Z's workbench

[Zunnan]

I'm not particularly new here but I seldom post much that is modelling related, and even less so when it is my own modelling...Disused railways thread however, now thats a different story

When I had a wander around TINGS today the one thing that struck me more than any other is the effort that everyone puts into their layouts, but with one very common flaw. The cursed Peco bridge scenic break! With all the effort that goes into preparing these wonderful layouts, I really do have to question why the compromise is made with them. Thats much politer than 0121modeller put it at the show...several times...loudly...at numerous layouts . I also got talking to a chap towards the end of the day and one subject mentioned was bridges (as well as talk of butchering a Farish 08 and Union mills 2F, but thats for later) which got me thinking about collecting together all the posts in various places I've done and bringing them into one place...and hopefully making a few think of kicking the Peco Bridge habit/curse. I will say now though, that I consider N Gauge to be an illustration to the bigger picture, so I don't shy away from omitting the finer detail in favour of getting the flavour right from a normal viewing distance, ie: at arms reach.


When I returned to the hobby a few years ago I started off with a layout needing a bespoke girder bridge...


This girder bridge to be exact. Little did I know it would lead me on the slippery slope of becoming ever obsessed with building my own infrastructure. Very simplistic in construction, and I still build my girders in the same basic way to this day. They may not have the rivet detail needed for close up photography, but even this very basic bridge looks more pleasing than the ubiquitous bow plate from Beer...well, it does to me at least!


The basic recipe is Evergreen and/or Plastruct parts and a NorthWest Short Line 'chopper' to keep you sane cutting dozens of identical bits of plastic.


A pair of tweezers and some background noise for distraction and its assembly time.


Add the paraphet railing and its job done as far as the girder is concerned. Mount it to the decking and fit it to the abutments, primer and it is job done. Its not a one size fits all job, its a 10 minutes to make something that fits the layouts requirements job. (now you get where I'm coming from with the Peco bridges)

Along the same lines as the first bridge I built for myself comes the next subject built for my current layout which is still under construction. It uses the same girder as above, but this time it is modelled carrying a road across a 4 track railway. Following a visit to 0121modellers house to see his quite unbelievable 00 bridges I decided to do this one a little differently. I built it to be dismantleable as it will be sited in a vulnerable position on my layout, and for any moves I would prefer it to be removable and easily storable.


Abutments made from plasticard, with the butressing and hollow pilaster extending and surrounding the 6mm ply bridge deck. The bedstones were done by masking the plasticard using electrical insulating tape and smearing Revell Plasto onto the unmasked area. Plasto doesn't react with the tape, so when the mask is removed it gives a nice clean level line across the brickwork.


The deck itself was built using exactly the same girder construction as in my first bridge. This time topped with a brick parapet wall which uses 00 gauge triangular brick capping, which in N works out about right for representing the larger capping found on bridges. You can see how the parapet and girder slot inside the abutment here for it to be assembled.


Nothing fancy, and another relatively quick build, including the abutments maybe 5 hours work from start to reaching this primered state. As there is still track to lay and a point motor to mount directly below one of the abutments this one is not mounted on my layout as yet, it also needs a central support cobbling together, which means that I'll return to this one at a later date when I begin on that job.

The next one is image intensive as I actually photographed it in the construction stages, and unlike this pair of quickeis its a bit more detailed...

[Zunnan]

Apologies for the lengthy post, but I'll regurgitate here the process I went through to produce a skewed twin track plate girder bridge with a cantilevered paraphet in N Gauge.

 

Some time ago I noticed that the Kestrel water tower kit has some quite pleasant parts which build up to make the water tank. Never intending to build the water tower as it should be, I decided to 'convert' the kit into a bridge! I joined the two longer tank pieces together with a piece of 'T' section plastruct to give me a useful length girder...

 

Plastruct, narrow channel and 'Z' section...

 

I stripped the lip from one edge of the narrow 'C' section and glued them together. Can you guess what it is yet?

 

The top section was no different to previous incarnations of styrene based girder that I used to build other bridges, although the top and bottom lip had to be added first because I have built this plain side out.

 

And a crude mock up of the skew that this bridge will be built on. The original plan has this as a road bridge, but I'm currently thinking disused trackbed due to the girder design being more typical of a railway bridge. I'm actually quite surprised at just how easy the basic girder was to make. Of course, theres a fair amount of work to carry out to finish this one off.

