# Bridges



## tommy24a (Mar 4, 2016)

Has anyone built a bridge from scratch or online plans? I would be interested in trying my hand but would like to work off a set of plans. Would like to incorporate a rather big one in my layout. 

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## Tom_C (Jan 8, 2016)

There's a guy here who builds bridges (at least one guy), but I forget who. Maybe look through the 'structures' forum.


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## gregc (Apr 25, 2015)

you might be interested in Model Railroad Bridge and Trestles


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## Dennis461 (Jan 5, 2018)

tommy24a said:


> Has anyone built a bridge from scratch or online plans? ...
> 
> Sent from my LGL84VL using Tapatalk


Yes.
I almost always build a 'jig' to make the repetitive bridge parts, and I also cut pine wood down to 1/4" or less for my supply. King post. Queen post, trestles, never done a polystyrene girder bridge yet. Planning a 3-track short low trestle soon.


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## D&J Railroad (Oct 4, 2013)

I started my bridge project about 3 years ago. Starting out with a big gap area in the benchwork I searched online the many bridges that might be worth the while for my south west setting. I came across the Diablo Canyon bridge on the BNSF mainline between Winslow and Flagstaff, AZ.
This bridge would fit the bill for what I was looking for.
I searched for comparable kits but nothing was available. I set out to build it from scratch and examined wood, brass and plastic. Plastic won out for its ease of use. The only way I could get the measurements was by estimating based on the pictures that had trains crossing the bridge. I finalized my plans then transferred them to HO scale on a large sheet of drywall. I began ordering the plastic material for the beams, trusses and cross supports. 
I built the bridge on the line drawings of the drywall on my kitchen counter.
I just finished painting it and began building the scenery where it will stand. The bridge footers are cast from a mold I made and I'm currently working on the bearing footers.


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## tommy24a (Mar 4, 2016)

D&J Railroad said:


> I started my bridge project about 3 years ago. Starting out with a big gap area in the benchwork I searched online the many bridges that might be worth the while for my south west setting. I came across the Diablo Canyon bridge on the BNSF mainline between Winslow and Flagstaff, AZ.
> 
> This bridge would fit the bill for what I was looking for.
> 
> ...


Wow..amazing!

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## Don F (Dec 5, 2015)

I built several, but mine are O gauge. I made jigs for the wood trestles, and used a lot of clamps for the soldered steel open deck girder bridge. I have several pics on pages 7 & 8 in the Need All Your Threads on How To's in the General Model Train Discussion Forum. Not sure if it would help


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## tommy24a (Mar 4, 2016)

Don F said:


> I built several, but mine are O gauge. I made jigs for the wood trestles, and used a lot of clamps for the soldered steel open deck girder bridge. I have several pics on pages 7 & 8 in the Need All Your Threads on How To's in the General Model Train Discussion Forum. Not sure if it would help


Thanks I'll take a look.

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## D&J Railroad (Oct 4, 2013)

If you're looking for wood pole trestles, I built one of them too. Also a Truss bridge and some low deck girder bridges.
It's just a matter of studying the bridge type that you want to build, check the detail real close then find the material.


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## tommy24a (Mar 4, 2016)

D&J Railroad said:


> If you're looking for wood pole trestles, I built one of them too. Also a Truss bridge and some low deck girder bridges.
> It's just a matter of studying the bridge type that you want to build, check the detail real close then find the material.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuYOKGOkoLk


Great info...not sure what materials to use...

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## D&J Railroad (Oct 4, 2013)

tommy24a said:


> Great info...not sure what materials to use...
> 
> Sent from my LGL84VL using Tapatalk


The Diablo Canyon bridge is Plastruct material and Central Valley beams. The Truss bridge is a Campbell kit of Bass wood. The trestle is just dowel rods and scale size lumber. The low industrial bridges are Plastruct material and a side beam girder from an old Tyco bridge, repainted and weathered.


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## tommy24a (Mar 4, 2016)

D&J Railroad said:


> The Diablo Canyon bridge is Plastruct material and Central Valley beams. The Truss bridge is a Campbell kit of Bass wood. The trestle is just dowel rods and scale size lumber. The low industrial bridges are Plastruct material and a side beam girder from an old Tyco bridge, repainted and weathered.


Thanks! They look awesome!

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## TomFromMo (Aug 9, 2016)

Here's an example of a girder bridge I built for my incline/funicular train. It was easily strong enough not to need supports under the girder but I added them anyway for appearance. Santa brought me a hot wire cutter that I used to shape the "concrete" base for each support. The box frame columns are made from strips of .020 and .040 styrene.


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## tommy24a (Mar 4, 2016)

TomFromMo said:


> Here's an example of a girder bridge I built for my incline/funicular train. It was easily strong enough not to need supports under the girder but I added them anyway for appearance. Santa brought me a hot wire cutter that I used to shape the "concrete" base for each support. The box frame columns are made from strips of .020 and .040 styrene.


Very nice! Thanks for the response.

