The Western Maryland in Free-moN Modules

[garethashenden]

A few Truss types to illustrate the differences.

Warren:

Pratt:

Baltimore:


The Baltimore truss is an evolution of the Pratt truss. Both have vertical member that take most of the load, with diagonals in tension holding the whole thing together. The Baltimore adds half height verticals in between the Pratt's verticals and then ties them back with another diagonal. The weak point in both bridges is the bottom horizontal members, the advantage of the Baltimore is that they can be shorter and supported more evenly.
The Warren truss is different. It just uses equilateral triangles with no verticals, the diagonals are either in compression or tension depending on their position and the loading of the bridge, but its quite stable. I think I've got that all right.

As for your bridge, you can loose 25' ish from one end of the CV bridge kit pretty easily. That eliminates one vertical. You'll need to trim the girders back and a few things like that, but its straight forward. This would give you a 125' Pratt truss. The challenge would be converting it to a Baltimore truss. It would be a case of constructing the half height verticals and shorter diagonals in a manner that matches the rest of the bridge. If I can count, you'd need 10. But the good news is they're all the same and would therefore be good to print.

[PiperguyUMD]

A few Truss types to illustrate the differences.

Warren:

Pratt:

Baltimore:


The Baltimore truss is an evolution of the Pratt truss. Both have vertical member that take most of the load, with diagonals in tension holding the whole thing together. The Baltimore adds half height verticals in between the Pratt's verticals and then ties them back with another diagonal. The weak point in both bridges is the bottom horizontal members, the advantage of the Baltimore is that they can be shorter and supported more evenly.
The Warren truss is different. It just uses equilateral triangles with no verticals, the diagonals are either in compression or tension depending on their position and the loading of the bridge, but its quite stable. I think I've got that all right.

As for your bridge, you can loose 25' ish from one end of the CV bridge kit pretty easily. That eliminates one vertical. You'll need to trim the girders back and a few things like that, but its straight forward. This would give you a 125' Pratt truss. The challenge would be converting it to a Baltimore truss. It would be a case of constructing the half height verticals and shorter diagonals in a manner that matches the rest of the bridge. If I can count, you'd need 10. But the good news is they're all the same and would therefore be good to print.

Cool! I'm afraid I'm becoming a serious rivet counter... We're tentatively planning a trip to PA later this spring, if I can get a day away, I'll hike out and take measurements/photos. I'd like to get my hands on one of these kits so I can think this through a bit more, but inventory of this kit seems to be pretty low. At the very least I could use the main span (shortened), the portals, and the five full height vertical sections. Fortunately CV looks to have lots of bits and pieces in stock that could be used to supplement the build. From what I can tell, the CV bridge is a substantially lighter bridge than my prototype, but I think since I would be more or less starting from scratch on the sides, I could beef it up to look right.

[ChristianJDavis1]

Cool! I'm afraid I'm becoming a serious rivet counter... We're tentatively planning a trip to PA later this spring, if I can get a day away, I'll hike out and take measurements/photos. I'd like to get my hands on one of these kits so I can think this through a bit more, but inventory of this kit seems to be pretty low. At the very least I could use the main span (shortened), the portals, and the five full height vertical sections. Fortunately CV looks to have lots of bits and pieces in stock that could be used to supplement the build. From what I can tell, the CV bridge is a substantially lighter bridge than my prototype, but I think since I would be more or less starting from scratch on the sides, I could beef it up to look right.

I may have the bridge you are looking for (Central Valley 1820 150' Pratt Truss); PM me if interested.

[PiperguyUMD]

Had an hour to kill this afternoon and took the opportunity to work on some locomotive projects. I picked up the Life-Like FA2 a while back, and Santa brought the new old stock P2K RS2s. Added the grills the the WM installed over the radiator fans. I found the brass mesh on eBay some time ago and it works pretty well as long as you cut it with a brand spanking new blade. Pretty happy with the RS2s, but looking at the photos, it appears my blade was dull by the time I got to the FA2. That edge isn’t quite up to snuff.

[PiperguyUMD]

My long lost package of strip wood for the Owings Mills coal trestle showed up yesterday. I was able to spend some time this afternoon putting everything together.

First up, made the stringers (I guess thats what they're called?) that carry the rails across the top of each pier.



I 3d printed a base some time ago with the hopes of being able to build this structure at the workbench, then plant it in the scene once it's finished.  It has the proper spacing for the footers, so I stuck the piers, made sure everything was square, then wandered off while the glue dried. I went back and forth over wether or not to use the flex track ties and just cut the middle out of 3 in each group of 5. I found a stash of N scale ties - not exactly why I ever had these or how long they've been hanging out - so I decided to roll my own for the top of the trestle.

Spaced out with a scrap tie


Ta-da!


I had also been struggling with what to do about safety rails. More recent photos of the trestle have yellow metal railings, but some of the older ones don't have anything! I would guess that in the 1940s-50s they would probably have been made of wood, but I can't find any information to support that, or that they were even there in the first place! Leaving them off just looks wrong to my eye, but I have no appetite for making these of strip wood. As luck would have it, I found a set of etched handrails in the scrap bin, lo and behold they line up with the crossbeams! Sometimes its better to be lucky than good!