 

Building the abutments turned out to be quite the challenge, mostly because of the awkward skew that I decided to inflict upon it. I think it is needed though, otherwise the section of track it is intended for is going to be a straight section of line sandwiched between two 90 degree over bridges. The skew is intended soley to break up this squared off look.

 

 

I started with a very basic ply sub structure to get the skew angle right before committing anything to plasticard.

 

I began by shaping a template out of 9mm styrene channel. This will form the basis of the angles at the faceted end of the abutment as well as becoming reinforcement and the top surface of the abutment directly below the girders.

 

 

I then 'skinned' the template using plasticard of an adequate height. 37mm in this case with a 3mm gap between bedstone and girder with all edges mitred to give nice crisp corners to the brickwork.

 

 

Once the supporting section of the abutment was completed, I turned my attention to producing the buttresses and pilasters, and in this case have a slight step in the brickwork separating the buttress and pilaster segments. Once the excess on the front edge is trimmed to the correct height, these assemblies will be ready to have a capping stone built up and fitted in place.

 

 

 

Owing to the skew angle, I observed the structure of several bridge abutments in the Birmingham area, and the main common feature I noticed with all of the bridges that weren't built on a 90 degree crossing is that the abutment where the angle is significantly over 90 degrees are faceted, constructed almost as a butress in some cases such as the Summer Lane bridge in Erdington, so that the bedstone supporting the girder in this location is fitted as a 90 degree piece of masonry, or very close to that. It was trying to get these angles right which had been a source of problems and several rebuilds during this bridge build, but I think that this form is now pretty generic for a (Midlands) cantilevered plate girder bridge built on a skewed angle. Regarding the abutment, a number that I have observed do not have the girder recessed into the brickwork and it is the design of these that the bridge leans towards more than others, having said that, it would still be relatively easy to alter the pilasters to represent this other type.

 

 

As can be seen, the girder sits a couple of mm above the stepped abutment. Each corner of the girder (once mounted to the trackbed) will have feet constructed which will seat it properly on to the bedstones, again a typical feature of many bridges of this type; but is in no means a compulsory feature. I'd never built a bridge with this detail before, so thought that its time I did one.

 

The next stage in construction is a relatively small detail, but it is one which features on the majority of girder bridges, and just looks odd when it is missing; the bedstones.

 

I start by masking the area that the bedstones will be sited using electricians insulation tape. Care is taken to ensure that the tape follows the mortar course rather than the middle of a brick, and therefore the bedstone looks to be laid with the bricks rather than a blob plastered over them. In 00 this is more important because the course is much more obvious, but you still notice it in N gauge as well when you look closely.

 

Revell 'Plasto' is then caked roughly onto the unmasked areas, I do this roughly because even when filed down it can leave quite natural marks and indentations to otherwise smooth 'stone'. It is at this stage that the use of insulation becomes apparent; 'Plasto' contains solvents which melt the plastic in the same manner as plastic weld type glues, so the filler literally bonds itself with the plastic. However, the filler doesn't react with the tape at all, so when its dried you can just peel off the tape and leave a ragged edge to the 'masonry'.

 

Once the filler has had a few hours to thoroughly set, I then file down the surface with the masking left in place. There are two reasons for leaving the masking on at this point. First, it protects the brickwork from the file. Secondly, it is thick enough to leave a very slight overhang when the insulating tape is removed, and this helps the bedstone to stand out when it is primered and later painted. The manner in which the tape is removed can have a profound effect on the final appearance of the work. If the tape is pulled off following filing it will leave a broken 'aged' edge, if you first run a sharp blade along the lines of the masking you get a much crisper edge. Different files will also leave different finishes to the stonework, in this case a coarse nail buffer was used to leave a rough but flat finish.

 

A trial fitting on the layout...Getting there...slowly!

 

Extremely cruel closeup time!

 

I have made the feet that site the girder in place on the parapet using micro 'T' section glued together in multiples; pairs to fix to the girder and triplicate to fix to the 'bedstones'. This was done by literally sticking them side by side on a piece of masking tape and flooding the join with Mek-Pak and letting the join solidify for a while.

