Is there a liftspan, drawbridge, or swing bridge on your layout?

[Anonymous]

In the trains.magazine forum is a thread we call the stupid question thread. People post a question and other people who have the knowledge to answer that question do so. That forum is blessed with some railroaders who do their best to answer railroad questions. So I asked about railroad drawbridges and received some really good answers and comments. It turns out that there ARE railroad drawbridges. I hope that this does help anyone wanting to model a bridge and maybe even "temps" someone to try one. [;)]

Here is a link to the stupid question thread, page 50 where I ask the question.

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=50&TOPIC_ID=6646

[Fergmiester]

This is a website from another thread. http://www.isp.on.ca/sylvan/whatsnew.htm
Sylvan makes a line of stuff not normally manufactured by others. You could drop him a line and ask him about lift bridges and if he has plans to manfacture one. This is not out of the realm of possibility for him.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Fergie [:)]

I am getting an education about bridges and the more I learn about them the more I would like to model one (some day [;)] ).

Here is a link about real bridges that might inspire/help others to model a bridge on their layout.

http://www.co.multnomah.or.us/dbcs/LUT/bridges/bridge_types/bridge_types_movable.shtml

[tstage]

QUOTE: Originally posted by tstage

QUOTE: Originally posted by tstage

I believe there is one or both here in Cleveland, OH - down along the Cuyahoga River, in an area known as "The Flats". I'm not sure whether or not they are still functional though.

Doesn't the Walther's Cornerstone Series have a number of bridges available?

Tom

P.S. Just got off the Walther's site. They have both a swing bridge (on sale!) and a "Bascule" (lift) bridge. (Unless you were referring to a lift bridge as one that lifts straight up but stays horizonal to the ground.) I guess the "Bascule" would be considered a draw bridge, not a lift bridge.

Update:
I drove past the Flats yesterday morning on my way to chruch and looked down and noticed that there are no fewer than THREE vertical lift bridge in a one square mile area. There actually may be more but there are so many bridges down there that it was hard to tell - and I didn't drive off the one I was crossing. [:)] If you are into bridges, downtown Pittsburgh is just full of them.

Tom

Update to the update:
On the way back from the LHS this afternoon, I decided to drive down in the Flats (along the Cuyahoga River) and counted nine...that's NINE vertical lift bridges! Of the nine, five of them were for auto (I drove over three them); the other four were RR. Only one of the nine (auto) was no longer in use. I also found two bascule bridges (no longer used) and one working swing bridge. For those of you who might have been interested...

Tom

[krump]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ereynard

An image of the operating lift bridge on our club layout can be seen at:

http://www.pbase.com/haggiskennedy/image/31455939

Terrific Photo Eric - we have some more convention photos that you have no doubt seen.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Fergmiester




Looking at a picture the other day, it appears the vertical lift bridge is hoisted using a pulley and deadman. I suspect there is a rack and gear mechanism involved in the process.


Regards
Fergie

I just posted a second photo of the Bearing Cross Railroad Bridge in the raised position. I will post two links here, one in the down position and one in the up position. Now we can compare them and notice the counterweights blocking the trains path in the "raised" position.


http://naphotos.nerail.org/showpic/?2004100322100032262.jpg

http://naphotos.nerail.org/showpic/?200412051232393623.jpg