Project 24 - Battledown Flyover #9 (Phase 2 and Dilemmas)

This phase was about making the brick pillars and walls for the bridge. These were constructed from 5 mm foam board with decorative paper overlays. What is missing are the wing walls. These will be constructed during phase 3 - Landscaping.

The white wall in the photo will be covered by an embankment.

Dramatic view of girders beneath the deck.
No rivets here as not normally viewed from this angle.

I have not yet found an effective way of permanently fixing the bridge deck to the walls as there is little contact between them. In fact, I am in two minds as to keeping it removable or fixed.

In the first posting of this series I pondered about integrating the bridge into my existing layout, or scrap all and create a new layout focused on the bridge, or make a static diorama of it. Somewhat late in the day I sketched plans.

Integration

Integrated Plan

My existing layout - Misterton, lies on the Waterloo to Exeter route that passes under the bridge. The Southampton lines (one of which passes over the bridge) need to join it to complete the circuit.

Points of concern.

• The bridge is much longer than I anticipated, being nearly 1 metre long, due to the skew. With 1 in 30 inclines; at least 2m at each end is required to get the track down to ground level. I fear this would encroach too much into the station layout
• The Down Southampton line curve is too tight and the line it is to join would still be on the embankment

To confirm my concerns I temporarily plonked the bridge on my Hewish Gates layout that it would replace and sure enough the inclines would encroach on Misterton Station. (Misterton is the other side of the short tunnel in the photo).

Scrap All and Create a New Layout

This creates an interesting arrangement that provides the round and round operation idea with sparse landscaping that I suggested in the first posting of this series.

The design requires crossover tracks that enables a train on the up Southampton line to cross over the bridge, run around and go under it. The down line stays at ground level. A good point is that in the vicinity of the bridge the trains always travel in the correct direction, as per prototype. Another good point is that the inclines have room to reach ground level before the crossovers.

Points of concern

• Curvature close to the bridge is not representative of the prototype
• Sparse landscaping makes for a boring model to view when trains are not running
• No storage tracks, unless run off tracks take us to an under layout storage yard
• Do I have the heart to rip up my highly detailed Misterton Station.

Diorama

Potentially a separate model, perhaps a shelf layout about 2 m x 0.5 m. This could accurately reflect the track layout of the prototype and the inclines pose no space limitation. 

Points of concern

• Operating potential extremely limited.
• I swore never to build another layout without scrapping one of the six already in the railway room, four of which cannot be operated in the room due to space constraint

Semi-Diorama

In this scenario the down Southampton line is omitted and the up line is a dead end. We have the advantage that Misterton Station is retained and we have the bridge scene with its flyover track layout and inclines being more prototypical.

Points of concern

• The two Storage tracks available at Hewish Gates are lost. Probably not critical as I also use an off layout storage cassette anyway
• Operating potential of the flyover extremely limited

This is looking like the best compromise but, I am taking a break to ponder further so, it will be a while before returning to this project.

There is an important lesson here and that is to plan the layout before making models to ensure everything will fit as you imagined.

To Part 10.

To Part 1.