I plan to scratchbuild a wood trestle bridge. What do i use to make it? What literature is available about these? I’m new to bridges so anything helps! Thanks
Modelling HO?..if so,you might as well visit "Black Bear"s website…a lot of kits and infos there.A great site to visit.
you may be interested in the book model railroad bridges and trestles
A wry observation (not a criticism, by any means.) What you have asked is something like asking, “I want to take a girl to the Prom. What should I look for?”
Just a few Arizona examples, in no particular order:
- The original Diablo Canyon trestle, built by the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad before it was absorbed by the Santa Fe. Immensely tall, spindly structure - bents looked as if the vertical members were none-too-stout telegraph poles. (It has since been rebuilt, heavier, several times.)
- On the Crown King extension in the early '60s. Square-timber bents on wooden abutments, very heavily built. It was about 25 feet high and maybe 50 yards long.
- Low timber culverts, several places. 6-8 feet high, two bents long, round pilings driven into the soil and cut off even. Decks are ballasted.
And a very atypical logger, that built spurs into the woods on trestlework built from slash picked off the forest floor - often with the bark still on.
I suggest you give a little thought to why you want a trestle, how tall/long will it be and what load will it be carrying. Also be aware that, except for those culverts, prototype trestles (on lines meant to last for the ages) frequently become fills, with steel pipe or concrete culverts at the bottom. On a 1:1 scale railroad, “Long, tall timber trestle,” is synonomous with, “Royal PITA.”
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with steel bridges on masonry abutments)
Hi Jacktal,
Thanks for the info on Black Bear, been trying to track somthing like it for a while, nout the like this side of the pond.
Be in touch.
pick.
Boning up on the theoretical basics of wood trestle contruction, bents, pilings, and the like is helpful.
The Paul Mallery book on bridges, Bridge & Trestle Handbook, that Railroad Model Craftsman sells is an excellent basic resource. Strongly recommended. It has been in print for over 50 years and thus older copies are often seen selling cheaply at swap meets. One of the charming oddities of the book is that it is currently published by RMC but the introduction is by Al Kalmbach himself.
Before investing in good quality scale timbers, you might want to experiment with the craft sticks and dowels that you can buy quite cheaply at craft and general hobby stores. I showed some very simple ideas – VERY quickly thrown together, and the trestle shown in the article was contructed in an hour for the photograph and then discarded so it is not the last word in accurate modeling – for the NMRA Midwest Region’s Waybill last summer.
http://www.mwr-nmra.org/region/waybill/waybill20112summer.pdf
Once you actually start your project in addition to gathering prototype information and actually understanding how wood trestles and bridges go together, you may want to decide what level of modeling you intend to aspire to – is every joint between pieces to include a nut/bolt/washer casting for example, such as for NMRA achievement program points or contest level modeling, or is it enough to simply glue them together? Also is the bridge or trestle actually holding the track up, or (much more common) is the track up there anyway and the wood trestle work more or less just along for the ride?
Dave Nelson
Years ago I scratch built a wooden trestle with great results. I used twigs from a small arnamental tree. Since I pruned the tree anyway, Find one that has fairly uniform branches. For upright timbers I used slightly thicker ones about 3/16 inch in diameter. For cross members I used About 1/8 inch diameter. I was not too concerened if they all didn’t match perdectly. I just used my Xacto knife to notch them to fit. Let them dry before using or place in an electric counter top oven at 200 degrees for 30 minutes. The natural color of the bark was the color I stayed with, No need to paint…
Just to narrow results down (of course not to stop replies or anything) I plan on my bridge being about 70 ho scale feet tall and 350 scale feet long. It will be on a logging rr so it doesn’t have to be all that perfect-- they usually weren’t. Probably just made of straight trees…? Thanks so far, good answers![:)]
Do you have the book of lumber railroad photos taken by Darius Kinsey in the 1900 time frame? There are some spectacular examples of trestles built with roughly hewn trees in that book and the large format, long explosure B&W photos show every detail
A number of the photos are online
http://content.lib.washington.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/kinsey&CISOPTR=106&CISOBOX=1&REC=1
Dave Nelson
Try this video series: Part 1: Scratch building a wooden trestle. by Lex Parker - YouTube