Model Bridges
About Model Bridges
You cannot make a railway model without bridges. Well, you can make it, but it is not going to be any interesting. Complex and realistic scenery necessitates using model bridges when you are building railway models.
Railway model bridges are not just a piece of wood placed across a ditch. There is so much thought and planning that goes into a real railway bridge. If you want your railway model to be realistic, your model bridges should also reflect the complexities and details of real bridges. And also, not all the bridges are the same. You have to adapt every bridge to suit perfectly with your scenery as well. Above all, the bridge should not break in half when you run a train over it. This article will tell you everything you need to know about model bridges.
A beginner’s guide to railway model bridges
The first thing to know is the different variations of the product available in the online marketplace. As for model bridges, they come in varying levels of difficulty. For beginners, there are prefabricated bridges that you only need to place along the track. Although the easiest thing to do is to use a prefabricated bridge, some people like the experience of building bridges from scratch. But regardless of whichever one of those you go for, you need to know the basics of railway model bridges. In this article, you will also find some really useful tips that you can follow while shopping for them online.
Railway bridge sets and history
It was in 1827 when the first railroad was finished commissioning. That was almost three centuries ago. Since then, a lot of things have changed in the field of railways. At the time when there was no concrete, the wood used to be the main material for construction. Then gradually, locomotives became more powerful, and trains began carrying heavier loads. This made it necessary to find new and stronger material for construction. There was still no concrete. Therefore, the next best material was steel and iron. Authentic model bridges reflect the evolution of this interesting history in their sets.
Types of railway bridges
Not all the bridges are the same. Depending on the way they are constructed, all of them have different names and different properties. The most common type of bridge is the deck bridge. They have their supporting girders below the train tracks. On the other hand, if the supporting structure is above the train track, that is called a through bridge. Arch bridges are those that have to cover very long distances and have to follow an arch shape to support the weight of the carriage. There are also truss bridges that use multiple formations of iron trusses that have multiple pier support. There is another type of bridge that is very rare these days called the cantilever bridge.
The flooring of the model bridges
Generally, there are two types of railway track floorings. You can use either of them to floor your wooden train bridge toy. The conventional type of railway bridge flooring is when the wood ties stay attached to the structure of the bridge with the help of iron nails. Then the rails go on top of these wooden ties. The other type of flooring model is when the one using ballast. In this type, instead of attaching the wooden ties to the bridge structure, they go on top of the ballast. The actual rail then goes on top of the wooden ties. In the real world, the latter type helps in reducing the vibrations and noise when the train passes over the bridge.
Modelling bridges using your set
Regardless of whichever type of railway bridge you want to replicate in your home, you will find a model bridge set for that purpose. But first of all, you should know which era of the railway does the model you want to correspond to. If the rest of your train set, including the scenery around the train track, complement the look of that era, you will be able to make an authentic recreation of a railway model. In order to find that out, you can look at the different photos of the railways during that period and research more about the locomotives and carriages that were used during that period.
Tips on how to buy Model Bridge Sets
There are thousands of possibilities to build a unique railway model bridge. But it all starts with getting the right type of materials. It can be quite confusing to figure out the right type of pieces for your model bridge. Despite all these, you have to make sure that you are choosing the right set of bridge kits for your miniature railway model. This is only possible if you know what factors to look for in them. Here are a few tips that you can follow when you are shopping for model bridges.
- Get the right scale – First and foremost, you have to choose the scale of the model. Most manufacturers follow a five-scale model. You have to pick your scale even before you start shopping for other components because otherwise, the elements of the kit won’t suit one another.
- Choose the type of bridges you want – There are a few different types of bridges. Choosing the type doesn’t mean that you have to use one type of model bridge all throughout your construction. Rather, you have to plan the scenery of your design beforehand and choose the type of bridge accordingly.
- Make sure to get the history correct – This is another thing to consider, not only when you are choosing model bridges, buy every other element of the railway model as well. If you want to make an authentic representation of an era in the history of railway, you have to choose the right type of bridges, locomotives and even the scenery pertaining to that period of time.
- Curved vs Straight – You won’t wind curved girders in a railway bridge set. Instead, you have to choose the right type of straight girders so that you can connect them at angles to form the curve. But you have to look at the dimensions of the girders to make sure that you can successfully curve them without weakening the structure.
The prices of model bridge sets vary quite a bit. You will find cheap plastic model bridges to really expensive iron and steel bridges that let you customise even further. But you have to fix your budget before shopping so as not to burn a hole in your pocket. You will also find a lot of model train bridge kits for sale online that will help you save a lot of money. You can find all kinds of toys using our retail search engine . It will also let you compare the different models against each other to find the best one among them. So, don’t forget to check out all the other amazing products from the Model Railway category.
Question & Answer
Is it possible to buy a whole bridge set?
Yes, you will find many popular brands selling completed bridges. For beginners, purchasing the bridges is better than building them from scratch. Otherwise, there is a high chance that your bridge will break in half when the train passes over it. Likewise, it is also possible to purchase railway tunnels and tracks. But in either case, you have to build your scenery first to decide how many bridges and what type of bridges you require to complete the railway track. You will also need to make some adjustments to your landscaping in order to fit the bridges over it.
How to build Lego train bridges?
Building model bridges with LEGO blocks is quite interesting. The LEGO set will include tracks that are curved, straight and flexible. You will also find switch tracks and crossovers in the set. These blocks offer a great deal of flexibility when it comes to designing your own set of bridges. You will find that there are no dedicated model bridges in the LEGO train set. But it is possible to assemble the blocks to form foundations of the bridge in several different ways. The easiest and most common way to do this is by forming triangular trusses using the blocks. These are fairly strong enough to support the weight of a LEGO train.
Do IKEA trains track bridges fit Brio?
Although the railway cars in IKEA train set looks quite different from those of Brio, it is possible to run the train cars from Brion on the wooden tracks by IKEA. But how smooth will the train run is another question. It is possible to build extremely long and complicated tracks and bridges using IKEA sets. The only thing is that you will need so many of them depending on how long you want to build. Brio trains are not quite powerful. So, if the track is straight and relatively level, you will have no trouble getting them to work on IKEA tracks. But as you add complications, you will find more and more glitches.
If you are looking to buy wooden train tracks set with bridges online in the UAE, look no further as you are in the right place. You will find anything from vintage wooden bridges to plastic railway bridges on Shops.ae. All you have to do is to use the shopping search engine to look for the products you want. There are more than 500 shops and brands offering model bridges set on Shops.ae. These include popular brands like IKEA, Brio, LEGO, John Lewis, Ugears, Engino, and Melissa and Doug.