Bridging The Mighty Ashtabula River In H0

 

A Tyco USRA 0-8-0 "Chattanooga" clears the counterweight... barely

My planned layout is still very much in the planning stage. I am slowly expanding the design to allow for more operation, but there are still space considerations, as my apartment is small and my budget is tight. I do know I want a little scenery, and a waterfront is important to me. 

My town of Ashtabula once had a thriving port and shipyard. Now, while part of the port is still doing well, the shipyard has long closed and been replaced by a number of marinas and campgrounds along the slips where commercial vessels had once been built. There was also extensive rail lines, mainly the Pennsylvania Railroad, that fed into the port. 

Most of that is gone as well, with just the tracks on the east side of the Ashtabula remaining. 

But two other vestiges of the Port's heritage remain - two bascule bridges. 

Screenshot from Google Maps

At the north end of the above image is the "Ashtabula Bridge", or as we call it "The 5th Street Bridge".

This 1925 Strauss design was built by Brown, and is strictly for road traffic. The bridge on the south end of that map shot is the railway bridge. 

This was built by Strauss in 1911 for the New York Central and Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroads, whose tracks came up from the south and to the east of the Ashtabula River, from this point to the mouth and the coal port. The Pennsylvania Railroad had lines to the west of the river.

While my interest in these two bridges was there, it was mostly passing. After all, bascule bridges are fairly complicated things, and I am trying to keep this layout design fairly simple. 

All of that changed earlier this month. 

One of those "You Might Also Like" ads popped up doing a search, and it was for a "Historic Strauss Trunnion Bascule Bridge" by Pathfinders. This was an older version of their current kit, which isn't badly priced really. After digging a little further into their kit, I decided to pull the trigger on this one.

First, don't expect anything complicated or a "real" (ugh) model railroad kit here. This is made from cut ply, and is really meant for students 8 and up. It is inspired by the "Blue Bridge" in Victoria, British Columbia, though of course rather simple. No delicate plastic, no urethane castings, no photoetch. Just a relatively simple, yet pleasing, one or two hour kit (allowing for glue drying time, mine took about an hour and a half). 

However, as we say in model building, while it lacks complexity, it has "good bones". True, the various braces and structure is oversized somewhat, but you have to remember the primary audience here. There is enough, though, that it should can build up into a decent looking model with some work. 

For now, I'll setting for "solid" and "working".

I built this whilst sitting on my sofa with one cat at my side, another wanting my attention

While this isn't a review, I will say that the instructions are very well, and humorously, written. It all went together very well. I chose to leave a few details off for now, the sign, crossing arm, and the string for the "winder" (while I try to figure out the best way to mechanize the lift). Also, the span crosspieces are not glued into place, so as to allow access to the deck.

As for size, it is H0, but it is tight. 

THUNK...

My current largest locomotive, a Gilbert 4-6-4 Hudson, doesn't clear the counterweight with track on the deck. There are two ways to overcome this. First is laying the rail directly on the bridge deck (I use code 100, so finer rail will drop the height even more). The other way is to modify the upper lift supports slightly, by drilling new holes for the attachment points so that it lifts the counterweight somewhat. 

The upper lift supports run from the center of the span to the counterweight

There are still a lot of considerations to be made. While I do plan on adding some detail and paint, I really don't want to overdo it, as that would go against the goal of keeping this simple and fun. Due to its size it will become the dominant feature on any layout I build.

Still, I really like this model. It feels good to actually begin moving from constantly planning a layout to building something. 

(Edit - 27 November, 2025 - Edited to correct rail lines. I'm still new here)