I’ve seen pictures of a few wooden trestles so far,some of wich being really impressive structures.However,I haven’t seen one that featured a double track yet.I’m just curious to know if there were any built that carried two or more tracks,or just as interesting,a gantlet track.
I’m actually planning my next layout and absolutely want a wooden trestle incorporated to it.However,to suit my needs better,a double track set-up would please me but then I don’t want an item that would be so far from prototype reality.Not that I count rivets,but still I like to keep some sense in it,let’s say “somewhat” prototypical.Thanks.
Hope this helps some, it’s sort of an answer but here’s what happened:
I was in the process of building an N scale display layout for my store. There were several elements I wanted to incorporate. One was a double track mainline. The other was a curved wooden trestle. While I preach all day long about taking your time with your trackplan, research, don’t rush, blah blah blah I ignored my own advice and went full speed ahead until I realized that I’d never recalled seeing a double track wooden trestle.
Like any model train shop, I have many experienced and knowledgeable customers both model railroaders and prototype historians, and when I asked, not one of them had ever seen a double track wooden trestle. Not saying there never was one, just saying in an informal survey of several folks, not one knew of an example.
May not be the most substantial answer, but hope that helps a little.
I agree with OTM (One track mind). I have never seen or heard of a double track wooden trestle bridge. However, watch this space. I am sure someone somewhere will know of one.
I suspect that the reason they are a little like hens’ teeth is that railroads who would build a wooden trestle bridge would not run to double track. One pretty simple reason.
The second reason that occurred to me would need some engineering expertise. I suspect that if one was to build a structure from wood that would withstand the loads imposed by double track traffic, then the volume of material needed would make the project uneconomical.
I think that the answers so far are pretty accurate.
I hope that the following helps…
I started my interest in US RR going through journals of the late 1800s (post here can be terribly slow [:)]). I don’t recall a single double track trestle including in material about grade seperation. I vaguely recall twin - single track - trestles. I suspect that the point about loadings and stress is the reason for this. Short wooden bridges can be double track.
A large number of wood trestles were originally built (of green timber) to get RR across valleys and land lower than the RR wanted the grade to be at quickly. Later the RR would progressively fill in/around the trestle over a period of time as material became available, traffic allowed and traffic paid for. Put another way… a trestle was a quick solution. When traffic developed it justified bringing fill from some distance to convert the trestle to a fill — bearing in mind that there might either not be enough fill locally or what was available might not be suitable (sand, loam etc).
(Don’t know whether you did it in US… here in UK we often provided materila for fills (embankments) by taking spoil out of local “borrow pits”. This left ponds along the line of route. Sometimes large quarries were cut from suitable (relatively close) hillsides. the prefered method was always to balance cuts with fills… sometimes starting cuts from both ends and pushing the material out on both sides to fill the valleys each side of a hill. Sometimes this meant that an obvious location for a tunnel became a huge cut with deep fills each side… I think that in the US you were more inclined to tunnel and bridge).
Further the first line through was frequently a single line. When traffic developed a second line was added for parts of the route first The parts that got doubled (/trebled) were the easy bits that cost less. By the time routes got
While not a tall trestle, the Union Pacific (former SP) line across the Yolo Bypass, west of Sacramento, CA used to be a double track wooden trestle. Go to Google maps, search “West Sacramento, CA” then zoom in on the tracks just north of and parallel to I-80. The UP removed the northerly track but you can see that it is wide enough for the second track on the satellite photo. The beams and many of the bents were replaced by conctete during the last years of the SP.
David is correct. Wooden trestles were often the most expedient way to get a railroad running and generating revenue in fulfillment of contracts and grant conditions from levels of government. For example, in Canada, the Federal Government issued title to huge tracts of land on either side of the rights of way, often 20 miles or more (think about that!). The quid of the pro quo was that the railroads had to be in place before entire provinces withdrew their agreements to join
Confederation. My province, BC, was a particular thorn in Sir John A. MacDonald’s side. BC squawked so much that McDonald had to agree to contribute money to a railroad running on Vancouver Island which was in place before the rail was completed in the Rockies.
