Show Me Your 213 Lift Bridge Installations

Hello Bob,

This is my lift bridge scene....I still have a lot of work to do.  When raised my Lionel tug boat fits under the bridge.

 

Kevin...that looks great!  The bridges in the background....are those going to be for highway traffic or railroad??

 

Alan

You will find this to be a beautifully crafted bridge, but, it has a tragic flaw: it is not designed to have scale Auto-Carrier cars or InterModal cars go through the bridge. I had to sell mine and jujitsu pop

I messed up earlier, but had to sell mine and replace it with an Atlas-0 bridge that allows scale looking equipment to pass through. This is just to let you know so that you won't be disappointed later. Good Railroading.

Kevin,

I like the way you used the extension bridges and girder bridge. My space will only allow for the bridge itself. Your bridge piers are great; are they scratchbuilt?

 

Is your water made of a resin product? When you put the tug on the water I assume that you remove the base; how does it look on the water? I read on another thread that a favorite application for water is showerdoor glass. My water will be on a dropaway table for access. I am wondering which is lighter; the resin or the glass.

Thanks again for sharing your work and your pics.

 

Larry,

Thanks for the heads up; but I don't run scale auto-carriers or TOFCs. I prefer the smaller trailers. I think that you just saved me from buying NJT bi-level cars.

Thanks Alan.  The bridge in the background is for highway traffic.  It is HO scale and hopefully once I place a few HO scale cars and trucks it will make it look further in the background (forced perspective).  Someday, the bridge will connect with an elevated HO city.

 

Bob, I scratchbuilt the piers.  The water is aquatex shower class.  I really can't say which would be heavier, glass or resin....I would bet glass.  The tug boat looks right at home on top of the glass.  I have to admit that I copied many elements from this scene from Dennis Brennan's book; Realistic Modeling for Toy Trains.   Check out his book for details and pictures of the boat on the water.  No kidding, I learned a lot from reading this book and it remains in my trainroom because I am constantly referring to it as a resource.

BTW, this old train bridge (its not a lift bride) sits beside a highway bridge near my home (I stood on the car bridge to get this photo).  It was my inspiration for my lift bridge scene, as well as the cool shot in Dennis's book in which a diesel engine is passing overhead as a bus drives up hill under the overpass.  Those two images really did inspire me.

 

Kevin,

Great job on those piers.  "Is it real or is it Memorex?". Thanks for the tip on Dennis' book. I just ordered it.

Cool Bob, you will enjoy that book I am certain.  I wish Dennis would see this thread, I would love for him to post that picture I am talking about.  Dennis are you out there?

Bob....here is a picture of my canal / harbor showing the use of shower door glass.  The use of shower door glass as water by modelers has been around for a long time as I remember John Allen using a similar technique.  The one thing I do different than what Dennis does is I don't paint the bottom of the glass.  I found that, at least in my case, I was able to make the water look deeper by painting the surface of what the glass is sitting on....using smooth 1/8th inch masonite.  This gives the effect of the clear glass on top making it look deeper without some of the special painting to make it look that way....

 

Alan

Kevin,

 

PFE rec in good order,   also  the bridges look amazing  ,  is this at the school

 

or house !!  Wow

 

Here's a shot of my #213 bridge. One of these days I'll find the time to add water under it.

Joe 

 

Bob also remember when finding a location for your 213 bridge that not all scale equipment runs thru the bridge and that will cause route restrictions.

Joe,

There are many details to take in; great picture. I saw it from my email but now I can't open it. Where did you get that nice riverboat?

Thanks Don,

The limiting radius of 042 keeps things in perspective. My larger equipment will be on the upper level. I don't own any double stacks, high TOFCs, or modern auto carriers. Following Larry's earlier post; I made a decision to forget about NJT bi-levels.

Just a brief note that it's not just the "big scale" items that are always the culprit.

 

I had a problem with withe the caboose from a 3 pack of Pennsy freight cars (K-Line by Lionel) meant to go with the small A-5 steamer from about 4 years ago.  (maybe this was actually considered scale, I'm not sure - but it doesn't fit the stereotype of large container or auto cars that people normally bring up)

 

The cap on the chimney would clip the bridge.  This smoking caboose had a removable cap for smoke fluid application so if I absolutely feel the need to run it without the "T" on the top of the stack, I can.

 

The moral to this story is just to check each piece before runing it at speed through the bridge.