 

 

When fitted to their respective parts and the glue given chance to solidify enough to work further on, the inside edge of the feet was carved to shape with a scalpel.

 

With the feet now in place the girder can only sit correctly on the abutment at the required height and in the required location. The pilasters also have a very basic capping applied, nothing ornate just a simple slab of concrete. I hasten to add that this build is by no means at all based on a specific prototype, it is just a meld of basic generic features to get the feel for the real thing without overloading on too much detail on such a small model.

 

Primered and ready to paint up.

 

And to go between those girders...

 

 

I made a basic jig using nails to locate the cross girders on a temporary frame, which once the glue had dried fully were removed with the exception for the very end ones so that Slaters brick could be curled and pushed into the spaces between the cross girders. You do need to let the glue fully set on the cross girder to frame joins, otherwise the force built up in several arches trying to straighten themselves out can and will tear the whole deck apart. You also need to leave the nails in place to hold the last cross girders firm while everything sets; I know this from experience...the above isn't the first attempt at making the deck for this bridge...and is the reason for a lack of photos of this stage, lets just say I lost my temper with the bridge at this point!

 

When all of the glue joins were fully set, another set of cross girders were glued in place so as to extend above the jack arches and give a firm anchor to the decking material.

 

 

The deck on this bridge, being as its going to be covered with a disused trackbed-come-footpath, used the thickest sheet plasticard I had to hand in order to stand any chance of surviving the pent up forces in those curled jack arches. Thankfully it was strong enough to do the job and still keep the deck flat until the girders were glued in place, further strengthening the deck.

 

 

And the reason for going to the lengths of producing jack arches in N Gauge ~

 

 

Not the easiest build by a long shot, but it does show that even in N Gauge you can see underneath a bridge at a baseboard edge from normal viewing distance. It definately looks better than a plain piece of plasticard or plywood!

[Zunnan]

The 90 minute bridge

 

At TINGS I was chatting to a chap about scratch building bridges, and I mentioned that they can be done very quickly indeed. This one, as the title suggests has taken 90 minutes to build, and paint. It was done as a part of a small photographic diorama that I built, itself being near completed within 20 hours of the idea first being mentioned. That 20 hours includes a few hour round trip to my local model shop 6 miles away by public transport, about 6 hours waiting for glue to dry; but doesn't include any time for sleeping as most of the work was done between the hours of 11pm and 9:30am immediately following me getting home from an MRC meeting on Thursday!

 

I passed out face down in a delivered box of fried chicken, hence I didn't finish the diorama in one sitting...which was the challenge I had set meself. I guess I'm getting older and need my beauty sleep thesedays.

 

Anyway, on to the bridge.

 

1 yard long twin track diorama on an embankment. To add interest I decided to include a bridge midway along its length. Following my standard practice of building abutments on a 5mm ply base, the first thing I did was cut two polygons matching the 7" width of the base of the embankment and the 2 1/8" width of the trackbed and so matching the basic profile of the embankment. Two rectangular pieces of ply were also cut to form the protruding part of the abutment supporting the bedcourse and were swiftly glued in place on to the profiled pieces of ply. No photos sadly, I was timing this one .

 

Owing to time constraints the resulting wing walls wouldn't be reclined, which personally I do feel detracts from the bridge, but then I'm a picky beggar! A 2" high strip of my chosen brick medium of Slaters 2mm English bond was then hastily superglued (I use rubberised superglue, its perfect for the job) in place directly on top of the ply, where a 90 degree angle was met I simply heavily scored the inside edge of the bend on the plasticard and glued it in situ. It took about 2 minutes to do each abutment! When I had skinned the second abutment I ran a scalpel around the first to trim off the excess plasticard and filed the resulting edge back so it was flush with the edge of the ply. When the second had been so trimmed I then superglued a strip of Ratio 00 gauge round brick capping to the top of the wing walls and before the glue had even set both abutments were sitting pretty in primer.

 

While the primer was drying I turned to my usual construction method for girder bridges, namely 'I' section styrene and micro 'T' section. It has to be said that having a NorthWest Short Line 'Chopper' helps greatly in doing this very quickly and accurately. 4 girders done in about 10 minutes.

 

Back to the abutments and a fast wash with Revell Matt 35 gives me my mortar base colour, and again its time to let paint dry...back to the girders.

