Paving Done

I managed to "pave" the new girder bridge on our little garden railroad and it is looking pretty good!

I did one small section at a time.  First, I applied a rather thin coat (but not too thin) of waterproof exterior construction adhesive on a small section of the roadway.  I applied the adhesive thick enough to completely obscure the wood base.  Then I sprinkled fine sand over the adhesive.  Then I carefully pat the sand down with my hand...  then carefully and lightly brushed the sand until it was even...  then again carefully pat it down with my hand.  Then I would move on to the next section.  

The idea of using the waterproof exterior construction adhesive was two-fold...  First, I wanted to make sure the sand would stay in place in widely varying weather conditions.  Next, I wanted the adhesive to act as a sort of sealing coat protecting the wood underneath.  

Here is a photo looking straight down the roadway and across the bridge.  It certainly looks better than a bare wood roadway!

I tried to capture photos from different angles and different distances.  I have about six roadway vehicles to use as props....

This is a close-up of one of the three tracks crossing this roadway...

This next photo is very similar to the first photo, at top, but this time I'm looking down on the roadway making the paving sand more visible...

The sun was low in the sky shortly before sunset and it was illuminating the truss bridge nicely so I captured a photo to include here too even though this blog entry is really about the new girder bridge.  I had recently changed the terrain under this bridge about a month ago.  Now there is a dry riverbed underneath this bridge...

In this photo, below, you can see that the railroad tracks cross this road and then lead toward the truss bridge from left edge of image upward toward the center of the image...

I also installed the momentary push-button switch that will control the grade crossing signals.  In this location it is partially protected from the elements because it is under the roadway plus it is located right where these signals will be located.  The younger grandchildren will have easy access to this big push-button.

I still need to install the grade crossing signals and all the electronics that go with them.  Before I install them, however, I'd like to have a way to cover them to protect them from the elements when the railroad is not in use.  I'm thinking of using rigid foam insulation to make box-like covers that simply slide down over the signals.  

I also need to install street lamps on this bridge.  I have all the electronics already and the street lamps are painted and ready to go.  I haven't drilled the holes for the wiring just yet though.  I should probably make covers for these street lamps too.

On the other end of this bridge and roadway, I have two railroad crossing signs that I made that still need to be installed.  These signs are rather rough and I only hand-wrote the "railroad crossing" lettering but they still should look pretty good.  

Little by little, this new addition to the Kenzington Gardens garden railroad is coming along.