| Give Your Raised Railroad a Facelift
In the winter of 2002-2003, I installed a raised portion of my garden railroad, doubling the length of my right-of-way. I used the 2"x6" stringers on 4"x4" post method described in our  "Building a Simple Raised Railroad" article. I was thinking at the time about putting trestles or some such under the 2"x6"s to make them look a little less dorky. After all, we were going to have a bunch of convention visitors in 2003, and I wanted to impress them.
Then in the spring of 2003, two trees fell on our railroad, setting our projects back a little, to put it nicely. I "finished" the raised portion of the railroad by spraying it heavily with gray primer, and that's the way it's been "decorated" ever since. By the way, you generally have to wait at least a year before paint will even stick to pressure-treated lumber - the "treatment" takes a while to dry out.
 Mechanically, it's still working great, but I have to confess that the gray primer has separated from the lumber over the intervening years. I could keep repainting it, but I wanted to try something a little nicer for my next open railroad.
In 2015, Colorado Model Structures introduced through and deck plate bridge sides that are ideal for dressing up raised 2"x6"s like mine. So I ordered a few just to try them out. I installed them quickly in cooling weather ahead of our Christmas-themed open railroad.
Now I have to order some more, but I wanted to post my early results as soon as possible.
 How They Come
The Colorado Model Structures mold has both the deck and through plates. If you know you're going to need a couple of each, it's cheaper to order them together, as the photo shows. The "sprues" connecting the two pieces fasten to the bottom edge of each piece, so unless you're going to have these way up in the air, you can just snap them off with pliers.
The "through" girder is 18 13/16" long, 4 13/16" in high, and 3/8" deep. "Through" bridges are generally used only when you need clearance underneath them, as shown in the photos further down.
The "deck" girder is 18 13/16" long, 3 3/4" in high, and 3/8" deep. They are a very nice size for camouflaging the edges of 2"x6" stringers, as you'll see. I ordered four sets, which gives me all the "through" girders I expect to need for a while. But once I got to using the deck girders, I realized that I could use several more to really "dress things up."
Ready For Painting
After I snapped the pieces apart, I wiped them clean with Fantastic, and made sure to wipe all the residue off. This removes the mold-release agent from the manufacturing processes and makes certain no greasy fingerprints will keep the paint from sticking. In the photo, you can also see the "stone texture" paint I bought to spray on the upright 4"x4" posts.
 Painting
As it turned out, it was almost too cool and windy to spray paint. Again, it was October and I was prepping for a November open house, so this time of year you work with what you have. The photo to the right shows the backs being painted first. Red primer is always useful in this sort of endeavor.
My favorite prototypes, including the PRR, usually painted their deck and through bridges "red." Other railroads used other colors, including black and gray. Even if you want your bridges to be gray, you need to paint them to protect the plastic from UF eventually breaking it down.
 You can probably tell that I use old milk cartons to paint stuff on. The house we bought had been owned by a businessman who left all sorts of clutter in the back yard. The milk cartons were the only useful part of it, though. They are very handy for spray-painting. Believe it or not, the pieces are the same color on the front and back. There was just more cloud cover during one of the photos.
 I included a closeup after painting so you could get a good look at the detail of the pieces. Colorado Model Structures tends to make things appropriate for 1:24 scale. These seem like they would work better with Narrow Gauge trains because of the height, etc. But they still look better with my 1:29 trains than naked boards.
Attaching
When I installed the original roadbed, I notched the corners where the stringers joined together to make the curve look smoother. Unfortunately for this project, that left a lot of little surfaces to work around. So I did some "slicing and dicing." Here's an interesting thing - if you cut these with a jig saw, you're melting the plastic as much as you're cutting it. The melted plastic will actually flow back together behind the blade. In my next life, I'll have time to use a razor saw or something and do it right.
 The photo to the right shows the preliminary placement of some of the pieces. I drilled holes in each piece to avoid splitting it, but in some cases, I had to use two screws to force the pieces to line up properly.
In this closeup you can see where I mangled a couple of the edges during the separation process. You can also see the vertical 4"x4" post with the "stone" finish paint. It didn't come out quite the same as the top of the can, but it still looks vaguely concrete-like, and much better than the "naked" post. If I want to keep that finish, I'll probably have to repaint every year. But that's not a huge hassle, compared to, say, continuously weeding a right-of-way that I foolishly installed over tamped-down crushed gravel according to the recommendations of "expert" writers who live where even the weeds require drip irrigation.
 In the photo to the right (and the title photo) I have put a "through bridge" piece where the upper right-of-way crosses the lower, to show how you might use these pieces together. Yes, it would look better with a matching "through bridge" piece on the other side. But I need my "through bridge pieces" elsewhere. I have since replaced this one with a deck piece - there's plenty of clearance for my 1:29 trains.
More to Come
I still have to order, measure, paint, cut, and install several more pieces. But at about $14 for two sides of an 18" bridge, this is the most economical and flexible bridge solution I've seen in the hobby to date. (Unless you count building them out of twigs, like Paul Busse's people do.)
In the meantime, I wanted to get some basic ideas out there now for folks who would like to add a pretty simple, but potentially impressive upgrade to their garden railroad, with only about a day's work.
I also have friends who have made bridges in many other ways - if any of you want to contribute an article (or a writeup and photos that I can make into an article), let me know.
Again, if you have questions we haven't addressed, or tips or photos you'd like to share with our readers, please get in touch.
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