 

Drill out several 2mm holes in the top of the girder to accept a 2mm square 'H' section piece of styrene, these will form the fixings for the parapet handrail stancions. Cut said 2mm square 'H' section into a dozen 7mm lengths using the 'Chopper' and using the tip of a pair of long nose pliers as a depth gauge I drilled out a 0.7mm hole in every stanchion in order to accept the brass rod being used for the handrail. The top of the stanchions was also vertically sawn into by 1mm to accept the top handrail. A blob of glue at the foot of each stanchion and the resulting melting of plastic allows you to force the slightly oversized plastic into the 2mm holes I drilled into the girder. I have since gone back and made a copy of this process to take a photo for this post ~

 

 

The stanchions are no more complex than this. A little over scale for ruggedness as this diorama will be handled and transported to MRC meetings regularly, but they do their job.

 

 

Working from left to right, this mockup illustrated the stages that I went through to build the girders described. 2mm anchor hole: Stanchion fixed into the hole: Micro 'T' section on the girder face neatly hides the hole in the 'web' of the girder: ditto, to allow a short piece of brass rod to be fitted.

 

With the stanchions all glued in place and brass rod threaded and glued into place, all of the girders go off for a coat of primer; and its back to those abutments as the Matt 35 wash is dry enough (just) to attack with another layer of paint.

 

My chosen colour for the brickwork is Railmatch 403 'Roof Dirt', and this is liberally dry brushed on to the currently flesh coloured abutments. The transformation is startling, and this is one part where I take my time as one over heavy paint stroke and its back to redo the mortar wash on the abutments. Still, 15 minutes and both are done, and even with wet paint they go outside for a blow over with matt varnish and are left outside to dry in the breeze. Thanks to the grey primer used on the girders, they don't need any more painting, so its off to make a (strong) coffee and have a breather while the varnish dries on the abutments. Coffee downed, the abutment sare touch dry so one is swiftly glued in place on the diorama, and the girders are superglued in place around it. Moment of truth time, if the girders have been measured correctly the second abutment will literally fall into place...

 

 

And there we have it, with only the embankment 'grass' to be extended to meet the wing walls. Now that I look at it with my scrutinising eye, I will also add a pilaster at each end of each girder and mask beneath the lower girder to paint on a representation of the bedstones. Those niggly bits aside though, its a scratch built N Gauge bridge in 90 minutes, including painting and a coffee break.

[Kris]

Good set of posts the Zunnan. I quite agree about the fact that the peco bridge is over used but as one of only a limited number of products on the market it's not surprising. Most people would rather put their effort into a central scenic item rather than one right on the edge.

[Edwin_m]

There is a lot of inspiration here, showing that a decent structure can be done without a huge amount of time and effort. So often layouts are spoilt by unlikely or downright impossible structures which spoil the good work done elsewhere. When the bridge is a scenic break then perhaps it's even more important to get it right, as it draws attention away from the wall of sky on the other side.

[Zunnan]

My sentiments exactly. The scenic break is where the stars of the show emerge from, like it or not they become the centre of attention for viewers and that absolutely beautiful station building (for example) you spent a lot of time and effort in producing merely becomes a point at which you expect the train to stop at as it passes through, once it emerges. I think the only layout that I've seen where the layouts feature has kept my attention away from the scenic break has been Bassenthwaite Lake, you just can't help being drawn into that one.

[Zunnan]

I knew I couldn't live with the 90 minute job looking incomplete, so as I eluded to at the end of the post I have thrown together some simple pilasters that are hopefully simple enough to work with the rest of the bridge.

 

This ones a very quick structure to produce, its just 3.2mm square Evergreen styrene with a single piece of Slaters English bond brick fixed to three sides, scored heavily at the corners to wrap around the styrene core. The fourth side has its own separate piece of plasticard fixed in place, I find it easier to do it this way than to accurately wrap all four sides from one piece with one join to soak up all of the inaccuracies in assembly.

 

Then I fixed an oversized piece of styrene in place for the capping stone with the intention of carving it down. In 00 I normally do this as a separate item, but due to the fiddly size of N I feel it easier to handle for carving when attached to a larger 'handle'.