 

-Dave

 

 >>Where did you get that nice riverboat?<<

 

Hi Bob, thanks for the comliment.. I found that riverboat at Lowes a few years back. It's a Lemux from one of their collections.  Pretty cool. It lights up and the paddlewheel is motorized.

BTW, those photo's appear squished on the OGR board.  O-72 curves look like O-27.

I forgot to reset the camera back to 4.3 from 16.9.

Joe 

 

What is the actual head clearance of the lift bridge? I don't run modern auto cars or double stacks at home anyway, but the caboose problem is troubling. I probably won't be able to fit one into my layout anyway, but it sure is cool. 

This is shower door glass. I simply spray painted the bottom side of the glass. The glass then acts like a mirror.

 

Here's the shot Kevin. Thanks for the kind words. Your lift bridge looks great!

Alan, Your canal/harbor looks great, thanks for sharing your tweak on the base for the glass.

 

I hope that mine will measure up to all the great work I've seen here.

 

Dave, thanks for the tip on the caboose, I do have a few K-Line scale cabeese.

 

Dennis, that is a sweet scene, I like your pilings; I will need to place about 10' of pilings on my river scene. I am awaiting your book with great anticipation.

Bob....here is another one for ya!!

 

Alan

Hi Terry,

I am glad to hear the PFE reefers got there safe and sound...they are great cars!  The lift bridge is at my house.  I do a Christmas layout every year at my school, but it is only temporary.  I am planning on building a layout around my office/desk this summer.  I bought an RC Thomas set and I let the children play with it as a reward.  It is a huge hit and a great bit of leverage too!

 

Not sure about other out there, but I can not see the pictures Joe or Dennis posted.  Pity, because the shot of the bus driving under the train overpass is absoutely stunning! 

 

Bob,

Dennis provides instruction for making the pilings in his book.  I can tell you that before I read his book when my wife went to JoAnn's Fabrick store I had no interest in going.  Having read his book, I now ask if she wants to go with me. 

 

I am a little surprised that there are not more photos of lift bridges.

Alan,

That photo of the tanker on the water is great. The lighting with the reflections is awesome. Is that a swing bridge? Another one that I bought in anticipation; but it's staying in the box.

 

Kevin,

Dennis' pictures are fine; not so with Joe's.

LOL on the shopping with the wife! I spend alot of time reading and snoozing in parking lots.  I'll run through the craft store on occasion and then wait outside. Now it sounds like I'll have a purpose. Maybe if I put my stuff on the counter with her's she will even pay for it.

It measures 4 3/16" from the top of the rails to the bottom of the first tower girder.

Love this bridge. I am installing mine on a secondary line that will head to a brewery loading dock. This way I will only have specific cars that will be sent to the bridge because of the height restriction. Kevin nice work so far.

Ditto that.  I had amassed quite a collection of MTH RailKing double-deck auto carriers...the ones with the neat diecast vehicles and the package sticker that warns of the top-heavy nature of the car...only to find that they were too tall to fit through this bridge...or the bascule...or most of my commercial tunnel portals.  It was, as they say, an 'Epiphonal Duh! (Another form of "ED" older guys can 'suffer') 

 

So, I wonder why they didn't include a 'tipsy-AND-tall' warning on the same sticker??

 

But, then, some aging old phart would've had to remember the warning on those stickers tucked away in neat stacks piled beneath the result of hours of painstaking effort to build the proverbial spaghetti-bowl of a layout. 

 

It was my (sorry, Lee) 'Simple Green' moment....Another dang diploma from the School of Hard Knocks.

 

That said, however, the Lift and Bascule Bridges side-by-side (sorry, no photo) bridging the bifold door access to a seldom-used storage cubby looks really cool.  They guard the approaches to an along-the wall passenger terminal and (lower level) freight yard. 

 

KD

Electrics can't fit through the lift bridge, even with the pantographs down. I had to stop running my MTH bi-polar because of that. I suppose I could have replaced the bridge, but I opted to keep it - rationalizing the decision with the thought that bi-polars didn't operate on the Milwaukee Beer Line.

Check out the Feb / March 2012 issue of OGR for my layout. There is a pic or two.

 

Donald

 

Bob...sorry I didn't get back to this thread more quickly to answer your question above.  The "tanker" in the picture above is actually a passenger liner that I will be converting into a yacht because of the scale...

 

The bridge is just the normal MTH bridge that I converted to look like a swing bridge.

 

Here are a couple of pictures showing a closer shot of the bridge...

 

Alan