Seeing as bridges are a fun and interesting part of any layout, there is a section of my layout where I plan to install a double track/double bridge over a minor canyon and river area. However I was running into an issue finding abutments and a center pier that would suffice in appearance and fit, for the Rohukan double track bridges I will be using. I decided to see what in N-scale might be available and ran across these offerings made by Chooch. While these are specifically for N-scale, their appearance and dimensions will suffice quite well for Z-scale. There will have to be some additional material added to get the heighths correct on the ends, and there was one MAJOR dilemma I ran into. The piers that came as a set, were individually too narrow and did not look real underneath the double track bridge ends. What to do??? Seeing as I would only be using one of the piers, the only option I had was to splice the two together to make one longer unit. Seeing as these are cast resin, cutting them was easily done using my table mounted circular saw with a “multi-material blade”. Clamping each peer down and ensuring it did not move during the cutting process took a little finesse, but it was doable. Measurements taken and cut lines drawn. Here we have the two cut halves needed to make one longer pier. Using CA super glue, I joined the two halves together being careful to ensure the stone lines lined up on both sides. I have a large pail of All Purpose Joint Compound, used for drywall purposes, which I find it to be a tremendous filler from time to time. And it worked perfectly for filling the cut line where the two halves were joined. Before the compound fully set up I ran a stiff bristle brush back and forth in the direction of the rock lines. I was very pleased with the results. Sorry for the extra long posting. Final pics are below in the next installment.
Here are the final pics with the elongated single pier. Looks much better and more properly balanced with the abutments. As a final note, this was all done as a mock up. Obviously some leveling of the bridge and the abutments and pier will take place. Plus will do a final paint and weathering on the stone walls of the abutment and pier. Should get some fantastic results from that. Overall, I was so impressed with the quality of the final products and combined appearance, I thought it was worthy to share with everyone.
Nicely done. I am incorporating a Tomytec N scale bridge into a Z scale layout. I found I will need to do something similar to what you did. I need to splice bridge abutments together to get the correct width for the bridge but I'm using Z scale abutments so that the size of the cut stone still looks to be the right scale. I was visualizing doing what you did with cutting and splicing and repairing, so I'm glad to see it's possible to work well.
