Cheap Trestle Build

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Rico

Rico

BN Modeller
Well I guess I was a little bored last night so I knocked together a *temporary trestle where I had planned to add one earlier.
(*note "temporary" in model speak usually translates to "permanent") :rolleyes:

Basically it's just some lightly modified trestle bents from one of those cheap HO "over and under" sets glued to the underside of the track.
I attatched scale 6x6 styrene strips to the underside of the track first, then spaced the bents every three ties. I ran out of strips before I
could finish the horizontal bracing. I see I will need to adjust a few piers vertically.
The girder bridge section is simply an Atlas N scale plate girder bridge turned upside down.
The ground was brought up to the bases of the piers later then plastercloth was added. It will hopefully be painted by tomorrow and have
ground foam applied by the time the weekend photo fun rolls around.
And yes it is very close to the edge of the layout, I have removable plexiglass that gets added to the fascia.:D

Overall I think it turned out not too bad for now, what do you think?
 
Looks great, they are really cheap on e-bay.

I am going to use them on my 55n3 layout. They are a bit spindly for the larger scale but I found one side can be sanded smooth and two glued together.

trestle.jpg


Harold
 
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Rico, your "temporary" trestle looks better than a lot of "permanent" ones I've seen. With a little paint on the sway braces, I'd say you're done with your temporarily permanent trestle. :)
 


Rico - Nice job! It looks better than my permanent trestle. One day I'll go back and finish the top deck.
 
I think it turned out quite well. It will look that much better once it is stained/painted/weathered, whatever you elect to do, and once its surroundings are more natural appearing. You will be quite pleased if you aren't already. :)

-Crandell
 
That looks pretty darn good to me, Rico. As Crandell said, a little paint and weathering will do wonders. ;)
 
Temporary? Id love to have that thing on a layout to display, it looks like a GREAT bridge!! Awesome work so far, and it sounds like the price was just right too!
 
That is one fine looking bridge, Rico!
I love the way you incorporated the girder section over the stream!
Fantastic work! :cool:
 


Thanx guys, it looks better every time I look at it. I won't have it done by the weekemnd however, work is getting in the way.
Harold that looks like the same parts I used.
Drew you can't tell due to the lack of color, but that's actually Copper Head Road going under the bridge.
I forgot to mention the tracks in the background are part of the Fuerst Matthes Paper Mill.
 
Well unknown to me I actually had everything I needed to try my hand at airbrushing so I gave it a whirl.
Here's how it turned out. A little touch ups needed here and there but otherwise I'm happy with it thus far...
 
It looks really good Rico that's one way torecycle those components. One thing though you should have cross-bracing between the bents as well as your lateral braces. In the prototype these cross-pieces kept the bridge from falling forward or back. Here's a demonstration trestle that I built a couple years ago. Forgive the crude work but it shows the basic structure of a trestle.
LoadingRamp11.png
 
Glen, while I generally agree with you, curved trestles often used sway bracing rather than lateral bracing to allow for the trestle to move slightly in reaction to the lateral forces of the train on the curve. Curved trestles were purposely built a little less stiff than straight trestles since the dead and live loads of a straight trestle only exerted force downward but curved trestles also exerted considerable force laterally, so good sway bracing was the most important. A few more sway braces on the main structure and some lateral bracing on the end portions would probably be better from a civil engineering point of view, but it looks pretty decent as-is.
 
A few more sway braces on the main structure and some lateral bracing on the end portions would probably be better from a civil engineering point of view, but it looks pretty decent as-is.
Click to expand...

I agree that it is a fine looking trestle. I meant no disrespect in my comments, just making a suggestion.
 


Thanks guys, it's starting to grow on me!
Glen I was thinking of more bracing but there is one not far from here that is pretty sparse, that and I was getting lazy! I'll bet you can stand on that one in your photo, looks pretty rugged!
Trey it was going to be temporary because I just kind of threw it together from a cheap over and under set given to me and some scraps from the junk pile. I was planning on doing up a wooden structure with a little more detail later on but now that this is built I may save the lumber for a snowshed I have planned.
Maybe I can build a temporary snowshed for now, hmmm.....
 
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