The block between West 26th and 27th Street West of Tenth Avenue was not on my initial list of locations to consider for my Westside Railroad layout. That was until I came across a fascinating archive photo during my research. The photo from 1939 or 1940 was taken from the corner of Tenth Avenue and […]
Tenth Avenue and West 27th Street Read More »
I couldn’t wait building my first structure for my new New York Central Westside Railroad project. By now I had gathered enough experience with scratch-building structures that gave me the confidence to dive into a bigger and more complex project. I planned to make the Terminal Warehouse a signature building on my layout so it
If The Terminal Warehouse Were Built on 10th Avenue Read More »
Ever since I had finished my CNJ Bronx Terminal layout, I was playing with the idea for adding a complementary section with the CNJ’s extension yard on the NW side of Third Avenue Bridge. The plan has never materialized as I would have simply no space for another layout. It would be even bigger than
Reaching Beyond the Bridge Read More »
You don’t normally connect something to your layout – you build it for your layout so that it fits! That’s not how it worked this time for the swing bridge segment of my Third Avenue Bridge, however. First of all, it was mostly outside of my original layout. Second, with a pre-pandemic plan to move
Connecting the Swing Bridge to my Bronx Terminal Layout Read More »
After nine months of design, experimentation, and construction, my bridge project is finally coming to an end. Time for allowing myself more distractions. My recent acquisition of a Beamo laser cutter was another reason to try out new ideas. I didn’t have to look far for a new project, though. I now had the Bruckner
The J.L. Mott Iron Works Building Read More »
Having spent a lot of time on designing the trusses, deck, swing structure etc. the bridge’s complexity kept growing. But the more I added, the more I realized that still a lot of details had to be added. The pedestrian walkways on Third Avenue Bridge were not really part of the bridge’s core. Existing high
Third Avenue Swing Bridge – Finishing Touch Read More »
The Third Avenue is a swing bridge just like several of the other bridges over the Harlem River. To stay close to the prototype, I decided to build a structure on the center swing pier that would be both realistic and functional. Again, I had several photos of the original bridge plus some more detailed
A Bridge Model that Swings Read More »
Adding Detail to the Trusses It took me two weeks to review my design of the Third Avenue swing bridge span and to create the vector graphics files for the additional details. And cutting the files on their 60W laser wasn’t a top priority of my laser cutting service during Covid-19 times. But when I
More Swing Span Details Read More »
This is a blog contribution that comes almost three years late. In my first blog about the Third Avenue Bridge model, I left open the entire access ramp to the bridge abutment. That’s about a 2′ section on my CNJ Bronx Terminal layout. I built and completed the ramp over time and it now enhances
A Bridge in Pieces – Part 2 Read More »
The section of the Third Avenue Bridge that was within my layout perimeter was completed a long time ago. I could have left it with that, a girder bridge ending on the eastern rest pier of the swing bridge. Modeling the complex web of a truss bridge was out of reach for me. After my