Very long bridge ideas..please....

Inkslinger13

New Member
Hello.... sort of new to the hobby, and very glad I have found this place.
I have a suspended track layout in my home, which happens to be a duplex. The plan covers 3 rooms and a hallway. I noticed the other day when a train passes in another room on the adjoining wall it is very loud. One of the walls where the trains pass is the common wall shared by our neighbors. I have foam roadbed on that wall but the neighbors have said they can still hear it, if only for a few seconds at a time.

I would like to make a bridge that spans the whole wall so that I do not have to have the shelf attached to the common wall at all. Of course I could just run the shelf from one wall to the other making a bridge, but I was thinking more along the lines of a ("pass thru"?), type. The bridge would have to span about 15' . I have modeled several small bridges of wood and styrene, but how does one start such a long bridge?

Any ideas?
I can soon post the pics if anyone thinks it would help.
 

Matthyro

Will always be re-membered
That is a great link Jay. Never knew that there were that many bridge designs. Ink 15 feet is sure a long distance to bridge. I will be interested in seeing what you come up with.
 
Matthyro said:
Never knew that there were that many bridge designs.
That's just the tip of the iceburg, now add in the hundreds of combinations fot hem and imagine what kind of bridhes you have then.

Best bet for Ink, is if he wants to stay railroadish, is to build a Cantilevered through truss bridge with a suspended Howe or Long Truss middle section. This should be good enough to span a 14' section, making the cantilevered sections 4' long each and the suspended center 6' long, which would put the support collumns in at the 2' mark on each end.

I'd make the cantilevered section doubled (with cantilevers up and down), in order to give the entire structure more stability. a 14' HO sclae bridge is 1219.4 feet long and would require more stability.

Good luck, let us know what you decide to do.
 
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