Adap(ol)tations

There are a few things in the railway modelling scene which defy their age, and some of them are in the old Kitmaster range of injection moulded plastic kits.

Despite its longevity I reckon the footbridge kit is still up there as one of the user-friendly and adaptable you can get.

I first knew it when it was branded as part of the Airfix range, and these days it's under the Dapol banner, and we had one on our large OO gauge layout in the loft.

It was the obvious choice for me to use at the station on the 'test track' because I needed something that wasn't standard sized and could be kit-bashed to link platforms at different heights on the standard and narrow gauge.

As luck would have it I found one in a bargain bucket at the Kyle MRC show in Troon on Saturday where the Greenock club were exhibiting their small Banffshire terminus layout Inverboyndie.

The first change I made was to cut out one of the sections on the upper set of stairs, because if you mount it on a platform the deck of the bridge is so high it would give the passengers vertigo!

The second, more involved, alteration, was to insert an extra segment into the deck to stretch it to the length I needed.

This classic kit has always come with the option of a plain sheet section in the middle, which could be used as an advertising hoarding, but I've never been convinced that it looks very prototypical (although  I'm sure somebody will prove me wrong) so I prefer to have another cross-brace section.

With no spare parts available in the kit I rooted about in my diminishing stock of Evergreen strip and found some stuff that was roughly the same dimensions, and knocked up something that could be used as a master to cast pieces to be inserted between the two halves.

Being slightly impatient, and keen to get the job finished in a day, I made up some RTV rubber with a generous dosage of catalyst which meant the mould was set within a couple of hours and I could quickly cast my two copies with the last dregs of resin I have available.

With that done the first section of the bridge is complete.  Now I need to buy a second kit (probably at full price on the web) to complete the second half stretching across to the NG tracks.