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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

tommy24a said:


> Great info...not sure what materials to use...
> 
> Sent from my LGL84VL using Tapatalk


Both styrene and strip wood work very well.

You could even do a wireframe on your PC and 3D print the individual pieces.


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

*Plans and photos*



tommy24a said:


> Has anyone built a bridge from scratch or online plans? I would be interested in trying my hand but would like to work off a set of plans. Would like to incorporate a rather big one in my layout.
> 
> Sent from my LGL84VL using Tapatalk




tommy24a;

The bridges in the following photos are some I built for my N-scale model railroad. The big steel trestle is a major kitbashing effort using parts from two, much modified, HO-scale, Micro Engineering "steel viaduct" kits and a half dozen N-scale 80' deck girder bridge kits from the same manufacturer.
The rest of the bridges are all scratchbuilds. The small wood coal dump trestle was built from plans published in Model Railroader Magazine. The covered bridge was built from photos published in the book "Northwest Rail Pictorial." My model is based on the Allentown covered bridge that once stood south of Seattle Washington, which is where my model railroad is set.
The big wooden truss bridge was made from plans published in an old Kalmbach book "Bridges and Buildings for Model Railroads" The three deck girder bridges in the last photo are made up of scratchbuilt brass interior structures with printed circuit board ties, code 55 running rails, & code 40 guard rails soldered to the PC ties, and Micro Engineering's 80' bridge girders glued to the outsides.

Scratchbuilding is lots of fun. You can work from plans, photos of real bridges, or your imagination. If you read up a bit on how real bridges are built, you can build a "plausible" model bridge, even if it's not an exact copy of a real one, or taken directly from a plan. 

good luck, have fun! 

Traction Fan :smilie_daumenpos:


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

Here's part 1 of a scratch built trestle series:





This is not me, BTW.


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## tommy24a (Mar 4, 2016)

traction fan said:


> tommy24a;
> 
> The bridges in the following photos are some I built for my N-scale model railroad. The big steel trestle is a major kitbashing effort using parts from two, much modified, HO-scale, Micro Engineering "steel viaduct" kits and a half dozen N-scale 80' deck girder bridge kits from the same manufacturer.
> The rest of the bridges are all scratchbuilds. The small wood coal dump trestle was built from plans published in Model Railroader Magazine. The covered bridge was built from photos published in the book "Northwest Rail Pictorial." My model is based on the Allentown covered bridge that once stood south of Seattle Washington, which is where my model railroad is set.
> ...


Wow...very cool stuff! Just need to get some materials..wood? Plastic? 

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## tommy24a (Mar 4, 2016)

flyboy2610 said:


> Here's part 1 of a scratch built trestle series:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-2bwC6snxA&t=5s
> 
> This is not me, BTW.


Thanks!

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## mesenteria (Oct 29, 2015)

Micro Engineering 160' "Combination Bridge", four spans:










Built this trestle:


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## tommy24a (Mar 4, 2016)

mesenteria said:


> Micro Engineering 160' "Combination Bridge", four spans:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I like that for sure! All wood? What scale?

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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

*Brass, plastic, wood*



tommy24a said:


> Wow...very cool stuff! Just need to get some materials..wood? Plastic?
> 
> Sent from my LGL84VL using Tapatalk


tommy24a;

You can scratchbuild with all sorts of materials. I once made "sheet metal" grain silos from cardboard toilet paper tubes covered in aluminum foil! 

My favorite material for bridge building is brass, for its strength. It should be obvious from my photos, that I have also built bridges from wood, and plastic. Any of these materials will work, and each has its advantages.

For the three wooden bridges in the second, third, and fourth, photos I used basswood and model aircraft plywood. Both are available from good hobby shops and online hobby dealers. I don't use balsa wood because it's weaker than basswood, and tends to split easily. Wood is fairly cheap, easy to cut and glue, and it looks like (duh!) wood. It is however the weakest of the three common materials. Plastic is stronger than wood, and brass is stronger than either.

I recently had a bad experience with my little wooden coal dump trestle. In fact, that model no longer exists!
I first built that little model because it looked so great in the magazine, and I just wanted to build it. However, I did not have any particular spot picked out on my layout where I wanted to install it. (dumb!)
Well recently, I found a good spot for it, but to fit the location, the trestle needed to be shortened. While trying to cut it down to size, various joints came apart, and I would no sooner glue one joint back together than another two joints would break. It got so frustrating that finally I decided to scrap the wood trestle, and build a new "wood" trestle entirely from brass. The trestle will be installed near the edge of the layout, and vulnerable to passing humans, so I thought, if I'm going to go through the effort of rebuilding this trestle, the new one needs to be as ruggedly strong as possible.

