Many moons ago, someone gave Allan a monster Toblerone. I can’t remember whether he had to empty the box, but he thought that, with his interest in Swiss rail, it would make a rather good bridge – or at least a Temporary Bridge. You can tell this was a long time ago, as the best before date on the carton is 2012!!
Mr Atfield volunteered to convert this into an NCI module, and did the necessary work. However, when we tried it out, the rails seemed to be a bit out of level, and clamping it securely to the next module seemed tricky. So it was put aside until last year, when I rashly offered to see if I could fettle it a bit. Of course, I then broke that shoulder, so we fast forward to February 2025. In the meantime, the bridge box was used for other things, with some of the plastic aircraft that I built as part of my rehabilitation….
I decided to add cut down NCI module profiles, so that the bridge could not only have the standard locating dowels, but also could be bolted to adjacent modules. I had difficulty getting these fitted to the right level on the existing triangular ends, so I took a deep breath and went for the nuclear option. I carefully took up the track, took the ends out, and this also allowed the original T former to slide out.
The original packaging was a little flimsy, so I took the opportunity to slide stiffening pieces along the sides, and fitted new triangular ends that were a little larger and fitted better. The NCI profiles were glued to the ends at the right level before adding screws to hold it firmly (I hope) together. And it’s ready for the track.
Last year at Stuttgart, I bought a new style module end template. This is far better than the old ones, as it goes across the full width of the NCI module ends, and can be bolted to the template. Track was glued down. I find that having got the height correct, a straight Tracksetta gauge is better to align the ends than the brass NCI gauge. I took the opportunity to replace the original Peco code 80 with the NCI standard code 55. Again making it easier to get the track levels correct.
Wiring snuck up the end of the bridge. Held in by brute force and ignorance (superglue.)
A final test was to join the bridge up to one of my NCI modules that I know is reliable, having been linked to other’s modules in Stuttgart and at TINGS. All seems OK.
And here’s the final monstrosity. I’m looking forward to seeing it in action.
Now to move onto the next project – there’s a choice of many to be made!
esngblog 