Bridge Scratchbuild Lessons Learned

In my job, we have what are known as BKM’s and LL’s. BKM = Best Known Methods. LL = Lesson Learned.

When something happens which causes a machine to be down for an extended period of time or a mistake is made, a Lessons Learned is generated to share with everyone so it doesn’t happen again. BKM’s are developed over time once everyone agrees on how something is supposed to be done.

Now that I am closing on finishing up the main part of my bridge scratchbuild, I would like to share some lessons learned.
1. Tenax-7R is a solvent which dissolves styrene. It works great, but just be aware that this is what it does. As a result, you can lose some details as the styrene melts.

2. The Plastruct styrene “angle iron” does not have a 90 degree inside angle. Thinking it was pretty darn close, I attached the vertical sections of my bridge to the inside. When I attached the vertical sides with the angle iron to the bridge base, I found that the sides cant out enough to be noticeable. I’ll go ahead and use the bridge like this for the layout, but I plan to make another one in the future.

3. Just learned this one last night. If you are going to make a shorter section of flextrack with compressed tie spacing – perform the tie spacing compression before you cut the track. It is a real pain to get the little tie clips to go back on the rail bottom once they’re off.

Hopefully this information is useful to some.

Cheers,
Jeremy

Thanks Jeremy. Every bit of real life experience is useful.

It is a real pain to get the little tie clips to go back on the rail bottom once they're off

Unfortunately it's inevitable when you make a longer bridge. The trick is to cut and install 4 - 5 tie sections at once, they're more user friendly. For short bridges start to compress the ties toward the center from both directions.

Lajos:)

Lajos:

Thanks that's a good tip. I discovered the part about putting multiples on at the same time. It helps keep them aligned. About 6 tie sections was all I could get off the longer section before they broke free.

The other thing I learned, especially when dealing with individual rail ties: They are very hard plastic. This makes them hard to hold with the tweezers because they are also very slick. They pop out real easy.

Jeremy

especially when dealing with individual rail ties

Individual ties? You really did it on the hard way. Here is a picture , how I did it.



Clamp the track upside down to the bench top, cut off the links between the ties, then push them as close as desired. Next phase is to pull off the right side tie end assembly, then fill up the empty rail section with shorter (4 - 5 ties) assemblies. Chop off the links, then push them again. I've used the knife only for the whole process. After filling the rails, I pulled off the tie end assemblies and saved them for normal flex track installations. (I always use them at the end of any length and shape of flex track. They make flex track installation "seemless".) Next step is cut the rails at the ends as short as confortable to solder the sections together.

Lajos:)

When I did my double track on my new end module I did the same as you Lajos, only because the length of track required two pieces, I had to solder another rail to span the long bridge span. Required a lot of snipping, tie pushing, aligning, and then some sleeper ties under the solder joint.

Got it done and am pleased with the results.
You sure learn one thing quickly when you undertake special projects on your railroad, and that is patience. Nothing goes real fast as you would like it to, but then, Rome wasn't built in a day either.

Loren

tealplanes wrote:

You sure learn one thing quickly when you undertake special projects on your railroad, and that is patience. Nothing goes real fast as you would like it to, but then, Rome wasn't built in a day either.

Loren

No kidding. After 2 nights of work on roughly 1/2 section of flextrack, I'm about 3/8 done. Of course, I was doing other things on the bridge both nights. But I like the results. If I just dropped in a regular piece of flextrack, I would have always been disappointed I didn't take the time.

I wish I would have thought about it when I was at the show to look at your bridges. I may have pictures. I took mostly pictures of the canyons and bridges on the modules.

Jeremy

Jeremy,
Here is what the track looked like before ballasting.
Loren

Loren:

That's on the end module IIRC, next to where you were doing the tree making demo. I took a picture of this bridge. I called it the I-205 bridge (Glen Jackson bridge between Portland and Vancouver over the Columbia). It is a similar construction, except for auto traffic.

On a curve too! That took some effort I bet.

Jeremy