New County Bridge Erected Over Little John Creek

Stockton Daily Independent - July 2, 1895

The new steel bridge now spans the normally-dry Little John Creek. The abutments are what was left after cutting the Chooch ones used on the railroad bridge in the background.

Yesterday, the new bridge over Little John Creek was dedicated and opened to traffic. Residents of the area are overjoyed at the prospect of regaining their connection to Farmington after the collapse the wooden bridge 16 months ago. Winning contractors for the project were the Cotton Brothers of Oakland, a well-known construction firm.
   
 

Farmers can now get their produce to the packers in Farmington. You can barely make out the builder's plate on the arch at the center of  the bridge. The device at the far right is a scissors phone used by crews during operation to OS their trains.

 In other words, I finally finished my bridge project and got it mounted on the railroad. As mentioned in my  previous post here, the bridge has been a 30-year project (sort of) and I am pleased that it is finished. It is very delicate due to its almost-scale sized components and I will probably erect a clear plastic barrier so I don't get my shirt cuffs entangled in the bridge and a cause of collapse.
   

A farmer on his way to Farmington crosses the new bridge. Although it is satisfactory for normal wagon traffic, one wonders how it will fare if the new "horseless carriages" catch on.

 My method of lacing the girders using laser-cut pieces worked out well. Although you can't see it very well in photos, I placed a builder's plate on the arch over each end of the bridge. It is a photograph of the original Cotton Brothers plate found on the prototype. Most people will probably not notice it but I know it is there.

New Bridge for Little John Creek Under Construction

Deer Creek bridge in California shows its age. It was built in 1898 by the Cotton Brothers of Oakland, CA for the wagon trade. My first sight of the bridge came in 1972 when I crossed it in the back of a Model T Ford.

 The last couple of months have been rather enjoyable, hectic and disappointing, all at the same time. First, as most of you know, the NMRA National Convention was in Kansas City during the first part of August. It was enjoyable for me to see a number of old friends and to meet some new ones as well. I gave a clinic on tuning steam locomotive mechanisms and modeling the nineteenth century using modern methods. Both were well-attended and received.
     The hectic part running back and forth from home to the convention hotel because each clinic presentation was on a different day. One day, I had two busloads of conventioneers go through the layout followed by a number of Layout Design Sig folks on a special tour. On top of that, I hosted two operating sessions for the Operations Sig group. There were also dinners and then the National Train Show on the Weekend. All of great fun but I was glad to get back to a more restless pace of life.
     Disappointment reared  its head when I tried to get a couple of projects done. The first is an interlocking which will control the Central Pacific/S&C diamond at Stockton. I was on a roll, got the circuitry wired and came up one semaphore base short. That project went on hold pending arrival of a new part.
   

The girders were made from styrene channel held together with laser-cut lacing. Tension rods along the bottom of the bridge are more laser-cut pieces reinforced by brass strips. A wood deck roadway will cover the stringers after painting.

 Enjoyment, however returned when I started building a steel wagon bridge based on a prototype bridge I had measured about 30 years ago. It still stands outside of Grass Valley, California but the road no longer goes over it having been rerouted. I have been putting off modeling it because it is of very light construction and I wasn't quite sure how to model the laced girders to scale. This problem was finally solved with the arrival of my laser cutter which allowed me to cut the lacing I needed.
   

The intricate lacing which makes up the arch is all laser-cut. The reinforcements around the edges are of styrene. 

As the photos show, it's mostly styrene with some brass strips and rod. It's turning out so delicate that I think I should put a clear plastic box around it to protect it from injury. It's ready for paint in the next couple of days and then I'm off to the annual Virginia and Truckee Railroad Historical Society meeting in Carson City, Nevada. It's always a fun few days. The weekend after that will find me in Atlanta for an  operating weekend called Dixie Rails. I've never been and am looking forward to it.

Little John Creek Bridged!

The bridge at Little John Creek is supported by stone abutments with the scenery roughed in around the bridge.

At long last, Little John Creek has been bridged. Just south of Farmington,

this water course is crossed by the Copperopolis Road. Up until now, the crossing has just been a piece of 3/4" plywood. I had been planning to install a cast iron Phoenix-style bridge but hadn't quite figured out how to make the Phoenix columns.
     The prototype columns were constructed with four pieces of cast iron, each formed in a quarter circle. Flanges were then riveted together to form a hollow tube. I ended up by using a styrene tube with .020x.020 styrene strips glued around it. With the size of the tube and the distance from the viewer, you just don't see whether or not there are rivets. The rest of the bridge was constructed with other strips and shapes of styrene. To build something similar, see Jim Vail's article in the May/June 2001  Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette. I used Jim's article plus drawings for a similar bridge in the California State Railroad Museum.

     To facilitate track cleaning and eventual scenery, I decided to make the top part of the bridge separate from the track-bearing portion and removable. The trusses themselves were made using a jig to ensure that the two sides were alike. Chooch stone bridge abutments were used but had their height and width cut down to match the location and bridge. They were then colored with acrylic paint to match the colors of other stonework in the area where my railroad ran.
     The bottom part was eventually glued to styrene bridge shoes and to the abutments. The plywood temporary bridge was then cut out beneath the track and the roadbed and ties removed so all that was left were the rails. The rails were then coated with Barge cement on their undersides. Wooden wedges made from construction shims were coated with white glue and slide under the abutments gradually lifting them until the rails just touched the bridge ties. They were left to dry and then a small heated iron was used on the rails to melt and the glue and bond the rails to the ties.

The abutments are in place with the bottom part of the bridge lying in place beneath the rails.

Glue-coated wedges allowed the abutments to gradually be slipped beneath the rails. The excess parts of the strips were sawn off after the glue dried.

     Typical scenery forms made from cardboard strips overlaid by kraft paper forms the basis of the adjacent hillsides and riverbed. Eventually, plaster cloth will be added to form a hard shell.