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Subject: 
The NMRA Trestle Bridge
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.trains
Date: 
Sun, 28 Aug 2005 02:02:19 GMT
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Hello Everyone!

I’ve never posted a MOC on LUGNET before, but I’m not new to building. First, let me introduce myself: My name is Jeramy Spurgeon, current IndyLUG president and avid LEGO train fan!

The trestle bridge and surrounding 6 x 6 baseplate area (including the covered bridge) was built by me starting in February of this year and finalized in June, prior to the NMRA National Train Show. It was inspired by a local “O” gauge model club that has a very nice curved trestle bridge on their layout. I had mentioned at a show we did with them in February, that that would be a great project to do in LEGO. My fellow club members thought I was crazy, but the gears of construction began to turn in my head. Here are some pics of the inspired model:

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/bricks/2005kidsexpo/Sunday/image030.jpg http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/bricks/2005kidsexpo/Sunday/image029.jpg

I began to work how to make this in LEGO. I had seen several LEGO versions of trestle bridges, especially inspired by the one built by the PNLTC a few years ago (links currently unavailable).

It took me a few months to gather all the needed parts, what would we ALEs/AFOLs do without Bricklink??

The progress pictures are here (with a few new ones added to show how each individual trestle was made):

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=119785

As you may be able to tell from the pics, I used 1x1 tile with clip on top with the 1x2 plate with handle to work out the angled beams. 1x1 plates with headlight clips were used to attach the angled supports. The 1x1 headlight bricks allow for the tiles and plates to be placed on the side, which is really where the stability comes from.

A test build in June before the Big Show:

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/bricks/NMRA/Preliminary/image010.jpg

which also gives you an idea of the area I built to accomodate the bridge.This area was designed to compliment the incredible mountain scene built by my fellow IndyLugger, Brian Darrow:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=115505

At first, I was concerned about how stable the bridge would be, but after connecting all of the track and then attaching it to the rock walls, it was way more stable than I could have imagined!

As for the questions asked in this thread, I just took my inspiration mostle from the “O” scale bridge and various images found while Googling. I did decide to create a smaller bridge into the Trestle that crossed the water because the same questions came to me when designing the bridge. I bypassed this by creating an area of the bridge that simply went “over” the water rather than having stanchions stuck into the water itself. This inspiration came from a picture in an older issue of Model Railroader magazine.

Well, I hope this sheds a little light on the trestle bridge construction process. I,myself, have never taken really good pictures of it, so I hope these Brickshelf account owners don’t mind me pointing to some of their pictures:

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/zephyr1934/NMRA-2005/nmra-2005.jpg

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lar/shows/NMRAJuly05/Thursday/dscn5500.jpg

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/DecoJim/NMRA2005/indylug05.jpg

Questions?

--Jeramy



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: The NMRA Trestle Bridge
 
(...) I like the way you've used 1x1 round plates to connect to the slip plates on the stanchions. They grip the back to back studs better than other plates, whilst giving a suitable clearance from the stanchions themselves. How long did it take to (...) (19 years ago, 28-Aug-05, to lugnet.trains, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Timber trestle crossing water
 
(...) Well, I have say the person who made the bridge at the NMRA show has set the standard. (URL) Maybe its creator could pass along some info??? Adr. (19 years ago, 27-Aug-05, to lugnet.trains, FTX)

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