A few(?) years ago, when I first brought notice of Princes St to the then membership of ModellersUnited and others, the original plan for the Morrison St bridge was to use the Wills components for the side. This worked fine for the side nearest the station.
Thoughts about bridge sides never entered consideration when deciding to extend the layout to the Grove St bridge. It was only after buying another pack of the Wills components and examine photos that reality hit. The bridge sides at Grove Street, Gardner’s Crescent Main lines, and goods lines are all different. And none matched the side facing the station.
Initial thoughts were to bluff it. Use the same style of sides on both sides for the main lines on Morrison St. This looked not too bad. It resembled reality if you had a vivid imagination and kept your eyes closed! If you knew what the bridge side was really like….well. Not too many photos exist. However…….
The Grove Street bridge side, to the non-engineering oriented, ie me, is best described as a slab with rivets. To modify the Wills components would require significant cutting, with an excessive number of butt joints the I wasn’t confident I could lose. Knowing the height and length of the side, the decision was made to scratch build and use Archers Rivets to represent the riveting required. To date the rivets have still to be added, but the bridge side so far creates the correct illusion.

The Gardners Crescent bridges are more “interesting“. The sides over the main and goods lines are completely different. The goods lines portion appears to be a welded slab. The passenger lines side is a combination of weld and riveted. Again, Sod’s law makes the Wills components inappropriate for an accurate representation. To further complicate things, the pavement side of one side of the bridge over the passenger lines differs from the outside face. A good view of reality can be obtained from Google Earth, or the Streetview apps, but I’d recommend you move a distance away from the bridge to minimise the distortion caused by looking up from close range. Having initially accepted a loose ‘interpretation’ using Wills components, which was noticeable short for length required, a more accurate interpretation is underway, based solely on photos. Initial progress looks promising. The ‘Niggle’had increased to ‘replace’


Other work since the last posting includes more work on the buildings on the Morrison St/Grove St boards. Initial testing to check proportions with adjacent buildings looks good. For some reason, I find that what I consider plain, everyday buildings as (un)interesting to photograph as wiring. No doubt others will disagree!





The three bridges have become a welcome diversion. Although unfinished, the basic shapes have been easily defined. The detailing has required a degree of lateral thinking and a couple of trials to determine what works best for me. They have so far delivered a quick sense of achievement and motivation at a time when other ongoing work has longer completion timescales.