Vines Garden Railroad Bridge Repairs
Our garden railroad has several bridges along its right-of-ways. The largest is 25 foot steel modified Warren Truss Bridge across Vines Creek. This bridge carries all three of our mainlines over a gorge about 7 feet deep.
Warren Truss Bridge
Its original design had one right-of-way on a solid metal tray with squared tubes running along each side for added strength. This solid surface collected leaves and debris all the time. Since the span is longer than our arms and the gorge deeper than our height it was almost impossible to keep clean. In addition it was starting to rust.
Steel Tray for Bridge Right-of-way
The entire bridge was in need of cleaning and repainting. Engineer Dick Baylis volunteered for the job late this past summer. He climbed under and over the entire bridge (it will hold over 200 pounds) with wire brushes and sand paper to clean off old paint and rust. He then applied an undercoat and finally a nice new silver color top coat.
The solid tray was removed by a welder friend of Richard’s and L shaped steel guides were welded on each side of the track right-of-way. This allowed for open areas under the track and removed the collection of dead leaves that continually plagued our rail lines. The entire welding job was facilitated by a friendly neighbor who donated aluminum scaffolding we could leave across the gorge thus allowing us to work at eye level and not fall into the creek and get bitten by the snakes in there. The scaffolding also makes a nice short cut for us to reach track in that far corner of the layout.
When Rich and the welder removed the tray and the side pieces, they found wiring inside the square steel sides. This was cut and when all the new L pieces were in place, Norman Allum and Richard fed the wires through a 1 ½ inch PVC pipe and reconnected them. The PVC pipe was cut into smaller lengths allowing it easier to feed them thru. Each section was joined by couplings that were not glued so as to facilitate any repair of the wiring. The entire pipe had 45 degree angle coupling sections added to each end. These we faced down into the ground to make it look like a utility duct that is sometimes added to bridges. We then painted it gray.
In addition to the extensive work on the steel Warren Bridge, Richard also removed the two wooden truss bridges on the opposite side of the layout and cleaned them and water sealed their surfaces. This was done in conjunction with R.J. Deberg’s and Lawrence Mcfall’s realigning of the straight away along that side of the layout.
Richard Baylis - 4/4/09
JSE Designs, LLC