Railroad bridge plans. (Modern Era)

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hello Guys! I am looking for some plans or links to any plans or books or any other sources for scratch building some bridges. (I did a search our community) But I didn’t really find what I am looking for. Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated! I model in HO scale. Thank you very much.

Thayne.

2

Thayne

Grab a camera, paint a 4 ft 1x4 black and white and go out and take pix of what you want using the real thing. I put ‘the board’ somewhere in/on the subject and try to take pix perpendicular to said board, then use the board as a ‘measuring tool’. You didn’t say what type of bridge you want, so if it isn’t something unique there are a ton of’m out there. You can probably google ‘bridge engineering’ or something like that to get more ideas too…

ctclibby

3

Gotta agree with ctclibby on this one.

What type of bridge are you looking to model?

Rich

4

I would look for two resources - both aimed at model railroaders

Kalmbach’s Model Railroad Bridges & Trestles compiles years of MR articles, often with excellent Harold Russell scale drawings.

Paul Mallery’s Bridge & Trestle Handbook is published by Carstens. It goes a bit more into the theory and practice of bridges and in a sense, suggests what kind of bridge or trestle you’d want for a particular purpose or era. It does have some construction ideas. This has been a trusted resource for 50 years.

I’d start with Mallery for info.

Kalmbach also publishes Model Railroader’s Guide to Bridges, Trestles and Tunnels but I do not have that book and cannot say much about how helpful it is.

Not at all aimed at model railroaders, but David Plowden’s picture book of bridge photographs is for all practical purposs an art book but with quite a bit of useful text and spellbinding photos.

Dave Nelson

5

For a specific Class 1 railroad’s smaller bridges, see if you can find that company’s Common Standards. They usually cover things like trestle design, girder depths vs span lengths, specifications for bridge shoes and abutments.

Larger bridges are usually one-offs, designed specifically for the site. Of course, for every one Hell Gate or Starrucca Viaduct there are a thousand trestles across wetlands and deck/through girders across highways.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with lots of oxide red deck girders and one concrete spandrel arch on a curve)

6

Thanks guys, I ordered kalmbachs bridges book. If you think of any other ideas please let me know. Thanks Thayne.