Crossing the line

 

My model of Princes Risborough footbridge seen from under the canopies. I also built the canopies and the station buildings... but for now, I'll stick to the footbridge!

Luckily, my customer had all the official GWR plans for the station, although the footbridge wasn't included. No matter, I had some good reference from books and various online photography sites, so there was plenty to go on.

I started off by making each side support structure for the steps from layers of card. I gave all four of these a quick coat of cream acrylic paint, although it helped that the card I had used was a sort of GWR stone colour to start with.

The steps were made from a number of unmade Hornby footbridge kits that had languished in the scrapbox for about ten years... I didn't like the plastic the railings were made of, although the steps and the stanchions were of a different formulation.

I think this one is RO76. It was a lot cheaper than the twenty quid it costs today! The steps needed cutting and filing, but luckily seemed about the correct pitch. The roof was attached with some wood strip stanchions and an assembly was fixed up to support the roof and the valances. This was a bit tricky.

The supports for the landings was put together from styrene rod and strip.

You can see here that the stairs are ready to attach to the main span. I gave them one last coat with Humbrol acrylic and the colour settled well into the card. In the shot above, you can see the main span to the right. At this stage I also made the supports from the track to the underside of the walkway, fashioned from styrene strip. I had to guess at the height, as it was the one measurement I had forgotten to take from my customer's layout. I needn't have worried, everything was perfect  (phew!) I meant that to happen, obviously...:-)

The roof was from Wills corrugated iron, fixed on after I had installed the valances which were from my own etches. I was also building the station buildings with their multuitude of canopies windows and doors so I had quite a big order in with PPD at Lochgilphead. The main span had a floor of brass sheet, with small "L" sections soldered on at each side to keep things rigid.

Here is the footbridge all assembled on my workbench. I gave the structure a very, very light weathering with some gunmetal and rust colour, but not too much. My customer was keen on the glory days of the GWR where no dirt, apparently, ever stuck to anything. I don't think things look real without evidence of weathering, so I just about got away with that one...