2017 POTD Thread Archive

Finishing up my RR trestle - for 12" ga steam locomotive and backyard railway.

Finally got the four stringers installed atop the bents. Iam particularily happy that the 64 cross braces (3/16" x 1" x16") I made up to hold the 4"x6" sringers to the bents are working well. The braces add very significant strength to the structure - in fact impart exceptional rigidity to the overall trestle.

Here are the brackets with a coat of metal primer - good old rust red undercoat!

IMG_3645.JPG


And the stringers installed on the bents- all held together nicely with the brackets.

IMG_3652.JPGIMG_3656.JPGIMG_3653.JPGIMG_3660.JPG
End of Track!
IMG_3654.JPG
 
Last edited:
Spent my spare time over the last month learning to to do auto spray painting. The fender and door on my truck had some chips in the paint. I bought a take-off fender & door to put on, but it turned out the 'silver' color GM used changed between 2000 and 2004. So I stripped both to bare metal, sprayed primer, block sanded, sprayed sealer, then 2 coats of base, then 3 coats of clear. Just lots of "do" then evaluating the result as being "that looks like crap" and going back and removing what I just did and redoing it.

The result
IMG_0979.jpg
IMG_0980.jpg

There's a few spots of orange peel (where the clear has the appearance of an orange peel when you look at a reflection in it), but overall it turned out really well. Probably could have got it done cheaper at a auto body shop (vs buying several hvlp paint guns, regulators, air filter/dryer, sanding blocks, lots of sandpaper, primer, sealer, base, clear, and various cleaning supplies).

I still have to paint the bottom portion below that body line with rockerguard to match the rest of the truck, then I'll install them and see how close a color match they are to the rest of the truck.

Edit:
Forgot to mention, this did include some metalworking, in that I worked over the fender with a large angle grinder once to strip it, covering my shop with a fine, toxic powder, before I figured out it's much easier&faster&less damaging to the parts to use paint stripper to get it down to bare metal.
 
Last edited:
Looks good, Now you will have to paint the rest o the truck to match,
 
Glenn Brooks said:
Finishing up my RR trestle - for 12" ga steam locomotive and backyard railway.

Finally got the four stringers installed atop the bents. Iam particularily happy that the 64 cross braces (3/16" x 1" x16") I made up to hold the 4"x6" sringers to the bents are working well. The braces add very significant strength to the structure - in fact impart exceptional rigidity to the overall trestle.

Here are the brackets with a coat of metal primer - good old rust red undercoat!


And the stringers installed on the bents- all held together nicely with the brackets..................End of Track!..............
Click to expand...

I swear, that's a real full size railroad you're building there! At first glance. Nice!!! Can I come play when it's finished?
 
"nother engineering question. Does the superelelevation depend on the radius, or the speed of the train going around the curve?
 
An update on the Chinese chuck. Was pleasantly surprised, dialled in a piece of 1 3/4 shaft, just a tad over 1/2 thou runout 6 inches from the chuck. Had planed on grinding the jaws but doubt (Know) i'd never get it any better. Will see how it wears but for now its a winner. Still need to cut that back plate down to size.

Greg
 
Hey all, sure come on over! The extra gang has plenty of slots open. We are planning on holding a golden spike ceremony, when ever I finally get done laying track. open to all!

Still have one more bridge to lay in, ( short- only 10' connecting to the trestle), track ballast to lay, and about 30' of excavation through a ridge on the Northern Section.

Tom, the superelevation is mostly governed by the track speed at the point of curvature. As in road building, race tracks, etc, the higher the speed, the greater the banking should be in the curves. I've gone with 1/2" superelevation on the outside rail. This results in a rather surprising 2" overall slope for a 48" wide deck on the trestle. A little hard to walk across. but the superelevation should provide an extra margin of safety in case of excess speed.

Glenn
 
Last edited:
Thanks, Glen.

Superelevation on your scale sounds like guesswork. I suspect full scale has formulas. I remember playing with it in HO, a couple of sheets of paper under the outside rail.
 
Tom, your post triggered something I had forgotten. Actually, the superelevation I selected was based on the RADIUS OF THE CURVE, not as I previously reported, the anticipated speed of the train. Major difference. Somewhere, and I can't remember where- and didn't bookmark for reference - I found a table of superelevations, based on the chord of mainline track. E.G. Track curvature. 1/2" superelevation was the recommended elevation for the curvature of track Iam using on the trestle.

Not sure why I didn't sort this out in my earlier post. Old age I guess!

Glenn
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top