I was on the phone with my friend Jim at "Bridgeboss" discussing a couple of projects I was working on. I called him because I thought he might have spare pieces that I could use for the projects I was thinking about doing. Lo and behold, as we were talking he mentioned that he had a pile of "stuff" that I might be able to use. I asked him to send some pictures....well....the next thing that happened is that we made a deal!! A few days later the package arrived with all kinds of cut off parts and spares that either Jim never used or were left over from his layout that he didn't use. Within the "mess of parts" were some elevated bridge work beams that had been assembled and were obviously experimental parts that Jim must have rejected in favor of what has become his current elevated subway system. Anyway, this bridge work gave me an idea that I had thought about a long time ago but I had not seriously tackled. Now I had the beginning of a new project to build a signal bridge for the many tracks going into the large passenger train shed, which by the way, was a joint project several years ago between Jim and me.
Now came the next step....I always liked the size and looks of the Plasticville/Bachmann signal bridge but especially the signal heads/masts. I decided I would use their signals but did not have enough to do the two signal bridges I planned to build so off to the OGR "wanted" forum i went!! I posted a picture of the Bachmann signal heads for which I was looking and almost immediately members Bob Bartizek (The Pennsylvania & Western RR) and Dr. Bob Glorioso (RRDOC here on the forum) came to the rescue. Bob B. sent enough signal heads and even some hangers for which I was in need and Bob G. sent enough signal lenses so that between these two guys, I had enough signals/lenses to complete the project as envisioned!! Better yet, even though I offered to pay, neither of the "Bobs" would accept payment and even paid shipping to get these parts to me!! What a great gesture and shows how this forum can bring folks together through acts of kindness like this. Thank you so much to both of my "Bobs"!!
OK..so now the project was fairly straight forward. I wanted to mount the first signal bridge out of the way and just inside of the opening to the shed. There will be two of the signal bridges, the second one will be mounted at the other end of the passenger yard. I took some of the cut off I-beams Jim sent and made two hangers on either side of the shed walls so that the signal bridge would have a place to mount just inside of the entrance to the shed. Once that was done, I then got to work on the bridge itself. The first thing I did was to make a walkway for the top of the bridge structure. I did this using black foam core gluing it with white glue to the cross members of the bridge. Next came the safety railing. For this I measured and cut 1/4 scale Plastruct hand rail and glued it to the sides of the foam core. The next step was to mount the hangers for the signal masts/heads and that is when a miracle occurred!! As it turned out, the thickness of the bridge girder matched perfectly with the hanger so that the hangers did not need to be modified....just snapped them over the girder and slipped the mast heads in, and I had the project done except for paint. I painted the assembly a flat black, mounted it into the opening of the shed, installed an access ladder (pull down of course) and my project was finished. I plan to later illuminate the lenses with small LEDs but for now, I am enjoying a nice addition to my passenger operations. The last three pictures show early morning shots of the sun illuminating the lenses...I hope you enjoy the pictures and I certainly appreciate you taking the time to look and comment....and as always, if you right click a picture and then click on "open link in new window", you will get a huge detailed shot. Thanks again to Bob and Bob!!
Alan