 

To get an uniform lip/overhang to the edges I have fine sandpaper which has been spray mounted to a lump of timber giving a nice flat sanding surface on which to work. To get the lip I use a couple of layers of electrical tape on which to slide the pilaster until the plasticard surface meets the tape for its entire length. As well as ending up with exactly the same lip on every pilaster, the lip is also square with the brickwork.

 

A little tidying up with a scalpel to remove all the burrs from filing and some faceting to the capping stone to make it look less like a block of styrene and this pilaster is ready for the paint shop

[Zunnan]

Because they're so small I found it easier to fix the pilasters to a bit of styrene with a tiny dab of glue and to use the styrene as a handle while I painted them up to match the abutments.

 

I ended up dry brushing the capping stones to pick out the faceting so it stands out more in photographs.

 

I realise hanging basket liner generally comes out as vastly overscale in N, but when speed is of the essence it does the job of covering ground quickly and easily. A few seamoss trees and I think it looks quite reasonable for what is an extremely rushed job.

 

I particularly like it when you look out of the window

 

[justin1985]

Amazing work! I keep looking through the Faller catalogue etc trying to pick out suitable bridges, but this post is a great reminder of how rewarding scratchbuilding can be!

[Southernboy]

I've just discovered your thread Zunnan - some really useful information / great 'Step-By-Steps' / observational detail.

 

Thanks for posting this.

[shanks522]

Some great modelling Zunnan, I've found it really thought provoking, make's me want to remove all the bridge's on my layout and start again.

 

Graham.

[Dave777]

Could not agree more about the overusing of Peco's offerings... while also acknowledging Kris's point that they are convenient and there's not a lot of choice. One other point too worth mentioning - they also get used a lot because of their quality. A cheap, well moulded product.

 

One manufacturer worth looking at for anyone who wants an alternative is Knightwing:

 

http://www.knightwin...=1316325590.173

 

Not too sure why these aren't more widely seen on layouts as they look very good to me (click on the next page too).

 

Anyway, the work you've shown here is outstanding! Can I ask where you got the handrails from for the first bridge?

[Zunnan]

I agree, the Knightwing offering is a handy alternative that seems to be very underused. With the supports brought inwards to trackside and bespoke abutments cobbled together they could be made into a very nice structure along the lines of the bridge below ~

 

Rotting quietly away near the site of Newdigate colliery, Bedworth. I reckon the Knightwing plate girder bridge could easily be built into a slightly heavier version of something like this.

 

I do find the Knightwing girders to be a little overscale, thats me being nitpicky...but they're so overscale that they were actually slightly too large for a 00 bridge I built which used the N Gauge plates, only by a scale 4 1/2" per plate mind

 

Anyone familiar with the Baddesley Colliery branch may recognise this one, when its not completely hidden by trees

 

The handrails on the bridge in the first post are in the Plastruct range if I recall. I'm not entirely sure what the item code was for them but when I tried to buy a couple more packets at my local model shop they only had the angled stairway versions available as SR-2, the larger straight handrails were HR-4 so I'd assume the smaller ones to follow the stair code and be HR-2.

[Dave777]

Ah, I've got some of those already now you mentioned it! Thanks.

[Revolution Ben]

Hi Zunnan,

 

Great bridges - and great scenics too. What techniques and materials did you use to create the trees on the embankment next to the HST?

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

[Zunnan]

I cheated with the trees, like the rest of the diorama I went the quick way and as I had some Woodlands Scenics 'fine leaf foliage' to hand I used that. I believe it is seamoss and its quite badly crammed into the packaging as it comes and the plastic 'tree' carcass is absolutely awful which is why I discarded it from its intended use on a 00 layout, so it had been gathering dust in my bits box for ages. But when the seamoss itself is gently teased out and the green 'foliage' is scraped off the trunks/limbs with a fingernail so as not to damage the rubbery brown paint they seem to have used as an adhesive it does seem to come up pretty decently for the smaller scale. Not everything that comes out of the packaging is particularly brilliant, so I was very selective with what was used as I sifted through what I had.

[0121modeller]

When I had a wander around TINGS today the one thing that struck me more than any other is the effort that everyone puts into their layouts, but with one very common flaw. The cursed Peco bridge scenic break! With all the effort that goes into preparing these wonderful layouts, I really do have to question why the compromise is made with them. Thats much politer than 0121modeller put it at the show...several times...loudly...at numerous layouts

 

Indeed so Zunnan, I felt compelled as to point this out to them, its such a pity to see so many finely detailed layouts let down with just plain readymade girder sides plonked into place with a supporting base between them !

