Bridges on grades?

I'm considering this on my layout As well. See thread on this page. It's about 3.5%. I've seen a few layouts with them on grade and it looked fine. I have some renderings at work I'll post.

the important thing to remember is that structural components will remain vertical not 90 degrees to the grade.

usuallt plate girder bridges are used on grade.

with the individual "plates being parallelograms 

Hi Dale,

Here are a few shots of an Atlas truss on my 2.5% grade. the grade is continuous and includes O-81 & O-90 curves.

Regards,

Gary F.

Bridges should always remain true to the grade same with switch / turnouts on grades.  The train can't adjust to all those changes (you would be breaking couplers and the like), it has to be a steady pull or brake downgrade.  Nice bridge pix BTW.  Russ

Bridges are part of the grade. 

My bridge is right at the start of the descending grade, which goes into an 060 loop. I think the grade itself is about 2.75%. The grade starts at the beginning of the bridge, so the bridge itself is at a slight angle.

REV

REvitupfaster, I'm already having nightmares of downgrade runaways ending up on the floor!

Precisely!

For example, I built my trestle on a constant 2% grade - curves and straights -

 (Click on image for greater detail) 

Alex

I also thought the bridge should be on a grade along with the track, but when I mocked it up and stared at it, it didn't look right.  I think I stared at it for too long...

Thanks again for everyone's help.

You're all "Grade A"!

Dale

Posted by Mike CT:

 

Mike is that Silk City bridge work from the NJHR?  It looks awesome.

Mike's bridge is so well done.

The bridge is Bridge Solution, Brian Cooper, some years ago.  I'm not sure if he is still in the business.  Brian had done a lot of work for the New Jersey High Railers and the parts on their site appear to be close to what I have.  My curves were for O54 and I did handrails on one side.  The supports were custom for the grade. 

I tried to find a link to the Silk City bridge parts but could not.  Only link was a Facebook page.  Anyone have a link to the Silk City bridge parts that is current??

wb47.   Thank you,

Mike

all my bridges are on a slight grade.

Keep the bridge on the same grade, otherwise you will have coupler issues as the train transitions from grade, to level, and then back to grade. The upper bridge is on a grade and haven't had any problems yet. 

Here is a stone arch bridge on a grade (and a curve) that I made for someone, and another, that is on display at York, at JT's Megasteam.