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Quick And Easy Bridge Mount.

As most of you should know by now, George Schreyer has a "most excellent" web site that pertains to the more technical part of largescaling. One of his articles in particular is  How To Build A Cheap and Dirty Howe Truss Bridge. I, like almost everyone else elected to make said bridge. My bridge was made 6 feet long. I made it more or less to see how much weight it could hold. In the end it held up my son's full body weight in the center supported only by the end's. Back then he was a little squirt of 42 pounds plus his clothes. After that, it became a work of art. Everyone that saw it just looked at it and couldn't believe that it was hand made from scratch. Since then it has become sort of an icon to the largescale hobby... The summer of 1999 was the point of no return though. I had most of the track laid outside and right in the middle where the pond is, the rails ended. A huge gaping maw of water awaited any railed vehicle venturing too close to the ends of the lines. So, I did it. I mounted the bridge outside so the north shore met the south shore and thus eliminating the fears of the dreaded water monster waiting to eat dad's trains.

But the first thing I had to do was figure out how I would mount this thing so it would be sure footed enough to entrust our rolling stock's safety when crossing. If you have been following our progress, you already know about the technique I used to lay the Roadbed for the track. A benefit of that technique here was the posts in the ground supporting the roadbed. On both sides of the pond where the rails end there are posts. I dug up some of the dirt around the front side of those posts so the post was exposed on the pond side. I then fastened a home brewed mounting system from some heavy duty shelving brackets, 3/4" x 3/4" square steel tubing and some u-bolts for automotive muffler's. Oh ya, and about four 3/8" nuts, bolts and lock washers. Look at the pictures below to see how it was done. I was surprised at how fast and easy it was to make and install. As a result of the "system" I can raise or lower either end of the bridge if necessary just by moving the mounts up or down. I also used rail clamps between the rails on the ground and the rails on the bridge section so I can make fast work of removing the bridge for maintenance or storage in the winter. It can be installed or removed in about five minutes.

This is the mounting system sitting on my dirty kitchen floor (hey, I can't help it, we have 3 kids). It should be easy enough to see how it works but, the rounded bolts on the left side are from a muffler bracket, they were cheaper than regular u-bolts and they fit around my 2 inch posts in the ground (which have an outside diameter of 2 1/4"). The horizontal cross sections are the square tubing. And lastly the black brackets are the support area for the bridge to sit on.






Simply put, this is it. The entire mounting system without the dirt to cover it up. Click on the image to make it larger so you can see how it all ties together. Remember, my road bed consists of beams mounted on the tops of PVC posts set in cement 4 feet in the ground. My point, I trust it's strength. The mount uses the u-bolts to make a tight fit on the posts that can easily be adjusted up or down. All I need to do is move the dirt away from the bolts, loosen the nuts, slide the mount up or down, tighten and bury again. On a side note, you may notice the gray wire on the right side of the picture. It is an extra 4 pair CAT 3 phone line used to supply power to layouts accessories.



That's it. Once the dirt was back filled I set the bridge in place and did some test runs. Not pictured are pins I used to keep the bridge from sliding side to side on the mounts. All I did was drill pilot holes in the bottom of the bridge so I could drop some brass pins into the holes and through holes in the brackets which you can see in the picture above. The track joints at each end of the bridge are held with rail clamps. They hold so good that I don't need any other fasteners. If you wanted to though, you could use small bolts to hold the bridge to the bracket's. Note: No, I did not paint the steel on the mounts. They are underground and will not rust as fast as you think. They need more oxygen to rust...

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Copyright © 1998, 2009 Jon Foster.  All rights reserved.
This site has been online since: Tuesday July 28, 1998 and was last modified: Saturday November 08, 2008.