Baton Rouge Southern - Chapter 2

[mcjaco]

Yeash - take a few months off to get the kitchen remodeled, add a member to Team Hoffman (Everett Drew born 6/8/14) and the next thing you know it's AUGUST for cripes sake.  Oh well . . .[/qoute]

It only gets worse as they get mobile.....

[Philip H]

I know - my 5 now range from 18 down to 4 months . . . the little ones still go to trains hows with me . . . the teenagers not so much . . . .

[Philip H]

Well its a new year, and with a new soldering iron in hand, track work is resuming on the Bufkin's Bayou bridge:



There is still a lot of track to install and things to hook up, but after putting the bridge track onto the deck with the switches, I think I can cheat it enough with guard rails, walkways, and outside guard timbers to make go of it.  And yes, I have one solder joint to clean up - my late Christmas Present to me was a new variable wattage soldering iron.

[Philip H]

The First Train rolls across the bridge over Bufkin's Bayou:





And yes, that's a big frackin gator in dat der picture - its the smallest gator I could find on the 'net.

And here's a little video:

[bdennis]

Given the Atlas c55 turnout has no centering spring. How are you going to stop it from moving under a train?

[John]

I'm impressed .. it looks pretty good .. are there enough trestle bents for the load?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Excellent!

Love the gator.

Years ago, I think Burt Industries did them in N.

[Bendtracker1]

Nicely done Philip!

Ed, I've seen some on eBay recently, they look like pewter or some type of metal castings.  But not sure how big they are though.  Nothing to scale them with,  but they pop up from time to time.

As for the size of the croc/gator you could call him Gustave.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_%28crocodile%29

Just found some on the bay, three 12'ers - http://www.ebay.com/itm/N-Scale-3-12-Foot-Florida-Plastic-Alligators-/291377314413?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43d770fa6d

[Philip H]

@John there are 5 bents per run. Not sure how that looks from an engineering standpoint.

@bdennis I use Humpyard Purveyance switch throws with sleeved bell cranks to throw my switches. I can paint the sleeve black so it looks like a power cable, which often cross bayous on bridges. Once they are done I doubt you'd see them (and one is on land).

@Bendtracker1 I have seen those. I may order a set just to see if they are any smaller!

[John]

I was thinking about the spacing of the bents ..

Trestle Bridges

Timber trestles were one of the few railroad bridge forms that did not develop in Europe. The reason was that in the United States and Canada cheap lumber was widespread and readily available in nearby forests. The Pacific Northwest of the U.S. and the province of British Columbia, Canada became the central region for hundreds of logging railroads whose bridges were almost all made of timber Howe trusses and trestles.

Timber trestles generally come in two forms. The first and most common is the pile trestle which consists of bents spaced 12 to 16 feet apart. Each bent consists of 3 to 5 round timber poles that are pounded straight into the ground by a pile driver. The centre post is upright, the two inner posts are angles at about 5 degrees and the outside posts are usually battered, angling outward for stability at about ten degrees. During construction, the top of the uneven posts are cut to the proper level for a cap which in turn supports the stringers and planks that hold the rail. Taller pile trestles contain diagonal "X" bracing across one or both sides of the bent and also between bents.

[Dave V]

5 bents is probably sufficient per track...so something of order 8 bents or so would probably be more appropriate for double track.  Like John, I also wonder about the spacing.

I know we probably hashed this out ad nauseam previously but are there any good proto photos to leverage?

[wazzou]

All trestle bents are spaced at 14-15' intervals, almost without fail.

The reasoning behind this is, that the ends of the stringers need to terminate at the middle of a Pile Cap which is the horizontal timber covering the Piling and perpendicular to the Stringers.
Most Stringers are in a range of 28-30' long, usually grouped in 3's under each rail.  Typically they are staggered so that they don't all terminate on the same Pile Cap to form a better structure.

[John]

this is my standard reference for wooden bridges .. Harpers Ferry



http://bridgehunter.com/wv/jefferson/bh56226/

[wm3798]

I think you could get by with the wider spacing if you at least made it consistent.  What catches my eye isn't the spans, it's the different spacings.

The bayou doesn't appear to be navigable, so there's no real need for the wider spans under the turnout.

Lee

[Philip H]

So am I the only one who finds it . . . ironic . . . that after how many comments telling me this wasn't a prototypical way to go I am now getting dinged for the spacing of the trestle bents . . . .

 I hear ya guys.  I may be able to work one or two more bents in from the underside . . . . stand by . . . . .