did not fall down until better than 40 years after the road was abandoned, and even then, it had to be shoved over by a bulldozer. It was built to last, and I intended to do the same with my model. The same prototypical design was used and each joint was glued and pinned with a ¹/₂″ straight pin. Each cross member was pinned with a long shank plastic n.b.w. casting. Each bent was
joined to the next by several
stringers, also pinned. The bents were married to the deck with those same half-inch pins.
My locos weigh almost 32 ounces
each, and I weight my cars at 7.5 ounces. A double-header on the trestle with a twelve car train would weigh about 122 ounces. I set the finished trestle up with all kinds of “stuff” un- der each bent to support it as it would be on the railroad, then placed 244 ounces of assorted junk on the trestle. I would rather the model collapse now, throwing inconsequential stuff to the floor, than pitching a $1,500.00 brass loco to the concrete later. The thing did not even deflect, so I was satisfied that the trestle would hold up just fine. This was very late in 2013, and there has not been a problem. I guess those bridge engineers of the 1890’s knew what they were doing. I am here to tell you that those guard rails are more than mere window dressing! I staggered the six 24″ tie supports
The in-progress photo (above) reveals how the benchwork was reconstructed to give more strength to the trestle. It is important that the trestle be able to support a whole train when it is finally finished (top), which it did. (A test was done with twice the train weight on it.)
ways, not the least bit different in con- struction. “Not the least bit different?” Ha! I had to build another workbench to accommodate the huge model. I could not build it in sections because I had to lay the deck all in one piece, and it was 126″ long. Donna graciously loaned me her workbench for the dura- tion of the undertaking, which I used as an extension to what turned out to be the staging yard of an HO layout I was working on. Not only did I want to keep the RGS in operation, but I was hesitant to tear up the scenery, track, and shortie tres- tle until I was sure I could actually build a proper replacement. I left the status quo while I built the big guy; the only railroad being stopped was the lit- tle HO pike. One of the first jigs I made was a styrene fixture to go in the table saw that held several pieces of ¹/₄″ square stock at the precise angle of the bents’ main support beams. From the several crude sketches and exact measure- ments I made, I doodled up a materials list by size and length. I was astounded
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
at the sheer quantity of lumber needed for the model. Finally, I found a use for all those cigar boxes that I was saving. As each group of stripwood was sized and cut, they were stained with india ink and alcohol, dried, and placed in their own container. The container was labeled and I moved along to the next size. Once I had all the lumber cut (that Micro-Lux table saw paid for it- self in this one project alone), I was ready to start actual bent construction. One of the sketches I made delineated the height of each bent, which, by the way, were numbered, and the exact lo- cation markd on the deck. Since the bents
were somewhat repetitive, I
cheated a bit and made each one a spe- cific variable of one, two, three, or four stories tall. The 31 bents ended up be- ing only six sizes. The prototype bents only varied by a few feet, so the com- promise was a small one.
Since On3 locomotives are hefty both in weight and price, I wanted the mod- el to be as strong or stronger than the prototype it represented. As an aside here, the specific bridge I was modeling
by 12″ each so that the whole 126¹/₄″ deck became one rigid piece. Small sec- tions of track were laid on the layout it- self at each end of the bridge. The deck was set in place, and the rails laid right up the rails on the deck. Now I know the thing will fit where it is supposed to go. When all the bents were at- tached, I now had a rigid model over ten feet long and two feet tall. Donna, Mark, and yours truly wrestled the monster in place with surprisingly lit- tle in the way of off-color language. The deck was stiff enough that there was very little in the way of sag across the whole thing. Vertical bent supports were cut for
each bent such that the model was on a nice even 2.5 percent grade, as per the prototype (and layout). Plaster cloth thickness was taken into account, thus each support was cut about ¹/₁₆″ short. We removed the trestle and crafted the scenery, rockwork and ground cover. We then re-installed the thing with even fewer hassles. There was a little scenery adjustments here and there, but over- all, she slipped into place nicely. As I mentioned, I pinned things to-
gether with pins and n.b.w.’s. Attach- ments are important in many ways, so, next month, we will discuss attach- ments in greater depth.
77
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100