MTH BigBoy clearances

You could cut the short double track girder bridge to give you more clearance.

Desperate times calls for desperate measures.

Charlie

You know, I just went out to look at the girder bridge and your idea is actually practical.  The girder bridge can be cut right down the middle, it will have screw holes that can be utilized  without re-drilling since MTH put 8 in the middle and splitting in half will leave 4 on each side, cleaning up the ends and put against the arch bridge makes it look they were meant to be made that way and I gain the the length I need.  Now I might have the extra  double track girder bridge to sell.  Thanks for this idea Charlie.

I found that the MTH Premier Big Boy has a greater overhang than the Lionel Vision Line Big Boy on either end.  After we modified Harry's layout to handle my VL-BB, I brought the MTH Big Boy up, it promptly smacked into a tunnel portal!

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I found that the MTH Premier Big Boy has a greater overhang than the Lionel Vision Line Big Boy on either end.  After we modified Harry's layout to handle my VL-BB, I brought the MTH Big Boy up, it promptly smacked into a tunnel portal!

Same thing at my train club. We realized that my MTH Premier Big Boy needs more clearance than the Lionel Big Boy.

@CALNNC I believe is referring to the Imperial Railking Big Boy that just arrived. I have one too but yet to run it. I am hoping the overhang is similar to the LC+ Big Boys because I have my track adjusted to fit the overhang for it. I hope the Railking overhang isn't a lot more than that one.

Brad

@CALNNC posted:

Well, after a 35 month wait, the Big Boy I ordered through my local hobby shop arrived, along with the other 2 the shop ordered for counter sales, and they both were sold the next day.

Model No. (so that the rest of us can plan ahead if we have one coming in)?

Mike

Mike, if he is referring to the Railking Imperial version the model numbers are 30-1840 thru 30-1843.

Brad

Correctamundo, 30-1840-1

And I do not believe the 30-1842 and 30-1843 have arrived or they were cancelled. They did not arrive in the shipment the others did.

Brad

I am building my first layout with the help of a friend. The layout has numerous bridges. I, too, had bridge clearance issues with my Lionel Legacy Big Boy. Gunrunner John has been hugely helpful with advice/inputs along the way. When we reached the point of early test runs I told John that we were going to give the Big Boy a try. I did have concerns at two my side- by -side bridges. We had manually pushed the Big Boy through the bridge and it cleared. But John pointed out that, under power, that locomotive would swing out a out 1/4” more. He was exactly right (as usual). We crept it up to the bridge under power and it was going to hit. So, bridge surgery was necessary. I cut the upper superstructure off each end of both bridges, made new structure from strip plastic, glued it in and filled the seams with filler, sanded and primed. I knew that repainting the entire bridge to match would be kind of a pain due to all of the “ins and outs” of the bridge structure. So, I masked the bridge off and painted the upper structure flat black. The Big Boy clears just fine now.

Hers two photos of the reconstructed MTH Rail King bridges. Uploaded these in my previous reply but they didnt seem to go through.