Hi,
I’m building my first layout and have recently decided to alter my track plan a bit. I have decided to add more sidings to feed my coal tipple, and to do this, I would have to have a double trakced trestle over my river, with a turnout on the trestle… Did any prototype railroads ever do such a practice? I’m either going to model the N&W or the PRR circa 1945-50. Thanks for the help in advance. Josh
Feather River Bridge is the best example I have seen. Must be pics somewhere. There was a MR years back. It is a great trestle. Try a google it ought to get you something.
Art
It has been done on the prototype and in model form. From what I hear its a maintinance nightmare on both.
Still, if that is what you are contemplating, why not do what the prototype would have done; build it and make it work. If maintenance is an issue, then find a way to install both items so that they can be removed with minimal angst and work. Use slip rail joiners so that you can remove the turnout in seconds. I would build the bridge carefully enough so that it could be slipped out from under the rails, and reinserted by lifting the rails a fraction of an inch so that you can work on the switch in place. My rails are not affixed to either of my trestles, and everything seems to work fine.
My guess would be that the turnout would have manual throws. I couldn’t even imagine trying to make a switch machine work. Would love to see pics of the final product when you get it done.
Could you sneak an ATLAS under table in the wood work? But that is a neat idea.
Don’t get me wrong, …I’d love to see it work. I just wanted to make you aware of the challenge ahead. [;)]
Thanks alot for the advice!! I most likely will do it, simply because it will make my opertaions a little more advanced, and it will add a unique feature to my layout. It’s not going to be a big layout, so I have to use every inch possible for good operations planning, and for the all important “WOW!!” factor. Since the turnout will be directly in front of the control terminal, I will probably leave it manual throw.
The old B&O had one at Harpers Ferry W.V. I have been there and walked the tressel (not wise thing to do). In my opinion it would not be an operational nightmare and with a little ingenuity it could be made remote. Possibly useing a wire going down through the bridge work to under the board machine.
A manual turnout with a Caboose Hobbies groundthrow would work. If a Peco turnout was used the grownthrow would not be necessary.
If a ground throw would be to hard to use, you may be able to run a wire through 1/16" tubing to make the TO. This would be small enough to disguise as pipe or conduit. I’ve heard of people using a ground throw on the layout fascia to actuate the TO, however, a simple knob or ball on the end of the wire would also work.
Keddie Wye on the old Western Pacific is the most famous example of a turnout on a trestle, as Art points out above. And there have been many models of Keddie Wye.
There is a short trestle at Bureau Jct Illinois, former Rock Island trackage. The track plan is, or was a wye, with the RI line from Chicago splitting off into a line south to Peoria and a line west to The Quad Cities and beyond. The south leg of the wye – by which I mean the points of the switch – actually begins on the trestle itself although by the time the track actually splits off it is on dry land. The trestle crosses a small creek or river.
Dave Nelson
Back when I was in junior high school and didn’t know any better, I used to walk home on the right-of-way of the Houston Belt and Terminal East Belt line alongside Hughes Tool Company, a half-mile square complex of industrial buildings. HB&T had a 15’ high trestle maybe 150’ long over a trickle of a bayou. On the trestle near one end was a turnout to a line going into the plant. (Turnout on the trestle.) The plant access line went onto a curve, crossed an inplant road that on a lower level. There also was a plant security gate ON the trestle. Trackage inside the plant made a multi-city-block loop for circulation.
The Hughes plant relocated and facilities were recycled as an inner-city industrial park with multiple users. HB&T was double-tracked, HB&T no longer exists as such because of UP mergers, not sure how it is offically owned- but East Belt still operated very actively. Turnout and spur may still be there but I dunno, all on private and/.or rr property. Don’t think I have any photos that show it clearly.
Plenty of examples–railroads could be resourceful when ca$h was involved.
Bethlehem PA Lehigh Valley and Reading shared a bridge over the Lehigh River, which the LV reached via a track switch located in a plate girder bridge span.
Niagara Junction Railroad had numerous track switches on embankments and trestles to serve industrial “high lines” in good old Niagara Falls, NY. BTW Niagara Junction was electrified, so add catenary to that elevated switch collection!
Virtually every wharf track or plant high line had track switches and derails on bridge sections. One note here about switch throws–not a lot of room on the side, so many mechanisms were situated between the rails, under planking.
Or this one, I’ve got a Sandborn map depicting a 3-way switch on a short trestle! Personally, I think this is in error as the SP typically avoided the 3-way switch, but the line is long gone and it was not orginally built by the SP , but aquired and converted from narrow to standard guage , so who can say? Either way I plan to recreate it and let the doubters have their say!
Dave
Or Micro Engineering! [8D]
Examples of them - sure are as expounded here BUT!!! Most times it was avoided unless absolutely necessary by real railroads. Most times I believe you would find that every effort is made to locate the turnout on solid ground even to the point of the having a gauntlet track on the bridge until it can split.
See, my trestle will be right after a curve, and it seems to me that it would be more prototypical to have the turnout on the trestle then on the curve before the trestle. I dont have enough room to put it in after the trestle either. If I did that, there really wouldn’t be any point to it because the added length for the spur would be negligable.
I have been thinking more about the modeling versus the prototype challenges
A couple of ideas strike me.
First Peco turnouts have built in springs making hand throwing easy. Some people use a swizzle stick to pu***he points.
But with a bit of work in the building of the trestle itself, I wonder if a bell crank and choke cable combination wouldn’t work. Less bulky than a switch motor but still remotely controlled.
Dave Nelson
How about incorparating the gauntlet track ndbprr spoke of and put the switch before the trestle. You said the trestle was double tracked, so you should not have to widen it. I don’t know of a prototype, but it would be an interesting piece of trackwork. And like what was said earlier, do what a real railroad would do and make it work!