elevated train ideas

The best I've seen.

http://njhirailers.com/silk_ciybridges_menu_page.html

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We make this kind if your interested

bluelinec4 That is what i am looking for. I have a 5 by 10 area and want single or better yet double line oval shaped line.so i will have to see what it will cost to do this.

I have two, both scratch built.

This one is more industrial spanning a city & commuter station.





And this one is modeled after the Chicago brown line, & includes the Quincy station.

wow that is really nice for scratch built.Do you have plans on that or you just wing it.I would like to try that.The layout is sized like mine and that what i was after.

Jeff, the layout is actually U shaped with the industrial intermodal yard elevated on one leg, and the Chicago south loop on the other leg. The Chicago river, and old post office connect the two.

No plans were used. I just contructed all the uprights first with bass wood, then used different gauges of bass wood to construct the connection sections. after each section (two uprights and connections) were glued and sturdy, I painted them & moved to the next section.







These were early pics, it's since been well detailed. The thing I would recommend is if your elevated uprights are above curved track sections, to make sure they are wide enough so your rolling stock/passenger cars clear as the ends pass the radius. I had to widen my twice as I added longer passenger cars.

Great thanks for the tips i am going to try this. What is your height on the track it looks like a good height. Is it about 10 inches.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdogjeff1:
What is your height on the track it looks like a good height. Is it about 10 inches.

Some thing like that. I dunno for sure. I just eyed it to my building height so it looked appropriate to the actual area.

acf thanks again i am going to give it a try.

Here is a link to the structural design criteria of the ELs in New York City. It is well illustrated with considerable dimensional information.
http://www.nycsubway.org/articles/en_ch13.html

Here are a few shots of the "EL" on my layout....











Alan

Alan, how did you make your trusses?

TMack....almost the entire "EL" truss structure is made from plastic sheeting cut out with a CNC machine. The supports are a combination of the same plastic and masonite. The decking is made of foam core. To be more prototypical, the decking should be made of individual strips so that some light penetrates through to the street but I decided to make do with the foam core for right now. Over time I will go back and add the details as well as some railing/walkways. You can see in the last picture that the top outside side of the girders are ready for the walkways to be inserted in the groove.

Alan

Simple and inexpensive to do.

quote:

Originally posted by Passenger Train Collector:
Simple and inexpensive to do.

What did you use pvc and what else

Jeff:

There is no PVC. I used 1/2 inch plywood for the deck, 2" dowels for the legs, and wood bendable strips for the siding. Match sticks were glued to give the correct illusion for girders. It was simple to do and it is super sturdy. I have a two track system running over a good portion of the layout. I did this prior to the other guys now doing bridge materials like Jim from BridgeBoss and the guys from Silk City who do a great job with their systems.

I hope this helps. If you need more detailed photos, I will be happy to e-mail them to you.

Brian..I like the way the match sticks made the girder look real!! Nice touch..

Alan