The best laid plans of mice and men...
Got the track all laid and I had planned on bringing you a quick video of the inaugural pass of a loco over the new bridge tonight, but as my Dash-8 entered the bridge from the left hand side (as you look at the pictures), it abruptly stopped as the snow plow hit the side of the bridge. Seems I didn't take "overhang" into account in any of my design planning. That end of the bridge is at the end of a curve and the nose of the loco was hanging over just little bit too much. Turns out my curve wasn't quite as smooth as I wanted it anyway, so with the little bit of re-working, the curve was smoother with a greater radius then before (by about 2 or 3 degrees, but still) and the dash-8's plow cleared the bridge's edge.
Then I grabbed one of my pullman coaches and tried letting it enter the bridge. As long as the coach is, with it's significant overhang to the inside of the curve, it was coming to a stop with the battery box grinding on the bridge side.
Seems I always have my trusty NMRA gauge hand when doing track work, but not when building structures... like bridges...
I figure I have two choices:
1.) Open up that end of the bridge to have a sort of funnel shape, or;
2.) Redesign my Terrain so the bridge doesn't start for another 20 scale yards or so (allowing locos and coaches to straighten up a bit before entering the bridge).
I think I'll go with option 1 and see what I thing about it. I should be able to make it look decent... I think...