I’ve been working on my pin and eyebar bridge for my Coquihalla canyon scene on and off for months. Much of it has been guesswork – the actual place (now a park) was closed for a while due to a rockslide that damaged one of the original bridge footings – and with guesswork comes mistakes. Details missed. And some things you just can’t figure out from pictures, like the width of the deck. Some things I deduced, but even then I didn’t trust my numbers, because you tend to remember things being much larger than they actually were. I was doing my best though, not having the opportunity to get into the field, and I think it was coming pretty close. However new photos, especially a few aerials from the talented photographer Andrea Coughlin, kept coming up with info that contradicted what I thought I knew. The eyebars that rise diagonally from bottom left to top right of each ‘panel’ in each truss I thought were oriented one way the whole length. Nope. Midway through the bridge on the 5th panel they switch directions. Also discovered that the east end of the bridge features lacework rather than eyebars, just like the west end. I still didn’t see anything that answered my question about whether there was any sort of reinforcement under the bridge deck where the rails would be. Along the way I was learning a lot about processes for creating such tiny parts. I discovered rather than installing all four bottom eyebars for each panel painstakingly with styrene (which loved to warp and get stuck to one another with glue), I could just cast them as one piece. I started thinking, man, if I had known all of this before, I could have been more consistent. In changing techniques on the fly, I ended up with bridge panels that were not even width, nor even height. The variation is slight and not that noticeable, except to me. And I am the one I am doing this for. Darn! I needed to get to the canyon
So I went back to Othello and I thought, okay, if I notice any more inconsistencies with this bridge, I’ll give a thought to doing a Version 2.0. Why not? Then I can apply all I learned. I eagerly measured the deck width, which in pictures seems quite wide, but in reality is a skimpy 12.5 feet across. I also discovered that the plate girder the ends of the ties rest on has another beam of some sort running parallel to it that the ties were also resting on. Oh, and that there is nothing beneath where the rails would be. Just the ties themselves, and the odd crossbeam. the ties are literally supported at their ends. That’s it! Wow. Those ties must be strong. The bridge is definitely kind of an odd design: most pin connected deck trusses I’ve seen have one truss per side, but this one has two. One gentleman speculated that it might be that the bridge, in being recycled from another location due to WWI steel shortages, might in fact have been double tracked in its original configuration, or perhaps had been longer, or two separate bridges. Interesting to contemplate, although I’m not sure why you’d need to combine two bridges in a space where you only needed one. Perhaps the Coquihalla canyon is one of those places where you want to put off repair and upgrades as long as possible?
I learned enough there to now proceed with redoing my model of bridge, which had progressed almost to the point of painting and joining the two double trusses. That’s okay, this will give me an opportunity to put into practice a lot of what I learned as I went the first time. And I can use my first attempt as a stand-in for the ultimate bridge, so I can finally get the scenery done in there.
One thing about the canyon – it never ceases to amaze me how utterly beyond description it is. Superlatives don’t cut it. It blows my mind early 20th century railroad builders managed to put a railway through here. With 19th century tools! Also each time I return I find new visual cues and features I end up adding to the model. I’ll probably be doing that forever, always working just another inch closer to perfection. I’m very pleased with how it’s come out so far – especially considering I had zero knowledge of modelling going in. I wanted the Coquihalla canyon in my office, and darn it, I think I may be close to having it!