- The Hermosa Creek Bridge was built by the D&RG Railroad around 1881. It is located at milepost 462.42 just 8 miles North of Durango, Colorado. This style of bridge is a Howe Truss type and could be easily constructed using locally available materials. These bridges were usually less than 60 feet in length and used to span small creeks and ditches. Today it is used by the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge RR. Hermosa Creek, flows through the Hermosa Valley to its confluence with the Animas River. Here is a photo of the bridge as it looks today that I used for color samples when mixing my wood stain.
- I collect every last little piece of sawdust, shavings, ground foam, etc. from my workbench and the floor below, and throw it into a container called “ground cover”. Eventually this material will form the forest floor in my lumber camp area on the layout. I will process some of it through a second hand blender I bought at Goodwill to make some finely ground material.
- The instructions show four laminated beams (labeled “stringers” in the photo below). These run under the bridge, and form the main support for everything. Each of these beams is composed of three pieces of wood. Since they would be glued together, I decided to just roughen the edges that would show. To keep things organized for myself, I labeled the three pieces for each beam as “O” (outside), “C” (center) and another “O” (outside) piece. The letters would wind up on the inside of the lamination, so I wasn’t concerned about them showing at this point.
- The next step in the construction is to stain the wooden parts. I had never stained wood using leather dyes, diluted with isopropyl alcohol, so I decided to try it. I bought three colors at my local Tandy Leather store, and a bottle of alcohol at Walgreens. I really like the results, and the application goes very swiftly. I have used enamel paints and solvents before, and I’ve even done water-based paints (although that isn’t recommended because of the warping they can cause), but I really like this leather dye method the best. This picture also shows the Euro Gray Model Master enamel and thinner I used for the second, weathering, wash that I gave the wood.
- I mixed the stain using an old cashew can because it has a good tight lid, and I can save the left over stain. I added Fiebing’s Mahogany dye with an eyedropper to the isopropyl alcohol until I got a color and consistency I thought I would like. I tried out the various proportions on a spare piece of basswood. (Update: Since then I have taken to storing these stains in plastic or glass containers, because they rust metal parts)
- I left the three-piece stringer beams clamped together through the dying and weathering processes, moving the clamps to brush under them. Here you can also see the dye color having started to change to brown. Compare this photo with the prototype picture at the start of this article. If I need the wood to lighten further when I am all done, I will brush on some of the Bragdon weathering powders I used on my logging flatcars.
- Several days have now passed, and the basswood parts have had ample time to dry. Since they have now lost their color-coded ends to the stain, I put them back into their original bags to keep them well organized. I have been collecting various small containers for several months; I knew they would come in handy for lots of things.
- I wanted to weight this assembly and set it aside for a while, so I looked over the instructions for steps I could do while I waited for the bridge deck to dry. The top pieces for the deck side assemblies consist of three pieces laminated together. These pieces are pre-cut, and the stain was nice and dry, so I glued them together next
- Then I looked for more things to do. The bridge retaining walls, which help support each end of the bridge, and keep the ground from washing away, are completely independent structures, so I decided to tackle them. There is another nice full scale template to use in building these parts.
- There are two small styrene plastic strips on each retaining wall that represent metal bands that hold the boards together. The template shows a series of small holes, or indentations representing bolts in these, so I used my new pin vice, which came with some incredibly tiny drill bits, to make these miniscule dots in the styrene.
- Once I was finished, I painted the strips flat black, and glued them on with a small amount of CA adhesive. I think the results look pretty good. (Update: I have since taken to embossing plastic strips like these from the back side with the point of a small file so the detail is convex, not concave)
- Another new trick I am trying is the use of Minwax stain pens for quick touch-ups on cut surfaces. I had purchased one in “dark oak”, and the color looked pretty close to the stain I had used. This method goes so much faster than wetting a brush in the original stain, and then having to clean it all up for such small work.
- As I mentioned at the start of the article, this kit comes with some amazingly small and well-detailed plastic castings to represent bolts, nuts and washers. Each one comes with about an eighth of an inch stem, so I used my pin vice to drill small holes into which I could insert them, picking them up with a tweezers.
- I debated about using CA adhesive to secure these. It seemed to me that whatever glue I used was going to get on the surface of the beams. I finally decided to try some Woodland Scenics adhesive. It’s a fairly dilute white glue that leaves very little evidence of where you have used it. I applied a tiny drop of it with the NBW castings already in place, and this little drop was pulled into the hole, around the bolt, by capillary action. Since the adhesive is water based, it caused the hole to swell tight around the casting, holding it as secure as I could possibly have hoped for. In less than a minute, all evidence of the glue had disappeared. (Update: I have since gone to using Aleene’s Tacky Glue for this application.)
