I started my 5’ x 10’ HO layout in January and added the trackage with a temporary bridge (flextrack on cork on a piece of yardstick) where I planned to add a combo Central Valley truss & plate girder bridges. Having built the truss bridge last week and the plate girder bridge earlier, yesterday I tackled the installation of the bridges so I though I’d post some photos. I used Chooch abutments and intermediate pier, cutting them to the right height and notching the abutments slightly so I could lay flextrack ties on the abutment right up to the bridge. I had a piece of perfectly fitting flextrack (34" or so) that had worked well in temporary mode, so I used the rails with 5 ties at each end and attached the continuous rail to the bridges to make a single unit. I still need to make permanent shims for under the plate girder shoes as that bridge is slightly thinner shoe-to-tie tops than the truss bridge. And I need to add feeders to the bridge rails (not sure where but don’t want to solder the joiners).
The CV kits were fun to build. The plate girder was pretty easy, the truss more challenging (for me).
Anyway, here’s a few photos. I got some good info from an earlier inquiry on this combo that encouraged me to design these into my plan.
Edit: I’m going to reload the photos to get them to show larger (I hope). Yea, it worked. I tried PhotoBucket instead of ImageShack (maybe I was using the latter wrong).
A lot of guys model mountains on their layouts, some model harbors, but to me there is nothing like a bridge on a layout. Here is the Midwest, and in the Chicago area, we don’t have mountains and there are very few harbors. But, we got bridges. Truss bridges, swing bridges, bascule bridges and lift bridges.
The NMRA should adopt a rule that every model railroad layout has to have at least one bridge.
My use of a similar bridge (An Atlas Chord Bridge) is seen here on my former layout. I was going to post a “No Fishing” sign on the bridge, but I took the layout apart long before I got around to that.
On my present layout the bridge takes a different form:
Here, it is a four track main line over the Gowanus Canal. I will add cross members between the two spans to make it into one single bridge. At Smith 9th Street in Brooklyn, the station is actually on the bridge.
This view in New York City gives scale to the bridge. The 9th Street drawbridge fits entirely under the railroad station. I will model the canal.
Below my interpretation of the Gowanus Canal is my Canal Street Station:
In New York City, there is no canal above the canal street station. In the times after the Revolution, what is now Canal Street was if fact a canal. It was filled in and was then called Canal Street. As you may imagine, they do seem to have water problems in that station. I will not model that part of the station.
Rich, if you like bridges please realize you can realistically add one anywhere without a purpose other than having a nice bridge to look at; i.e., it need not connect to anything. Here’s some background on the Sunshine Bridge over the Mississippi (hey, I can remember how to spell it, even after becoming Medicare age).
I already have a pair of bascule bridges and two double track truss bridges on my layout, and they are both in service on my double main line.
Now, I am contemplating a scratch built lift bridge which would not carry any rail traffic but would simply be there as a nice background touch - - - kind of the bridge to nowhere.
Nice work. I did almost exactly the same. The continuous rail does wonders to align both bridges. I too found that the shoes need to be shimmed. Place your feeders up behind the abutments. Make sure that the rail joiners can be slipped back for any future bridge removal ( clip in half if nec)