 

Often at exhibitions, I'll see the girders of a model bridge positioned inbetween abutment walls, AKA "floating girders", , I literally hold my breath & cringe when a train cross's over (even though the crossing is safe), the girders portrayed butted up to abutments, floating ... certainly looks odd !

Whilst at the early stages of building the bridge & its abutments its really not difficult to model the load bearing girder endmosts actually resting upon bedstones of the abutments.

 

Its not really a "rivet counting" issue , & I dont think I'm being picky or poking fun really, but railbridges, like the real ones, are something that should be built & layed down correctly portraying sufficient foundation & support.

. ,

Also, bow plate girder bridges butted up as to cross a wide span , them not having a central supporting abutment wall where its needed - the miracle physics of modelling - not !

 

Also, when I refer to readymade girder sides, I mean that they're easily modified to look a bit more unique... eg; cut 'n' shut peco bow plate girder lengths as to suit the width of the roadway or canal etc it crosses over.

For instance, IMO the Peco bow plate is a little over-length size & would easily span across a model of the M6 motorway, including both hard shoulder lanes maybe, such a span would need either a central support or 2 connected "cut 'n' shut" bridges with central abutment at the meeting of them , !

 

 

Railway bridge I built for Raistlin 295 "Finsbury Road" layout.

 

 

Peco bow plate girder with I think it was 4 web plates removed from centre, then re-welded together using MEK-PAK, its a rather "cut 'n' shut" thing that works well & the joining is easily sanded out.

Cross girders shown in the process of fitment , I'm using plastruct HFS4 or HFS5 (I forget which I used).

 

Knightwing PN13 etc N gauge plate girders are ideally suited** for oo/4mm scale more-so than for N gauge IMO , as the plates are a good scale size of approx 4ft x 4ft for 00 scale ,

(** = bridges with paraphets)

 

Dave.

[Zunnan]

Dave, you do realise that I hold you personally responsible for my ever more nitpicky attitude to model bridges...

 

What you say is spot on though, I couldn't agree more! I just wish that we had an N Gauge version of the Wills 'Varigirder' kit (if there is one, I don't know of it yet), the bridge you did for Raistlin really is something and the only way I can currently see of producing that in the smaller scale is to do some major butchery of a dozen or so Kestrel Water towers...you know the worst thing? I'm actually toying with doing exactly that to replace the modular bridge in my first post and building a version of the Dudley Road/high Street bridge on the Pensnett branch in its place! Well, I did take plenty of detail photos of it when we were last there after all...It would almost be rude of me not to do it.

[BernardTPM]

Well, there's always the Lima 'London Brick' wagon, a US gondola in dubious livery, but it has nice rivetty sides like a plate girder!http://www.tmc-direct.com/LIMA320720-1.JPG

[0121modeller]

Yes indeed Zunnan, I cant help but notice your bridge building has improoved since my thread on NRM & likewise I'm inspired by your modeling work & knowledge on just about everything. .

 

When scratchbuilding bridges or anything else in any gauge I'll always have my referance charts pinned above my workbench for choosing suitable components. Here's my chart (above) for Plastruct white styrene.

 

I use a lot of strip styrene from the "Evergreen" brand. The range has a vast amount of nominal sizes which are numbered in a comprehensive way as you can see the referance chart I compiled , so if I need use or buy a particular size I'll just look for the appropriate referance number.

 

For an N gauge project myself & Zunnan are working on at a local model railway club, I've made a start to building this N gauge bridge based on the one seen in a photo below

The components I'm using as to represent the raised detail, a tedius task positioning the tiny cut squares exactly, so much so that when I've completed one, I may decide to try & reproduce the item using a mould & casting, as I'll need at least 2 of the same item.

The cast iron bridge at Bournville rail station, I've made a start as to scratchbuilding this in N gauge as seen in the above photo's

 

Assembled sections of modified Wills SS57 plate girders as for the building the 4mm scale bridge for Finsbury road.

Whatever project I'm doing, I'll always have a suitable tray as to organize the different components for assembly at a later stage.

This tray was from one one of those pound shops & originally contained an assortment of nuts & bolts which I've now stored elsewhere.

