The Little Hell Gate Portals Are Almost Finished

For the last few months, I've posted now and then on progress with the strange pylons that make up the portals the Austrian engineer Gustav Lindenthal designed for his Little Hell Gate bridge, which spans a former East River channel in the Bronx. This would have been a major bridge itself, but Lindenthal didn't want them to detract from the Hell Gate Bridge. Even so, I find them fascinating and much better suited to a model railroad! They seem to reflect a tendency in US architecture at the time to stress abstract form, and they remind me a little of the architect Bertram Goodhue's (1869-1924) late work.

To recap, after studying all the photos I could find, including screen shots from videos taken from Amtrak trains, I started the project by building a paper mockup to help me understand how the overall proportions would fit the T-Trak module:

After giving it some thought, comparing how it looked in the photo to known dimensions and other photos, I made some adjustments, came up with basic dimensions, and began to assemble the basic structure from 1/32 basswood sheet, using old fireplace matches for stiffeners:

I settled on wooden craft beads from eBay held up with dowels to create the balls at the top:

Then I used Elmer's Wood Filler to build up the curved shapes:

This starts out in a violet shade, but when it's dry and ready for sanding, it turns to a wood color.

Now ready for sanding:

The sanding has turned out to be easier than I had expected, but it's still a pretty long process. It's a question of sanding close to the shape, then filling in where needed, and sanding some more.

As I study photos, I realize these don't need to be perfect or perfectly smooth, as the concrete has spalled and eroded over more than 100 years, and I'm not sure if they were perfect in the first place.

They're also deceptively large and will turn out to be the major feature of the T-Trak module where I mount them. In fact, since I guesstimated dimensions to fit the module and Kato Amtrak equipment, I probably made them smaller than actual scale. They should be ready for paint and installation in a few days.