- Next, I tried brushing on some of the Bragdon powders I had used on the logging flatcar project. I need to get a Colorado dusty beige, because I think the light rust that I used doesn’t look as appropriate on the bridge as it does on rolling stock. I might just lightly spray the whole bridge with light beige when I’m finished, to bring out the highlights and shadows.
- The deck was dry enough that I could turn my attention back to it. The next step with the deck was to remove it from the masking tape, turn it over, and glue on two guard rails. After these were in place, an even smaller set of NBW castings had to be positioned along the tops of the guard rails. In the picture you can see these in place on one guard rail
- I’m having a lot of fun with this kit, and building it will teach me how to scratch-build these structures in the future. One thing the DD&SRR will have a lot of will be bridges. I love to see a train crossing a bridge almost as much as I love to see it coming out of a tunnel, or negotiating the side of a steep mountain. Fortunately, my prototype, the D&RGW, had a wonderful variety of bridges along its various routes. I’ll have the opportunity to create almost every type of railroad bridge there is or was. Before spiking the rails to the bridge deck, I weathered them with Micro-Engineering’s Rail Weathering Solution. This stuff is actually an acid that causes the rail to oxidize at a rapid rate, and produces a perfect look, without paint.
- Some pretty precise cutting is called for at this stage of the game, so I worked carefully, and made sure that everything fit well before I glued it. The instructions called for the plan to be covered with wax paper to keep the glue off of it, but not having any of that, I was just very careful with the glue
- The tension rods have to be cut to just the right length; that is, a little shorter than the distance between the top of the bridge and the bottom of the lower stringer, because there has to be room on top to insert an NBW casting in the same hole drilled for the tension rod. The instructions suggest not putting NBW castings underneath the bridge, and in fact, the kit does not provide enough of that size to do the bottom.
- Here you can see a couple of minor fixes I had to deal with. After roughing up the basswood and staining it, it may take on a kind of “hairy” look, but that’s easily dealt corrected with a little light sanding. In drilling the holes for the tension rods, I created a few unstained places in the wood, but I’ll touch these with my stain pen, and they will disappear.
- Once the sides were completed, I had to tackle the scariest part of the job. The ends of some of the ties have to be cut off at an angle to allow the bridge sides to slip into place. Sometimes the amount of tie remaining after the angle cut wasn’t worth keeping, and I had to completely remove the end of it.
- It’s really starting to take shape now. At this stage of the project you start to feel so thankful that you didn’t rush in the beginning. The instructions say that the average modeler can finish this project in a few evenings; the professional in just a few hours. Well, I spent the better part of two weeks, but I’m not sorry. Patience and careful work does pay off!
- One feature of the actual bridge not included in the kit is the milepost sign. The D&RGW marked their mileposts from Denver, and the little sign on the end of the bridge is just that. I set my computer to print it out in font size #5, marked a little line around it with my fine tipped permanent marker, and cut it out. That diagonal end beam on the bridge is only 3/8 of an inch wide, so these little signs are in the neighborhood of ¼ inch wide!
PS. When I initially completed this article, I sent a copy to the owner of Goldline Models, who made the kit. I was pleasantly surprised when he wrote back to me, saying that I had used several techniques he had never seen before, and was considering incorporating some of them in his next printing of the model’s instructions. This is his response:
Hi Mark,
Thanks for sending your play-by-play of the build. It looks like you were able to build with very few problems. I originally designed
this kit in 1981 after a Colorado trip I made the year before. Your two prototype photos are almost exactly the same as the ones I used to
design the kit. Little has changed in 30 years.
The instructions have been revised several times and some of the materials changed a couple times, resulting in re-writes. But the kit
has stood the test of time. The original version was released under the company name “Crummy Products”, then under “Trains-of-Texas” and finally
under “Goldline Products” label in 1989. Under Goldline the packaging was changed to paper mailing tubes, from the original poly bags used
from the beginning. The kit was introduced for sale at the 2nd National Narrow Gauge Convention in Denver. The rest is history. So
much for memory lane…
Let me know when you get your website running and I will consider linking to it from my site. I found some of your methods and suggestions
interesting and could be helpful to others.
Thanks again…John
John W. Lloyd
Electronics Curmudgeon*
Goldline Products
P.O.Box 516
Jamestown, CA. 95327
jwlloyd@caltel.com
(209)-984-4450
where did you get drawings, i am looking to model this in 2.5″ scale
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Can you tell me who did your layout? I’ve been looking for one kind of like yours. Thank you.
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