Wood Bridges and Decking

Wood bridges were built in a multitude of different styles. My design is a modified Warren style through truss bridge with an open top.

All bridge designs have been modified to make them a lot more sturdy. Inserts have been added to the top and bottom chords to give more glue surface. The dadoes in the bottom chords have been deepened to add more glue surface. The tie bars have been made smaller (more prototypical) and therefore more added to increase stability. All product sold is assembled and finished with a coat of oil. Please remember custom lengths are available for all product. All product shown below is designed for either O scale or HO scale railroading. On30 model railroaders who design in 1:48 scale can also use this product on their layouts. All bridges and decking are made from a very dense, naturally dark wood called Wenge.

Trestle Bents

The trestle bent design I build is called a framed bent. It has square posts as opposed to the pile style bent that uses round posts. The bottoms of the post rest on a horizontal timber called the sill. The sill in turn can be supported on a foundation of timber or concrete called mud sills or sub sills (customer supplies this).

Some framed bent designs have all posts vertical. Some have all posts set at an angle (called batter), while others as in our design have a mixture of both.

Depending on the railroad and the load framed bents can come with 4-6 posts. This design uses 5 posts with the middle post vertical and the outside posts battered.

The new design will incorporate a more narrow top cap to make the bent look less bulky. If you want a narrower bottom sill just ask!

O Scale Trestle bents

Some Comments Regarding S and On30 Scale Product

HO scale is 1:87 and O scale 1:48. S scale at 1:64 is in between both which puts the S scale railroader in a unique situation.

For both the HO and O scale categories all wood bridges and decking are purposely made slightly larger than true scale to allow for strength and stability.

For customers who model in S scale the choice of using either the HO or O scale product is purely a personal decision. While all O scale product will fit all S scale track with ease it may appear too big for true scale. At the other end of the scale some HO scale product may not be able to accommodate all S scale track. A good example is the HO Trestle deck. While it is wide enough for standard S track without ballast the distance between the Guard Timbers is too narrow to fit track with built-in ballast A better choice for track with built-in ballast would be the narrower of the two O scale decks offered for sale.

Both the HO girder and truss bridge will fit both types of track and at 3 inches width are a perfect scale 16 feet but the height of the Truss bridge is low for true S scale. The scale height is 20 feet while most truss bridges are designed to be between 24 feet and 32 feet. While the height of the O scale Truss bridge is good (~31 feet) the S scale the width works out to be about 21 feet which is wide. With this in mind custom designs are available for the S scale modeler. In cases where it is deemed necessary HO scale width can be combined with O scale height to achieve a more accurate S scale product. Just contact us and we will work with you to design a bridge that suits your personal preference.

S scale track on HO scale trestle deck

Model Structures for Model Railroads

Model Structures for Model Railroads

Wood Bridges and Decking

standard O Scale bridges and decking

Standard HO scale bridges and decking

Trestle Bents

Trestle bents

Some Comments Regarding S and On30 Scale Product

Some S scale designs

Some custom designed bridges

See more wood products