2-track steel trestle

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know of a prototype of a 2-track steel trestle bridge anywhere in the U.S.-and if yes,where can I get photos or a plan of it?

[Anonymous]

We have a long steel trestle in Richmond, VA. It is not especially high but it is quite long. It was built for the C&O along the north bank of the James River as part of a major East-West coal route. The bridge is now part of the CSX railroad. Another special feature is that at one point in Richmond, there is a triple crossing where the NS is at grade, another CSX line crosses on a bridge, and the trestle crosses above that, all at the same point. I have been told this is the only triple crossing in North America.

You could contact the Virginia Department of Transportation to get a photo of the triple crossing. There have been several publicity photos there and VDOT has a few on file. You could contact the Richmond Times Dispatch newspaper to see if they have photos of the trestle. You may even inspire them to do a local interest news piece about the bridge. Of course, you could contact CSX but I don't know if that will yield fruit.

I intend to include a compressed model of this bridge on my next layout, the one that comes with the big basement. I plan to take a digital picture of the North bank from the south. I will have that blown up to a good size and put on foam core board. That will be the backdrop. Next I will get a 1x4 board about six feet or so and paint it grey. Then I will glue 50' MEI plate girders to the near side. The board is wide enough for two tracks so I will just lay Code 83 MEI bridge flex track on top and build the little barrel water stations along the length (about every twelve inches). Finally, I will mount it so the ends are obscured by trees and build artificial piers under it matching the style of the prototype piers. I think this will serve as an excellent elevated run (with a passing siding) along the back edge of the layout and it will be spilling over with local nostalgia.

Good Luck - Ed

[Anonymous]

Thanks Ed!
If you make photos of the bridge to plan your model of it,it would be great if you send me some ([e-mail])-I can send you as a little "payment" some photos from my work as engineer in Germany (if you like boring,short ,but often overpowered freight trains... ;-) )

[Anonymous]

So what kind of engineer are you? Or are we talking about your hobby activities?

After I get my home computer sanitized, (some low class vermin sent me a virus) I will borrow a digital camera and send a photo to you.

Are you modeling a US railroad? What era do you model (and what scale do you use?)?

I am an HO Scale modeler and I model East Coast (US) modern freight operations. The down side of modeling the East Coast is that there are soooooo many trees, while tunnels and cliffs are not very common. This makes designing a track plan a bit challenging because tunnels and cliffs help hide our convoluted track, reversing loops, etc.

Good Luck - Ed