Before I can proceed much further in the layout I need to finish the wiring, weather the track, and install the concrete bridges for the highway. My last layout taught me that while trains are number one, it’s important to give roads/houses/industries and their elevations equal thought. I have seen (and am guilty of) adding roads as an afterthought – creating little more than a cow path through an unnaturally undulating landscape. Therefore, I’ve been making every effort to shape the roads and embankments as realistically as possible – or as realistically I can imagine.
This past weekend included a great deal of driving, so I had an opportunity to take a close look at the bridges and overpasses along the highway. While I couldn’t stop to measure each bridge, I was able to get a sense of the proportions and estimate the basic dimensions based on some known measurements.
For example.
- basic car-lane width: 12′
- sidewalk and shoulders: 4.5′
- minimum width/clearance from centre of rails: 14′ (28′ total)
With this, I was able to draft out the following guide. I haven’t bothered to finish it as all I really need is a basic reference. I’ll spend the next few evening building the first bridge based on this guide. As the basic dimensions are there, the end result should be fairly convincing. Here’s hoping…
0 thoughts on “Considering Bridges”
Kashirigi says:
I was under the impression that it was desirable to weather track and add ballast as a last step, rather than one of the earlier ones. Or are you painting/weathering the ties rather than adding ballast?
Model Railroader says:
Hey Kashirigi,
Track weathering should be done before the ballast. You need to paint the sides of the rails (preferably with an airbrush) from an oblique angle, and then overspray everything from above to paint the ties. After that you ballast as usual.