I am half way thruogh a new layout with several bridges. do I lay cork bed over the bridge or attach the track directly to the bridge
any comments would be helpful
I’m making one poor man’s trestle. Attaching bridge plates directly to sides of subroadbed, then laying track and ballasting right to the subroadbed. Then, I will insert trestle bents underneath and scenic around them.
Depends on the bridge.
On a closed deck bridge, like masonary, concrete and some types of plate girder bridges, you can lay the roadbed right across the bridge deck and lay some ballast down.
On an open deck bridge, like through or deck truss, some types of plate girder, and trestles. The track is attached directly to the bridge deck. Don’t forget the large and closely spaced bridge ties.
Nick
Bridge ties are spaced closer together (and are thicker) than normal roadbed tiesunless they are placed on ballasted decks. Suggest you purchase Kalmbach’s 2005 Bridges, Trestles, & Tunnels book. The $20 book probably has all the answers you need, and more.
One word of caution – if you put cork roadbed over a steel truss bridge like those made by Walters or Atlas, you will not be able to run double-stack containers through them because their vertical clearance is just barely adequate without any roadbed.
I purchased Walther’s bridge track for my long bridge, and though it was expensive, it worked very well. I am now making a long curved wooden trestle and I don’t know what I will use for track, but it will be layed directly on the stringers on the bents.
My Flex-track sections are not attached to anything, but rest on stringers placed atop the bents. In the real world, they’d be spiked, and I didn’t bother to space all those ties closely together. It works just fine.