Scalescenes Canal Bridge - Has Anyone Altered It?

[BG John]

I'm planning what I hope will be the new micro layout that I actually build! I want a canal bridge quite close to a road bridge over the railway, and the difference in road levels between the T018 Canal Bridge and R011 Arched Bridge will produce a very steep incline. So I'd like to raise the road level over the canal. A Google search for "canal bridge images" produced a few where the road has obviously been changed, like this example, where it looks like the brickwork has been raised twice (from Wikimedia on a Creative Commons Licence):

 

 

or this one: http://uphilldowndale.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/canal-bridge-thumb.jpg

 

I've downloaded the kit, and it looks like I could modify the structure of it quite easily, although I think the brickwork may tax my Photoshop skills!

 

Has anyone tried anything similar?

 

The other complication is that I need a roadway down from the bridge to the canal on the side where the road can be at the lowest level (the right side in the photo above). The ramp in the kit has about a 1 in 2 incline that seems unbelievably steep! Were they really like that, or are the sloping parts of the front wall of the bridge far steeper than in real life? I need a ramp that horse drawn vehicles could use, as it will go down to a wharf, although as it's a micro layout with lots of compression, having it a bit on the steep side would be OK. It would be a shame to lose the curved walls of the kit unless I have to. Any suggestions, or pictures of the real thing?

[Chubber]

From my limited experience of paths over and around these bridges they are very steep, deffo a get off yer bike a push it job!

Bear in mind that at the time they were built there was no need to accommodate vehicular traffic, perhaps with the advent of lorries a turning off the road would be ceated running down behind the lock area and turning back on itself to re-approach the lock area?

Doug

[BG John]

Thanks for the comments on the ramps. I'd thought of making a new access road, but space is tight, and the Lock Keepers Cottage would fit nicely in that space! Further along, I need low relief buildings to hide a fiddle yard, so I'll have to think about that.

 

I think I've worked out more or less how to do it. I bought the R011 Arched Bridge today, that will be a short distance away, and will need to knock up two of them first to get the levels and angles. I'll be making up rough mock-ups in glorious black and white, as my laser printer is far cheaper to use, and less trouble, than the inkjet. This is experimental at the moment, as it's part of a plan to hide a sector plate right at the front of the layout! The canal bridge itself isn't directly part of this plan, but it's on the same road as the bridges that are. The original road layout had to be altered when the railway was built, and the original canal bridge would have been exactly as the kit, but the road needs to climb quite steeply, meaning the canal bridge had to be raised in a similar way to the photos when the railway bridges were built.