..on your layout. I've been looking forward to starting this project on my present day layout for a while. After starts and stalls, I've finally begun. Since I'll have few structures, mostly just industries served by the railroad, I needed something else to define time and place. Everything about this layout is intended to be in complete contrast to what I usually model( 1950's), building modern day highways seemed like the right way to go. Ironically, I could be modeling highways in 2008 that were built in the 50's...but I'm interested in the newer highway construction, massive concrete supports, large spans...speaking of spans, I'm no civil engineer but I'm fairly certain the web height of the beams in the pic above is terribly inadequate. It looks like it needs to be at least twice as high. I'll have to look into that. If anyone knows what the web height should be for a 70 foot span of four lane highway, please email me...otherwise I'll be dangling myself over an overpass on I-95 with a tape measure...I also need to add some concrete pads for the shoe plates to sit on...the concrete supports are made from actual concrete; anchor bolt cement. I read about this in a few articles by Lance Mindheim. In it he cast concrete culverts and loading docks. He didn't paint them as the color was already that of concrete, it looked great.
Mine however must be a different brand and dried a dark, gray- green color, so I painted it with a concrete color paint(Woodland Scenics Concrete), dry brushed it with white and added graffiti and paint outs; attempts to cover up the graffiti...even though I wasn't able to get that real concrete color from the real concerete, it certainly has the right texture. I built the molds using pick rigid foam insualtion, glued up with a glue gun. The foam has a slight texture and can be carved to show expansion joints.
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