One of my favourite spots for railfanning was the footbridge adjacent to the Ballarat East Locomotive Depot. This bridge provides a pedestrian link between Dyte Parade and Scott Parade. Its made out of an old Hornby footbridge, with Evengreen styrene L angle, old rail and brass wire.
The Hornby footbridge features lattice work similar to the bridge at Ballarat East. The Hornby model has one of the staircases orientated at 90 degrees to the bridge section across the railway tracks and has two landings which needed to be removed. The Ballarat East footbridge is slightly longer crossing three tracks (Up and Down mainline and the Eureka branchline), but the staircases are shorter as the bridge is situated over a cutting.
L angle (291) and strips of 20thou styrene was used to produce the side bracing and structure above the lattice work. Luckily I have quite a few photos of the bridge to refer to as the bracing isn't uniform across the footbridge.
The lattice work for the section of the bridge with the steps had to be produced from the curved section of the Hornby bridge. This was carefully cut with a scalpel and then inserted between the handrails.
The post and supports were produced from old rail and brass wire. The concrete footings is made from thick cardboard
There are still a few details to add to the bridge but I'm happy with the result as it captures the features of the prototype.
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