Now that the sleepering timber has arrived I was able to cut the 6' long bridge sleepers and lay the rails.

I would have loved to have been able to fit a larger bridge into this layout, but it is after all only a micro layout and anything larger would have been disproportionate.

I am still in two minds about whether guard rails should be fitted; if they were fitted they would have to be made of two rail lengths each, in order to extend two to three feet beyond the abutments at each end. Maybe...

Here the bridge is in the foreground, and the cutting template behind it. The Works Engineer is checking that the track gauges are correctly positioned. I did not glue the bridge timbers to the template, but held them with thin strips of double-sided adhesive tape, so that once the rails were spiked in place I could very carefully remove the whole unit from the template. This worked well.

For each rail length I spike the first sleeper and then the last sleeper and then the middle sleeper; I then spike the intervening ones. The rail is bent to shape beforehand so it lies on the template with no more than a millimetre or two of overall deviation over its length.

The various track gauges are designed for heavier rail with wider rail heads, so that my gauge wanders between 2' and 2'1½"; this is not tragic as the rolling stock will be fitted with (prototypically) wide-treaded wheels.

Glueing the sleepers to the bridge, after several in situ checks to ensure the bridge track aligned with the abutment tracks. The second, fourth and sixth sleepers will further be bolted to the stringers and the others nailed in place.

Test-fit of the bridge in situ. Note the sleeper bolts. The vertical alignment requires card shims under the cap beams.