I've been thinking about building a double track stone bridge, and I was wondering what sort of ballast profile a bridge like that would have on it. Would I lay two lines of cork just like I would going across solid ground, or would I have the track lying on a flat surface?
Hi ckape: I ran my subroadbed across and ballasted just like the main line.
I don't have any pics at the moment, but I carried the sides of my masonary bridges higher then the roadbed. So my ballast is flat from side to side.
Grampy, that stone bridge looks familiar:
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
nbrodar I don't have any pics at the moment, but I carried the sides of my masonary bridges higher then the roadbed. So my ballast is flat from side to side.
I've done much the same, allowing the sides/ cap stones to extend up beyond the roadbed.
I've seen this done a variety of ways. Origional plate girder w/ open grids were decked and ballasted, some stone viaducts had gravel/ ballast stops placed even timber ballast stops could be used.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
The circa 1887 Pennsylvania Railroad Stone Bridge in Johnstown, PA, was a 4-track (now NW 3-track) mainline. The bridge is ballasted just like the mainline roadbed. A few pics...
http://www.davesrailpix.com/john/htm/john186.htm
http://pittsburgh.about.com/od/pictures/ig/johnstown/stone_bridge.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Johnstown_Bridge.JPG
Johnstown's Class I mainline is all elevated except for any isolated industrial interchanges with the old Bethlehem Steel mills. This last picture, at the rear of the Johnstown's Union Station, highlights today's mainline roadbed, 1/10 of a mile from the Stone Bridge...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Johnstown_PA_Station_with_Train.jpg.jpg
P.S.: Grampy's first picture is very close to Stone Bridge prototype roadbed.
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
In this club I was in in Massachusetts in the mid '60s we had a Cuban refugee who was still trying to master English. We told him that at the next meeting we would teach him how to ballast a bridge. He showed up with two blasting caps, three pounds of TNT, and a plunger!
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
The 1883 stone double arch bridge on the Chicago & North Western's "old line" in South Milwaukee WI had no lip on the edge, just a flat cut stone surface. While the ballast followed the general profile of the (double track) main line over the bridge, the ballast also had a tendency to spread out over those flat stone tops at the edges of the bridge, and from time to time would fall down to the street and creek below. And trespassers walking over the bridge also had a tendency to scatter the ballast around a bit.
I kitbashed two Monroe Models stone arch bridge kits to capture the double arch look (using foam and plaster to create the missing stone faces between the two arches) and also handle a double track mainline. I have put cork roadbed over my replica of the bridge and will ballast it accordingly but also will scatter some loose pieces of ballast at the edges of the bridge.
Dave Nelson