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Ballykay

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As most of you know to enter my layout room I had 2 draw bridges on which the lower and upper decks ran across. I wanted to put a bridge and river on the lower section, but I couldn't do this and keep the lower drawbridge as when I would lift it the bridge would not clear the upper deck, so I decided to make a lift out module.

 

The module is built on an MDF board and the bridge piers are made of plaster and resin. To make the river I painted the base board black. Then I poured on a light coat of resin. Once this had dried I carefully placed my scatter to represent weeds, I then poured on a thicker coat of resin to give the appearance of some depth in the water. Several coats of varnish later and you can see the results below. As this is a lift out section to get power to the track I used a set of VW Transporter spring door pins. Once the section is locked in place it all pulls down and the pins push into the connector plates giving power to the track. To finish everything off an ID backscene was glued to some plywood and screwed to the back of the base board.

 

 

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Edited by Anthony
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Wow! What's the secret on the water Anthony - it's amazing!

 

Lots of resin and varnish. Paint the board black then put a layer of resin down let it dry. Then put some scatter down and more resin keep repeating the process until you get the look of depth you want. Then finish of with a couple of coats of wood gloss varnish. Make sure you do all this before you put your grass etc on your banks as it will only act like a sponge and start to soak up the resin and varnish

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The scenic water/grass/weeds/algae/Retaining walls etc... look the business :) Plus some very impressive work on the viaduct it must be said. Rail bridges are of particular interest to me so it's great to see them included on someones layout. More of that sort of thing please. Where did you source the viaduct? Scratch built or bought? Top stuff Anthony.

Regards Tom.

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Tom it's 2 airfix bridges joined together with some plasticard lengths and angles the bottom section is plastic channel from B&Q with an 8mm MDF trackbed. I'm not well up on bridges but looking at videos truss bridges don't seem to have any ballast on them so I need to do a little more research to see what I can do around the track bed. Maybe some channel running along side the sleepers to make it look like that's holding the track in place. Any ideas anyone.

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Im open to be corrected on this but I think the railway over-bridge on the Lower Glanmire road in Cork city may have a ballast deck. Even tough it has a steel truss structure supporting it as well.

The Ballyvoyle viaduct is similar, albiet with a different supporting structure i.e. Concrete Pier + Steel truss + ballast deck (probably a way of taking account of the curve and super elevation of the track).

It does make the Prototype very very heavy, requiring a massive supporting structure underneath. But for a model, simplifies things big time :)

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Glad you came up with a solution Anthony - the VW Transporter spring door pin was certainly out of 'Left Field'.

The bridge pillars look the part along with the water and plants. How do you lock it down to ensure smooth running across the gaps?

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