Two Trains on a 750 Bridge

[aflyer]

Hi Guys,

I am working on a layout plan and have a question on running two trains through a 750  single track bridge, has anyone done this?

Why do I want to do this you  are thinking?  I want to do a river with four tracks running over it, and four bridges just would not look realistic, but I think two would.  They will be staggered by about 6 to 8 inches as I want the river running diagonally across the layout at this point. I will have around two feet of straight track on either side of the bridge.

Standing still on two rows of tracks inside the bridge it all seems to fit, although it is pretty close.  I wouldn't plan to have two trains passing in the bridge at the same time, but I need to plan it so it will work.

All thoughts and comments are welcome.

Thank you,

George

[challenger3980]

I'm not familiar with the bridge you are using in particular, but you could hand lay Gantlet tracks across the bridge. You could only run one train across the bridge at a time, which you have already accepted doing. The real railroads use Gantlets on occasion to run double tracks across an exisiting single bridge. It would definitely be an interesting bit of modeling, one that is not often seen.

Doug

[Sturgeon-Phish]

The 750 is not wide enough for two tracks.  The 754 will take two tracks

Jim

[lionelsoni]

I use 2 7/8 inch spacing in my yard.  It's close; but there has been no contact yet.  So, if you have at least 5 3/4 inches in the bridge, I bet it would work.

[aflyer]

Bob,

Thank you for the response.  The bridges I have are only 4 1/2 inches wide, so I may have to give up on this idea. 

Thanks to everyone who replied,

George

[lionelsoni]

Yes, I'm afraid that would be close for even the narrowest O27 equipment.

A full three-rail gantlet would be quite a challenge to arrange.  But you could do a sort of semi-gantlet by sharing one outside rail between the tracks.  Remove the outside rail from one track and crimp the ties onto the outside rail of the other track.  That way, the rails never cross and there are no electrical challenges.  Of course, somewhere at the approaches to the bridge you would have to join (solder) a couple of trimmed  outside rails together.  I figure that this scheme would need 4 1/4 inches; so you have (a little) room to spare.

Another possibility is a single track across the bridge, but with a pair of non-derailing turnouts at the approaches, with their terminals wired together, so that a train approaching the bridge automatically selects the appropriate exit from the bridge.

[challenger3980]

Bob,

  I agree that a full 3-Rail Gantlet would be a very Challenging project indeed, I just assumed(Yeah, I know all about$1***$2U/ME) from the OP's screen name "AFlyer" that he is an S Scaler, and a Gantlet wouldn't be so challenging.

  I guess maybe we should ASK, what Scale/Gauge are you modeling in?

Doug

[aflyer]

Doug,

Hi, yes you are correct I am in S gauge 3/16 scale.  I actually put a couple pieces of track together and loaded a couple of freight cars to see how it looked inside the bridge.  It looks pretty tight and the loco's are a bit wider than the box cars.

I am now looking at a mountain in the back of the scene with two tracks inside. I can then have the river flowing from beside the mountain with the two bridges each carrying only a single track.  Early planning stages, and I appreciate everyones input.

Thanks,

George