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Jim, We want to stay away from the curve for the bridge. Railroads build curved bridges by erecting short straight spans and curving the track. Bridge engineers prefer to stick with straight spans. So that leaves us with twenty four inches for the bridge, although we could build the scene a little longer. Unfortunately, the Central Valley truss is a 150 ft span (20.67in). If you want to build a truss, which I would do in your position, we will have to use this as one of the spans. The other spans (kits) I know of are shorter but not attractive. One span arrangement you could use is a 30 ft MEI deck girder bridge with the 150 ft Central Valley truss for a total length of (24.8 inches) 180 ft. This would work well if it were built to resemble a washout repair. To understand this consider a 150 ft truss span supported at the ends by abutments as a single span bridge. Now if the approach roadbed were made from compacted fill and the stream below were curved then a mega flood could wash out the abutment on the outside of the curve. One way to repair the track would be to construct a new abutment and rehab the existing washed out abutment to accept a short span covering the gap created by the wash out. This entire situation creates a great story for your railroad's history (if you are a freelancer like me) and an interesting model as well. Let me know if you want to pursue a 30 ft - 150 ft arrangement like this or if you want to discuss something with only plate girders like the 50 ft - 72 ft - 50 ft arrangement. Incidently, yesterday was my first nine of the year and I find comfort in knowing that I'll probably play better next time. (+13 for nine holes, Yikes!) I hit only two shots that were above average, a 40 yd chip to within three inches and a beautiful 230 yd drive on the ninth. Ed
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