I am in the building phase of my layout and have a few places where bridges are needed. I have heard of bridge solutions, although mostly I have not heard good things about their ability to reply to emails and phone calls. Who else is out there selling bridges for O gauge? I do want to avoid the sort of generic steel truss bridge that is generally available. (Nice ones of those are made by Steeltoys.com and by 100 Year Bridge Co., but I am not looking for something like that). I am looking for something more ornate, or elaborate. I know I can buy trestle components from Scenic Express, but what about already-made trestles? Does anyone sell those? What about stone arch bridges? Has anyone seen those for sale? And, if not sold as an already-built bridge, does anyone know where I can get the component parts to make a stone arch bridge?
Last bridge question: How about some books on building bridges for O gauge layouts? I saw an ad in the current MR for a Kalmbach book about model railroad bridges, trestles, and tunnels. I went to order it this AM, only to find that it is not actually going to be available until November! It looks like it will be a great book, but I need info now. Any ideas?
The Atlas O truss bridges are very nice, by all accounts, and not too pricey (for this hobby, anyway). 40" long, !!RC, and can be made single- or double-track and extended by add-on kits.
With prebuilt bridges you need to grade your terrain to suit the bridge, if you scratch build you can do whatever is needed. I used 1/4" sq., and other sizes, pine I ripped on the table saw for my bridges and built to suit. I you don’t have a saw you can buy either bass wood, or even balsa. Its suprising how strong a 1/4 scale trestle can be. As to design I looked through the mags., train books, bridge books, et al, and put my own design together.
Give it a try, start with the easiest one and go from there. The way to learn is to try, don’t get frustrated, you’ll learn by your failures.
I saw the Atlas Dbl. track bridge in the window of The Train Shop in Erie, Pa. It is huge & very protoypical. I need the single bridge for my layout, as I already built a dbl. trk. bridge. They are both 40 inches long. I noticed AM hobbies has it pretty reasonable. There should be pictures of them at the Atlas O web site. Hope this helps !
and I will probably get in touch with this guy, www.mrtrain.com to see what it would cost to build one for me. I might try to make a stone arch bridge myself. Not sure until I try if I can do this. I saw some stone stuff at Scenic Express and I will try to get a piece and see if I can work with this stuff.
Trigtrax, I looked at your bridges on your site. Nice. They are not exactly what I’m looking for, but they are nice. By the way, your steel el supports are really nicely detailed. If I ever need any of those, I am going to come to you because yours look great.
like other said, you can built trestles by ripping wood… i use 1/8" x 3" x 3’ *(edit 1/8) sections of white pine found at home depot and cut them down on my table scroll saw…
i can almost put my weight on the trestles they are that strong…
for the stone archway, have you considered making what you want out of foam?
the “hotwire” website has some great photos of what you can make
I understand yhat Plastruct makes a warren truss kit, for about $40…00. If you live in the North East were there a some good train shops, perhaps you cab find one in the store.
