I posted a question in the layout section of the forum but I think this is more a prototypical question. How long should the bridge track be? I have seen some modelers stop it right at the end of the bridge and I have seen others extend it as much as 20 to 30 scale feet either side of the span. The second part of the question is I am using three bridges total to span the area. a Walthers truss bride in the center of the span flanked by a pair of Micro Engineering 30’ open deck girder bridges. So my second question is would it be prototypical to have one single length of bridge track or would it be three desperate sections of track one per bridge.
By bridge track you are presumably referring to what are commonly known as Jordan Rails or Guard Rails. They usually extend beyond the spans by the 20-30 feet you noticed, with the exact length and shape depending on the particular railroad’s specifications and era. The guard rail (and running rails) will be continuous across all three spans in your bridge crossing.
As John has mentioned, the rails are continuous across the various spans. Here’s a view of the CNR’s multi-span bridge over Twenty Mile Creek, near Jordan Station, Ontario:
I don’t know weather the ties are actually wider or just closer together but in any case too late now…lol all I have left to do is finish bending the tapers on the last 30’ of safety rail and glue then in place. I guess I could still remove possibly every other tie or just apply the HIWAB method of modeling. just in case your not aware HIWAB stands for Hide It With A Bush a la Howard Zane’s dictionary of model railroad building terms. I employ this method a lot on my layout. Just the guys face at the LHS when I buy the big bags of Woodland Scenics bushes a half dozen at a time is worth it.
Length of guard rails past the bridge span varied by railroad. Some were actually quite short while some were much longer than the norm. An author by the last name of Lambert did a bridge series in Railroad Model Craftsman in th last two years and actually sited examples from various railroads from their standards books. Guard rails have fallen out of favor on railroads today but there are still many examples, partiuculary on through truss bridges.
Reference the last item about the ballasted (closed deck) bridge. There are still plenty of open deck bridges (just bridge ties, no ballast) around and they still account for most bridges.
I am buidling a four span bridge that is closed deck on a concrete I-beam span and open deck on three stell I beam spans all on the same bridge.
