Made some significant headway on the overpass project this weekend.
On Saturday evening, I was assuming I was done with everything except the piers...
wrong! I still needed to assemble the cross supports (top sections of the piers that come with the kit). They not only had to be assembled, I also had to shorten a few of them so that when they were strung together, they would extend the correct distance across. This was a few hours' effort.
At this point however, I didn't permanently attach them; I still needed to determine exactly where the middle ones had to be positioned. This was dependent on where I could place the piers in such a way that trains - specifically, 89ft loaded auto rack cars - would clear them. I cut a few pieces of pressure-treated 1x4 to the desired height and width, and placed them:
Once I had them optimally positioned, I was able to mark off the exact places where to glue-on the cross supports. As soon as the cement was dry, I did a test fitting; this is the view an operator would see from a standing-up position:
Obviously the backdrop needs a few more tree silhouettes painted on, as well as some actual 1:87 trees placed directly in front to obscure the spot where the road meets the backdrop.
Here is how it would potentially look for "trackside" photos:
Again, some trees and shrubbery placed in the corner behind it, plus some more in the foreground toward the right, should effectively hide the unnatural-looking shadows cast on the backdrop "sky".