When I first seen pics of guys building big bridges I thought they were…ahhh…you know kinda nuts…LOL. Started building small curved wood trestles, then kit bashed a Walters so mine would look a tad different(no one has noticed yet LOL ). Finished the scrach built bridge in front last night, will add bridge guard rails and bridge signals later, as I will remove them both for the scenery.
Now have in mind of building the Highway 70 bridge over Lake Oroville. Train on lower deck and vechicles on top of a 38 inch long bridge…John
I’m considering setting my little WP layout in either Oroville or Marysville. So when my trains “leave the layout” I’ll envision them crossing your wye.
It’s too bad you never had the opportunity - I’m only guessing there - to visit the old N-Scale club on Davis-Monthan Air Force Patch at Tucson - September 11 shut it down because security would no longer allow unaccompanied civilians on base. The layout was themed on the Feather River/Keddie Wye. I’ve seen a couple of modeling efforts of this area but this one was absolutely the best - when you were at trackside looking at the wye you were at trackside looking at the wye!!!
John–that’s just STUNNING! The photos you sent me not too long ago showed the Wye ready to be built, but what you’ve done is just making me drool! Did you do any kit-bashing on it at all, or is it purely scratch?
This is a great bridge. Welcome to the nutty world of big bridges. Twhite has already logged in. I think we should start a thread for big bridges and get all the pics together. Now to get the river underneith it.
The hard part in building a bridge is the compresson or condensing it down and having it look acceptable. Same with the depth and width of the truss and bents, its kind of an eyball thing. This bridge is 37 in long and would be several feet in lenght.I have heard of one model 14 feet long, I offen wonder if he ended up in a straight jack as thats a lot of bridgeLOL.
The rear bridge ( hi line to Bieber and Oregon) is a ME tall viaduct kit with a few Central Valley 72 ft plate girder bridge sides cut to fit for the spans.
The front bridge ( east west, Oakland to Salt Lake) is totaly scrach built except for using the side deck plates from ME and CV kits. Main bents are on a curved track, the outside bents legs have 3 degrees more then the inside legs. Of which are plastruct H collums.
To get my bents to come out the same I used only one bent jig for both the short and long sided bents. Its far better to take the time and build a good jig to keep things in better alignment and save one a lot of headaches later and reducing shortcut pieces heading for the scrap box. After making a long and short bent I made several 1/8 (CV bridge girders) X pieces and slid them up the H collum, forming the front cross members. Using the X jig made them all uniform and quick. After glue set up I reclamped it on that side and slid more x member pieces in the H colum.
The main deck truss was from another single jig, If I make a mistake then its on both sides and symetrical LOL. Just kidding as your project will only be as precise as your jig. Used the larger 1/4 CV girders on the sides and 1/8 on the inside braces as well as other stryene rods, channels, and straps, that looked close to my pictures.
O K this is where I save a few bucks as Im on a limited income. The Span core is 3/4 ply, with a few plys removed in the bent and deck area, painted black. I also did not glue girder plates on the back side as no one can see
beautiful bridge, man the " wye " is one of the fanastic stand out features in American railroading as far as I’m concerned, and you did it well. Can’t wait to see it all sceniced in. [:)]
Beautiful job Jwar, where the Highline turns the corner, I’ll be waiting at Beiber! Did you get the Pentrex DVD “Runnin the Highline”, yet? You will love it. Also, the 5 track yard at Keddie goes 180 deg. around the point but the A/D track, yard lead , House track w/ station, and Backtrack are to the right of the wye. The Backtrack is of interest because there was often a set of section gang cars there, almost a permanent camp! I have a set for my GN Beiber consisting of 2 bunk cars, a cookhouse car, a shop car and tool car. Sometimes I leave a small hook there, too! These were actually set out farther down the Highline, as you will see in the DVD. jc5729
