and the whole thing has a bed of 10mm gravel, in a trench and a hidden soakaway underneath it: in today’s very heavy rain it worked perfectly – there was no surface water.
The Howe Truss bridge is made from my (lots of) 5mm PVC foam with tension rods from 2.4mm silicon bronze welding rods, sold in 1kg packs and I still have some left, it absorbed over a hundred brass nuts with half of those being soldered to the welding rods, the rest are glued on. Hidden underneath are a couple of square steel tubes from B&Q, that will provide some strength & stiffness. There are lots of fake scale nuts all over it that were individually added, having been made from plasticard and square tube with rod in the centre of the tube. It absorbed more than half a 750 ml can of paint.
Here are some photos of the pair, apologies for the mess in the garden: rain as usual is the main offender in not letting me tidy it up!
The little Porter is an LGB one with a scratch built tender with a couple of scratchbuilt wagons posed on the trestle.
Taken from the other side - the bridge has Hillman bridge clamps so it is instantly removable.
