Thanks!
Didn't get too much done yesterday, but what I did complete was important. I finished repairing the Schnabel car and it's now parted on a siding on the layout. I then made the end abutments for the deck plate bridge.
There's limited room on the right side to mount the faux abutment directly under the sub-roadbed. This area is congested with a riser and joist that's very close to the beginning of the bridge, so I mounted the abutment directly onto the joist. I just glued and clamped it. It's not going anywhere and supports the bridge well.
With the bridge firmly attached to the track with the cable ties, and the track firmly attached to the existing track, all I did was just push the abutment up firmly to the bridges fixed shoe and clamped it.
The left end had more room so here I held a piece of wood up to the bridge's fixed shoe and marked this height on a piece held vertically under the sub-roadbed, cut a piece of 2 X 4 to that height and tried it out. It was about a 1/16 too high so I trimmed it slightly with the chop saw. A piece of 1 X 3 cut to a length that extended past the fixed shoe the same amount as the right side finished it up.
I screwed and glued the 1 X 3 to the 2 X 4 and then glued this assembly under the sub-roadbed. It's been drying overnight and is very strong. Not shown in these pictures is the slight angle needed to adjust the angle of the abutment to the bridge. This whole process was harder to describe in words than it was to do.
With the abutments in place, this bridge is fully functional. I'm going to try to install the tower on top of the scenery-supporting aluminum screen. It would be easier than to try and cut the screen to fit around the "concrete" foundation. I don't think this extra thickness will cause a problem since the tower has a little bit of clearance under the bridge and the screen should close that.
Now it's onto the false abutments (Styrofoam with plaster?), and the rest of the ravine scenery under all the bridges. I'm still torn about doing all the scenic work with the bridges missing since with be much easier to do, but I can't run any trains with the bridges out. The deck trusses need to have their tracks jumpered to the adjoining tracks since I won't be able to insert their normal track pins and get them into position. Nothing flexes enough to do that. This means once the bridges are in place, they can't be removed.
