In Carlin there is a foot bridge over the rail yard and this is something I wanted to represent on the layout. Here is a Googlemaps photo of the prototype. There appears to have originally been more than the 4 tracks that pass under this bridge today but some have been removed. Because of compression of the scene my bridge will just span over the 4 tracks.
My bridge is going to end up being a bit different due to the need to compress things. The prototype has ramped ends but mine is going to be stairs. Also it looks as if the railing on the prototype are made of wood and my model is going to be all steel. The starting point is a Pola kit that I picked up last year at a local club's open house. This bridge only spans 1 or 2 tracks but that's OK as I can use the stairs and scratch built the rest.
This is how the foot bridge looks right now with the scratch built deck. Not so noticeable in this photo is a support tower near the middle that was left over from the Walthers glacier gravel kit. I have a few ideas for railings on the deck and will hopefully find something on my next hobby shop visit.
These stair towers were not quite tall enough for modern American rolling stock to clear underneath so they were placed on a base that gives them some extra height. I then tested all my tallest rolling stock for clearance and they all were OK. I also want this model to be removable from the layout so I made my normal pits for the stair tower bases and built up the scenery around them. The drilled a hole and glued in a couple of the small magnets I keep for this purpose. A thin piece of sheet steel was glued to the top of the base between the pair of towers on each assembly to interface with the magnets. This will be covered with scenery. The bridge deck is a separate assembly that will connect to the towers with clear styrene strips on each end that side into a space between the bottom of the tower deck and a horizontal beam.