Plastic has the advantage of being able to stand in for any real life material; wood, steel, concrete, stone, or whatever. It's also super-easy to work with, and fairly strong when used in larger pieces. The big steel trestle in my first photo is made from plastic pieces taken from commercial kits. I definitely did not want to scratchbuild all the cross lacing and rivets in the box girders in that mode! (Even if I managed to remain sane, it would have taken years to make them all!) However, the Micro Engineering steel viaduct kits were only available in HO-scale, at the time, so I had to do a lot of "downsizing" of the girders. I also needed to remove all the horizontal bracing from the towers since the Milwaukee Road didn't use them. The finished structure is quite fragile though, so maybe, someday, I'll replace it with a brass model, using Gold Medal Models photo-etched, commercial box girder lacing, which has now become available, after my trestle was built.
Brass is very strong. A brass soldered model bridge is roughly equivalent in strength to a full-sized welded steel bridge. (Peace be to all the civil engineers in the audience! It's only a rough analogy! :smilie_auslachen: ) Brass is also the most difficult material to cut, detail, and fasten together of the three. So, on the three deck girder bridges in the last photo, I combined materials. Brass inside for strength and Micro Engineering's beautifully detailed plastic girder panels on the outside for looks.
It's also possible to build stone structures from real stones. The N-scale lighthouse and cottage shown below are made of tiny real stones set in plaster.

So, buy yourself some basswood, model aircraft plywood or, styrene plastic sheets & shapes, or some brass sheets & shapes, or any combination of the three that you want. Then go to it, and build something!

Have fun!

Traction Fan :smilie_daumenpos:


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## tommy24a (Mar 4, 2016)

traction fan said:


> tommy24a;
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wow thanks for the very detailed information about your building process. I will start small with perhaps wood. Thanks again!

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## LateStarter (Mar 12, 2016)

*Just a kit, but...*

These pics are all quite impressive!

But after finishing the Central Valley 200' double-track truss bridge last year, I don't want to see another bridge for awhile.

Yeah, it came out great, and I love looking at it on its plywood base in the storage locker, but being so visually challenged at my age, the whole assembly process was an exercise in eye & brain fatigue... lots of ibuprofen for headaches.
Nowadays, an Accurail hopper is beyond my ability.

It's still only been shot with a coat of gray primer, and I'll get around to a finish coat sooner or later, but my psyche isn't ready to tackle that yet.
It actually looks quite good in gray... all the minute detail shows up nicely. But that wouldn't look right on the layout.


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## mesenteria (Oct 29, 2015)

Yes, the wooden trestle at top is HO scale and it's all dimensional lumber in scale. Here's another view:


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## tommy24a (Mar 4, 2016)

mesenteria said:


> Yes, the wooden trestle at top is HO scale and it's all dimensional lumber in scale. Here's another view:


Awesome! 

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## Don F (Dec 5, 2015)

It's very rewarding to build something from scratch. Great examples and how to's


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

tommy24a said:


> Wow...very cool stuff! Just need to get some materials..wood? Plastic?
> 
> Sent from my LGL84VL using Tapatalk


See my post #15 above.

Whatever you're most comfortable working with. Prefab "metal" shapes are widely available in styrene.


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## Theamazingswal (Dec 14, 2017)

Tom it may be easier to build a semi scratch structure. I incorporated 2 Atlas truss bridges in the build. 

George


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## tommy24a (Mar 4, 2016)

Theamazingswal said:


> Tom it may be easier to build a semi scratch structure. I incorporated 2 Atlas truss bridges in the build.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Got ya..looks great...as far as the materials..u get online? Do they make styrene that looks like metal? What are some of your sources if u get online? Thanks!

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## Theamazingswal (Dec 14, 2017)

Tom the structural steel is styrene and some bridge steel that can be bough online. I would have to look that up I started this bridge about 3 years ago. The connection plates were made from a 6" X 12" sheet of bolt patterns. I don't no were I bought it but it does come in handy when doing any scratch built project. Like I said in my reply I incorporated 2 Atlas truss bridges that are very detailed and cheap. I think I paid $9.95 for each bridge. The bridge ties and I-Girders were also bought online. Again I would have to look that up and get back to you.
George


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## tommy24a (Mar 4, 2016)

Theamazingswal said:


> Tom the structural steel is styrene and some bridge steel that can be bough online. I would have to look that up I started this bridge about 3 years ago. The connection plates were made from a 6" X 12" sheet of bolt patterns. I don't no were I bought it but it does come in handy when doing any scratch built project. Like I said in my reply I incorporated 2 Atlas truss bridges that are very detailed and cheap. I think I paid $9.95 for each bridge. The bridge ties and I-Girders were also bought online. Again I would have to look that up and get back to you.
> 
> George


Thanks for the info!

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## D&J Railroad (Oct 4, 2013)

You can buy stuff like this from Central Valley. It's not a kit, just scale size beams of various sorts.


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## tommy24a (Mar 4, 2016)

D&J Railroad said:


> You can buy stuff like this from Central Valley. It's not a kit, just scale size beams of various sorts.


Cool...thanks I will check it out.

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## glenng6 (Mar 12, 2011)

OMG! I hate using those short-cut terms, but you guys have built some awesome bridges. Absolute perfection from you all. Glenn


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