Scratched bridge shoe

[Blazeman]

The "stuff" you learn on this site.....impressive.

[wm3798]

A veritable font of useless information!  It's what we do!
Lee

[Ian MacMillan]

Nothing fancy, usually sometimes just square steel shapes.

Steel shapes?... is that a cinder block?

[Lemosteam]

Beg to differ- it's not useless to me if its goint to help me be a better modeler!

[BCR751]

So, who's going to make some for us?

Doug

[chicken45]

Kudos to you for making your own! I bought the ME ones and have like a thousand extras now.
We need to get better at communication lol

[chicken45]

Upon looking at the ME shoes, yours look a lot better.

[DKS]

So, who's going to make some for us?

IIRC, Micro Engineering makes some, but I could be mistaken.

Steel shapes?... is that a cinder block?

If it was, it would have been crushed into dust even before a train passed over.

[wazzou]

IIRC, Micro Engineering makes some, but I could be mistaken.

ME's are pretty poor.

[jimmo]

John's got the shoe placement right according to my shots I took for a bridge project. That last section of girder really doesn't do anything. He is right to place it at the junction of the first stiffener rib.

Rather dark shot but you can see the shoe mounted exactly how his is done..

If you think for a moment that a bridge engineer would design a bridge with a "...section that doesn't do anything" you are sadly mistaken. The entire girder on a plate girder bridge is the major load-bearing component of that bridge. All the stringers attach to it and are not to be supported anywhere else. The girder ends are reinforced for the purpose of being the location of the shoes. I've seen a few installations that appear to support your claim but according to engineering practices (shown clearly in the Google book that Unittrain posted) it's not correct.

[jimmo]

unittrain, that doc is AWESOME!!  Thank you very much for the link.

jimmo, based on what I see in this doc, I think we can compromise to say that the center of the pin is between the end of the girder and the first vertical rib/horizontal crossbeam  I think my shoe needs to be wider at the base...

That's what I was sayin'.

[jimmo]

A veritable font of useless information!  It's what we do!
Lee

If you consider this useless information then keep on hiding your bridge ends with bushes and weeds.

Some of us actually want our bridges to be as realistic as our trains are.

[SkipGear]

If you think for a moment that a bridge engineer would design a bridge with a "...section that doesn't do anything" you are sadly mistaken. The entire girder on a plate girder bridge is the major load-bearing component of that bridge. All the stringers attach to it and are not to be supported anywhere else. The girder ends are reinforced for the purpose of being the location of the shoes. I've seen a few installations that appear to support your claim but according to engineering practices (shown clearly in the Google book that Unittrain posted) it's not correct.

I've climbed around on that bridge and built a model of it. There is a doubler in the second panel for reinforcement. The ends of the girders extend past that doubler and are not doubled. The first cross beam is where the stiffner directly above the bridge shoe is. The first panel has no support or crossbracing attached to it.

It's a pretty crappy picture but the first angled brace in the shot is attached to the first cross beam....



The ends of the girders are floating and not doing anything except holding the rounded cap strip on at the top and providing a little extra surface area to mount the bridge shoe too on the bottom.

[jimmo]

I've climbed around on that bridge and built a model of it. There is a doubler in the second panel for reinforcement. The ends of the girders extend past that doubler and are not doubled. The first cross beam is where the stiffner directly above the bridge shoe is. The first panel has no support or crossbracing attached to it.

It's a pretty crappy picture but the first angled brace in the shot is attached to the first cross beam....

The ends of the girders are floating and not doing anything except holding the rounded cap strip on at the top and providing a little extra surface area to mount the bridge shoe too on the bottom.

I don't doubt your experience with this bridge, it's just a little unusual according to established engineering practices. It just goes to show you that there are exceptions to the rule out there in real life.

[peteski]

I don't doubt your experience with this bridge, it's just a little unusual according to established engineering practices. It just goes to show you that there are exceptions to the rule out there in real life.

Jimmo, besides casting wonderful N scale models, what else do you do? Are you maybe a structural engineer or  bridge designer?