Bridges

[Anonymous]

Hi, would like to know if any one has made a draw bridge or vertical lift bridge, and what the limits on lenght , if any, would be. Are there any components available?

[cnw1995]

Well, Lionel and MTH have a few 'ready-made' bridges ranging from a small single-track drawbridge to honking big swing bridges and bascule bridges. See their websites for their stats. Else, you could certainly make one using materials you'd find easily in a local hobby store.

[Dave45681]

Lionel made 2 Lift Bridges:

6-12782 - a monster from about 1992, rouglhly 29.5" long(per RR Track software, but it's close enough to 30" to make it even with 3 10" straights). Plastic (light grey) construction, but looks nice enough, also has a somewhat (don't have measurement, sorry) better clearance for rolling stock than the next one does...

6-14167 - made about 2 (3?) years ago. Looks like the original Lionel prototype from 1953 that was never mass produced. Slightly less in length (approx 26.5" per RR Track layout software), metal construction, dark grey (almost black) construction. There are some modern cars that don't fit through these. (MTH Schnabel cars, possibly some doublestacks from the various manufacturers)

There were the already mentioned bascule bridges, also the "small lift bridge" is really a small simpler bascule bridge, as it raises the same way, just no bridge structure with it. (imagine a plywood board hinging upward, that's about what this bridge amounts to - it is the most affordable of the group, though) The bascule bridges are 20 inches in length, the "small lift bridge" is less than a foot long.

Last bridge I know of that fits your description is the 2317 "Operating Draw Bridge". This was from the late 70's or early 80's, it was meant to be in a figure 8 arangement (or however your layout happens to be so one line goes over and one under). Looks to be about 18 or 19" long. If you go for one of these, I suspect it may have issues with the larger cars mentioned above, but I am unsure. You would have to probably try on a car by car basis to check clearance.

I almost forgot. You don't state what your intent for the bridge is, but if it's to allow access to an otherwise closed section of the layout, or a doorway or something, none of these are really useful for that.

Hope this helps.