Dan’s Train Blog

A photo of my planning model. Following Malcolm Fulrow’s San Juan Central, one of the return loops spans a deep canyon with a bridge that also completes 118 degrees of the loop.

Here we see the yawning gap where the bridge, river, and a canyon will be built. While I was cutting out roadway I carefully cut a piece of 1/2–inch plywood to be a template for the bridge. Below I’ve clamped it temporarily into place.

I’m building up my scenery from Styrofoam but I decided it would be nice to have a base to work up from so I cut a couple pieces of foam core board to fit the area. Before attaching to the frame I traced out where the underlying studs were and traced out an 8-inch wide semicircle where I would lay down plywood to be a firm footing for the bridge.

Using construction adhesive and drywall screws I attached the foam and the wood to the bench work and weighted everything down with books until the adhesive set.

Using the bridge template I can see that I’m really going to like how the is going to look.

Next step is to get the river and scenery roughed in. Below I’ve placed the planning model below the bridge template.