That will work nicely! I think I'm going to have to wait to install the railings and walkways until everything is planted on the module.



Gave a test fit, and it looks like this will work! Next up, building a retaining wall next to the embankment. Looks like I'll have a use for the random bag of scrap N scale ties!!

[PiperguyUMD]

Finished the retaining wall for the coal trestle, and added some of the walkways while I was at it. I have some ideas for tying the scene into the module end plate so I’ll add the rest then. Railings are just sent in place for the moment. As soon as the base layer of scenery is in pace I’ll be able to wrap this one up in short order. This was a fun project, I’m going to try to find some more opportunities to model wooden trestles.





Also thanks to @ChristianJDavis1 for setting me up with the CV bridge kit!!

[wm3798]

Having tramped around that coal trestle back in the late 80s... the station was still there, and Owings Mills Blvd was just a pile of dirt in the background... I can tell you that model is giving me goose bumps.



Question for the larger group.  Why on earth would anyone model a railroad that isn't the Western Maryland?

Take your time.  I'll wait.



Lee

[PiperguyUMD]

Having tramped around that coal trestle back in the late 80s... the station was still there, and Owings Mills Blvd was just a pile of dirt in the background... I can tell you that model is giving me goose bumps.

Thanks Lee! This was strangely addicting, I wish I had space to build the whole thing!

[wazzou]

Question for the larger group.  Why on earth would anyone model a railroad that isn't the Western Maryland?

Take your time.  I'll wait.

Lee

Because my Family didn't work for the WM and I've never laid eyes on any part of it.   

[PiperguyUMD]

Note for my own reference 

https://bridgehunter.com/md/allegany/bh66940/

[PiperguyUMD]

With the dissertation out of my hands I was able to put in some serious train time this weekend. Big progress on the Owings Mills module and the RS2s

First up, Owings Mills. The goal for the weekend was to plant the coal trestle, basic topography, and fascia - got most of the way there too!



Planting the coal trestle was a bit of a struggle. I'm hoping for a kind of shadow box effect here and I may have to go back and raise the fascia to achieve that, but we'll see how it comes together. I need come back and clean up the sculptamold, touch up a few details, and add the handrails- instillation was a little rough!



The plan for the endplate is to use shrubbery and perhaps a fence to cover it up. The goal is for them to look like undergrowth down low, but trees when viewed from the opposite side of the endplate.



Fascia was relatively quick, except for the piece by the coal trestle. Installing the Barrett Hill Touch Toggles was a piece of cake! I'm becoming a huge fan of these - simple and effect components that are very easy setup! The only downside is if you're using tortoises, turnouts run +/-$40 a pop! Not a big deal for a module with one turnout, but thinking ahead to the Hanover yard, thats gonna hurt!




On to the RS2s - whipped up a drilling template to install the end railings and bent handrails from .015" wire. Could have gone with something smaller, but this looks to be a reasonable match to the factory stuff - which I have no desire to replace elsewhere on the model. I went back and forth about adding the WM battery boxes in front of the cab on the fireman's side, mainly because I didn't have a good way to replace the handrail stanchions. I may have come up with a solution, but I'll have to post about that later. In the meantime a glamour shot of 184 nearing completion, awaiting coupler cut bars and 3D printed handrail stanchions.



I also tried staging some of the photos that I hope to recreate. Given the restraints of my space, a 1:1 reproduction - even of such a small scene is tough, but I think I'll be able to stage some pretty good foobies! The prototype photos aren't mine, but used here for inspiration/comparison

Looking railroad East



Looking railroad West



In other news, I had planned to add LED headlights to my FA2s. A simple project right? As I've mentioned elsewhere, electronics are not my jam. 90 minutes into the project, admiring the neat-by-my-standards wiring, I pop the first one on the test track and got nothing. No light, no motor control, nada. However I could still read the CVs on the programing track. Think this was odd, I decided to try out the other one. Fortunately for me I had not reinstalled the shell, because not only did this release the blue smoke, but FLAMES! That $!*^ was actually on fire!! I didn't know that was possible! Frustrated beyond belief, I called it a day after that.

So are any  going to the WNC Train show in Asheville this weekend?

[amato1969]

The station and RS-2 look great!  Wire handrails are a great improvement for those older Atlas locos.

  Frank

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I am a fan. Always have been.

Congrats on getting the dissertation out the door! Good luck with the defense.

[PiperguyUMD]

Hopefully the handrails aren't a wash. I've been trying to print stanchions to the same dimensions as the originals, but the are crazy fragile. I'm currently experimenting with a mix of Anycubic resin and flexible resin. The results are promising but its a balancing act - flexibility comes at the expense of detail. I hope this works out, fingers crossed!!

[SAH]

Have you considered the old school method?  Brass flat stock for the stations.  One of my many unfinished projects.

Great work on these modules, structures, scenery and rolling stock, the whole project really.  Very well done.

Steve