Newbie needs help building a bridge.

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone, I've only just started getting into model railroads after my 7yr old son wanted a train set for his b-day a few weeks ago. Anyways, I just bought a book published by Model Railroader on Model Bridges & Trestles. My son wants some nice big briges built for his layout that we are going to build. The problem I have is this, all the plans in this book show scaled measurements, but no actual 'real world' sizes. How do I convert them?

Thanks
Blair

[Anonymous]

Just to clarify something....Our layout is HO, and as for the size of the layout....well we have a large empty basement, so we aren't to worried about that right now.

Blair the newbie

[Anonymous]

HO scale is 1:87 scale. That means that you take the real size measurement and divide it by 87 to get an HO scale measurement. For example, something 87 feet long in real life would be 1 foot long in HO.

[lesterperry]

Just a suggestion on bridges. Unless you have much experience in model building start small & simple. A large bridge can be overwhelming to a begginer. I may be speaking out of turn so don't get upset if you are experienced.

[SMassey]

I was going to suggest the book that you already have. That is the same book I used to get my bridge idea for my South Massey RR. ( www.members.cox.net/eprr ) If you go to my website you can see a picture on the 3rd page of the construction pics. The 3rd and 4th picture down shows hte bridge I built out of Balsa wood. It is similar in design to the 3 arch bridge near the back of the Bridges and tressels book. I only needed one arch for my bridge so that is all I built. If you want more info on how i got the arch just drop me an E-mail and I will gladly explain it to you.

[BR60103]

Blair: You should also get a scale rule. These are metal and have one edge marked with HO scale feet. Look for one that's about a foot long. The other edges should be marked with other scales (mine has O and S, some may have N) so that you can measure plans printed in these scales.
Your hobby shop will be able to supply you with accurate HO lumber.
If you really like the arithmetic (or your son needs practice) you can change it all to millimeters at 3.5mm to the foot.
Sorry the numbers are so stupid. They come from the ratio of 5/8" (track gauge) to 56.5".

[Anonymous]

I recommend that you purchase and build the following bridge kits before jumping into the scratchbuilding arena: Micro Engineering HO Scale 50' deck girder bridge, Micro Engineering HO Scale 50' thru girder bridge kit, Central Valley 150' single track through steel truss bridge kit. These kits are good models and will give you some hands on experience with how they go together and should look when complete. Micro Engineering and Central Valley sell component parts for bridge building also. I purchase these for my own bridge building projects.