Railway arches: Part 1

I've got an idea for a small, industrial looking layout to replace the winter scene I created for Christmas. I want to include a row of arches, the kind with businesses under them. I had a look around at the kits available and decided to give Superquick a try. They do a set of embankment arches that looked like they would do the job nicely.

Now it's nothing personal, but I'm not a fan of Superquick. I find the instructions lacking in detail at crucial points in the build. Having tried to assemble one set I couldn't make them fit properly and the frustration was building. I decided on a different approach.

I cut a piece of 6mm ply for a backing for the arches. You'll see that in the photos of the build process.

With the ply back cut, I separated the main arch structure from the sheet, cutting away the assembly tabs. They come in pairs and can be separated into two single arches.

Turning them over I added two layers of 2mm card. To shape it around the arch I cut small pieces of card and glued them in place around the arch.

 I added more card at the edges and in the middle. This sets the arch 4mm away from the backing sheet.

Once dry enough to handle, the arches were glued to the ply board, taking care to line them up properly.



A good square edge to the ply is important, otherwise there is a chance that the arches will be out of square and as you progress from one edge to the other the error will get more pronounced.



The inside detail of the arch can be selected from either a plain bricked insert, a brick wall with a pair of doors or a business front. The doors are glued to the insert from the back and some 1mm card is used to give some support to the structure.

A sharp knife was used to follow the curved edge of the arch when trimming back the card.

The insert was then glued into position within the arch. The idea was to give some depth to the arch.

Here are the first four arches assembled. There will be eight arches in total with a single track running above them. Butresses and a small retaining wall will be added.