In my defense... it was late and I'd had a long workday. It didn't even occur to me to wonder if someone might SELL them. Yes Wayne, exactly like those. And yes, Rich, those look like a good option, too and at a good price. Maxman and Kevin, I have seen this a few times too recently -- bridges without shoes. I've only been paying attention to bridges and how they do their bridgey business for about four months, and I started noticing the shoes on everything only after I put a few kits together and had to glue their tiny little booties on. Like you, Kevin, I noted the rule -- "ah, I see that bridges must have shoes". And then I saw a fairly long deck girder bridge with NO shoes. I'm sort of torn. I like the springy look of a bridge with shoes. I reckon I could go take a drive and see what's doing out in the neighborhood here.
Anyway, thanks guys.
-Matt
Returning to model railroading after 40 years and taking unconscionable liberties with the SP&S, Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads in the '40s and '50s.
You can cobble them together out of anything, even rail.
Or as others have stated I have seen bridges too poor to have shoes.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
I never would have thought there were so many words related to bridges:
http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/eng/bridges/WaddellGlossary/GlossS.htm
Shoe: "That part or detail of a span which transfers the load from the end pin to the bearing plate or to the intervening rollers."
Since every bridge must have something to do that transfer, every bridge will have bridge shoes.
Bridge shoes also have a corollary task: they have to account for the different expansions, both thermal and physical, of the bridge and the ground underneath. Thus they must allow for movement.
On a large bridge, this will be the bridge shoes that are so obvious and are somewhat illustrated by the Micro Engineering ones. I say somewhat, because they are only selling the "anchored" type. There is also the "non-anchored" type. This is to allow for the movement mentioned above.
While the anchored type will commonly have the pin connection shown in the Micro Engineering sample, the other one will have rollers. This is "non-anchored", and where there will be movement.
If both ends were anchored, the bridge would fail.
I suppose there could be bridge shoes that would practically be invisible, and appear not to be there at all. They would dispense with the rollers, and just go with sliding. Thus there would only be a steel plate on top of another steel plate. Horizontal alignment would have to be allowed for, though. If someone can come up with pictures, I'd sure like to see this. There ARE some short girder railroad bridges, maybe 20', that might be done that way. Seems like the plates would have to be lubricated, REGULARLY.
To model the apparently unavailable rolling shoe, you can modify the pin type by cutting the pin section out, and replacing it with a couple of plates and some rollers, made out of styrene or brass.
Here's one type:
and here's another:
and another:
Just as bridges come in different sizes, so do bridge shoes. It would be good to install appropriate sized ones for your model. Or at least ones that LOOK that way.
Ed
How about these for 9 bucks?
https://www.walthers.com/bridge-shoes-adapters-assortment-kit
Rich
Alton Junction
maxmanAround here some of those type bridges didn’t have shoes.
This was something I did not know until I started travelling and photographing everything I saw.
Sure enough, a lot of girder bridges out there do not have shoes. Exactly what I was told I was doing wrong turns out to be a common practice.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
How long is the bridge? I don’t know what the requirement is, but around here some of those type bridges didn’t have shoes. There were just plates at the ends of the girders upon which the girders sat.
These?
https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Micro-Engineering-HO-80-034-Bridge-Shoes/
Good Luck, Ed
I have just come into possession of a Great Northern deck girder bridge with wood walkway and handrails by ExactRail, shipped quickly and packaged well (comes already assembled). It's a really handsome piece but it came unshod. I need to cobble four little bridge shoes for it. If I were a bettin' man I'd say odds are good that one or more of you have made your own bridge shoes before and are just dying to tell me how you went about it and show me pictures too! Anybody?
Thanks,
Sorry if this should have gone in the General Discussion. I wasn't sure. Feel free to move it, oh Powers that Be.