I'm using sprue cutters as I found it easier to cut these stiffener componants at an angle

I'll usually try to add a bit of typical charector to anything I make based on photo's & observations of the real thing. In this case, seen in the above photo's are stiffeners that go between each & every individual plate.

When I visit exhibitions I often see Wills SS57 vari-gider bridges built with the web plates butted to each other , its so easy to add a little realism enhancement & makes the model all the more unique, - so adding some protruding stiffeners inbetween plates as seen above can enhance a Wills vari-girder bridge.

Here's "the Chopper" myself & Zunnan recommend so highly . Cutting those styrene components accurately to the same size was easily & quickly done.

Wills Vari-girder plates cut up & reduced in size as to make the endmost load bearing girders for the bridge I built for Raistin295's "Finsbury Road" project.

The N Gauge plate girder sides from knightwing are perfectly suited for building 4mm scale plate girder bridges.

 

Possibly, For better N gauge representation these knightwing components could be "cut & shut" removing a lot of the center area to each plate, a VERY time consuming task.... it would be nice if Knightwing/Heljan were to make these plates smaller as to better represent N gauge plate girders, for easier potential scratch building a variety of N gauge plate girder bridges that have cantilever paraphets.

 

A great source of referance as to building model bridges

 

A tape measure is'nt always convenient or safe to use for measuring the distance between bridge abutments, so I'll sometimes use my ultrasonic distance measuring device, it gives a fairly accurate digital reading for both imperial & metric.

 

Plate girder bridge carrying a road. I used this design as for building the bridge for Finsbury Road.

 

Cheers,

Dave.

[Southernboy]

Previously I've bought plain, plate girder bridge sides, as shown in the link below, in N gauge.

 

http://www.modeljunc...products_id=777

 

They were made by Micro Engineering - but the N gauge versions don't seem to be available now - only the 00 version.

 

I don't know if the N gauge is discontinued, or simply out of stock at the stores I checked.

[Zunnan]

Hacking apart a gondola isn't something that I had previously considered, that does open up quite a few possibilities and it isn't limited to the old Lima one. Looking at them it is certainly a viable option, especially as I would expect they'd be a scale 9-10 feet wide and 5-6 feet deep so could be usable without needing to remove the sides from the base in order to produce some narrower bridges. To be honest I'd forgotten about checking deeper into the US market after seeing and dismissing the Kato and Atlas offerings, there should be plenty of trestle components which can be aglicised the Micro Engineering bits being a prime example. Food for thought indeed.

[Tase]

Hi Zunnan, may I ask where you got the oo gauge brick capping from please?

[Adrian Wintle]

Previously I've bought plain, plate girder bridge sides, as shown in the link below, in N gauge.

 

http://www.modeljunc...products_id=777

 

They were made by Micro Engineering - but the N gauge versions don't seem to be available now - only the 00 version.

 

I don't know if the N gauge is discontinued, or simply out of stock at the stores I checked.

 

Te Micro Engineering N scale bridges are still available.

http://www.microengi...products_br.htm

 

Another option would be the Atlas bridges

http://www.atlasrr.c...girder/2080.jpg

http://www.atlasrr.c...photos/2548.gif

 

or the Walthers one, which is available separately or as part of their art-deco overbridge.

http://www.walthers....ctinfo/933-3800

http://www.walthers....ctinfo/933-3820

 

Also, don't count out the Kato plate girder bridge

http://www.walthers....tinfo/381-20454

 

I also like the Chooch piers and abutments (painted resin-cast items)

http://www.choochenterprises.com/html/tunnels_.html

 

Adrian

[Douglas G]

Just to echo others, this is great stuff, Zunnan. It is good to see someone scratchbuilding in N rather than relying on the same old ready to plant products you see again and again on different layouts. Your brick pillasters are almost twins of ones I have been making with Ratio N brick sheet to support a GWR metal water tank.

 

One (to me) surprising source of information on bridges Is the book "Plastic Structure Kits" by Iain Rice, which is about using the Wills 4mm Scenic Series. Chapter 4 is on Civil Engineering and has lots of information and drawings on the construction of different types of bridge, both brick and metal. I would heartily recommend it, whatever scale you are modelling in, although I think it is hard to get now except secondhand.

 

Douglas