Many of the trestles on the CPR lasted 15 or more years, but they were invariably either filled in or rebuilt in steel once it was determined that they had to be replaced.
I dimly recall a PRR temporary line relocation in New Jersey that included double track decks supported on wooden pilings leading to a temporary deck girder span (or maybe two spans, with a timber piling pier between) over a street. The main overpass bridges were being replaced, so the temporary trackage shifted everything out over the sloping part of the embankment. A parallel street prevented widening the embankment - apparently pilings and a timber deck were less expensive than a retaining wall, considering that the track was only used for a couple of months.
On its outer edge, the temporary trestle might have been as much as 25 feet above the parallel street, but not much, if any, more. If someone is looking for a prototype for a high trestle, this isn’t it.
This sounds very much like the sort of thing that I’ve seen in journals from 1890-1910 where RR originally laid down main street (or main street grown up rond the RR) were “grade seperated”. As you say the piling as a temporary measure was cheaper than building a retaining wall… also much easier to remove once the new bridge was in. the locals also probably didn’t want a huge wall “blighting” their neighbourhood. I would expect that there was a “Slow Order” on that temporary track.
Another solution to this problem would have been to do one track at a time. Older practice would sometimes be to gauntlet the two lines through (on one side of - and then the other) the work area. More recently at Greenwich a short length of line was made single between switches that were remotely controlled… this allowed trains in both directions to use one platform face that was (and is again) a single direction platform.
Plans are available for double track wooden trestles.
Page 71 of Southern Pacific Lines Common Standard Plans, volume 3 (published by Steam Age Equipment Company, PO Box 412 Dunsmuir, CA 96025) has blueprint plans (dated June 1912, revised Oct. 1915) for variations of a double track ballasted deck trestle. It shows variations for a one story trestle, a trestle with more than one story, and a trestle on a curve.
Wadayuno? According to the SP plans, the outside stringers on the curved trestle are curved. The interior stringers are straight, alternately running the length of two bents.
Are there any bridges off the plan? I dunno. But west of Sacramento, CA on the Yolo flood plain there was a double track trestle some several miles long. I don’t have information on whether it followed the blueprint. (Was it ballasted or not?) Someone more knowledgeable, hopefully, will read this and clue us in.
"While not a tall trestle, the Union Pacific (former SP) line across the Yolo Bypass, west of Sacramento, CA used to be a double track wooden trestle. Go to Google maps, search “West Sacramento, CA” then zoom in on the tracks just north of and parallel to I-80. The UP removed the northerly track but you can see that it is wide enough for the second track on the satellite photo. The beams and many of the bents were replaced by conctete during the last years of the SP.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it."
I remember reading somewhere that a railroad would be more likely to build essentially two parallel trestles than one wide doubletrack one. I imagine they could interconnect the parts in some way, but I can’t say I remember ever seeing one.
BTW remember wood trestles aren’t just for “oldtimey” railroads. GN/BN/BNSF used a wood trestle at Mud Lake MN on one of it’s iron ore lines until it was replaced in the 1990’s.
Not technically double track I know, but as it got mentioned - the Rutland had lengths of gauntlet track on timber trestle between Burlington VT and Rouses Point NY where it “hopped and skipped” across Lake Champlain’s island chain. I think the other railroad was the CV (could have been D&H?) but not 100% sure about that.
At least as of five years or so ago, there were two fairly long double track Wooden trestles still in service on the BNSF in Kansas. One was the east approach to the bridge over the Arkansas River at Mulvane KS, and was perhaps thirty feet tall, 300 feet long and includes a highway overpass built on about a 45 degree skew. The other was over a floodway channel for the Cottonwood River near Saffordville, KS. It’s about twenty feet tall and probably a thousand feet long. Both were on the Transcontinental main, and carry 75+ trains per day. I haven’t been down to look at them recently, so maybe I need to get down and take some photos before they are replaced by more modern structures.