Railway Arches - typical size?

I work near Vauxhall and the line into Waterloo goes over arches and notice that some of then vary in size. The line is highly curved as it snakes into Waterloo so I assume that the arches must vary in width across their length or are staggered in some way as the structure is 8 tracks wide.

Kevin

"Kevin" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

...

Yup having spent an awfullotof time travelling in to and out of London via the SE lines (and having worked around Deptford) I agree the arches are of all hights, the only criteria appears to have been to keep the track as level as possible.

Height of the overal structure isn't the problem. The arch proper is effectively sat astride a couple of pillars, the height of these is what alters the overall height. At least that's my observation, feel fre to shoot me down if I'm wide of the mark. What I was more concerned with is the typical width across the arch. As Kevin's post suggests, this will vary where there is a curve in the line, I'm just looking for a ballpark figure really - if absolute scale accuracy was my aim I wouldn't strt with a 16.5mm track gauge and 4mm scale stock! Ironically, none of the subject reference photos I've found online include a human for scale..... Cheers, Bill.

About two seconds in Google images searching for "railway arch" and the first pic is a bricked up arch with what looks like a standard sized door in it.

MBQ

"Bill Davies" wrote in news:43cbc50f$0$2669$ snipped-for-privacy@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net:

As my previous answer .. but turned on it's side ;-) Anything from single track to 6 or even more, space around the sides of the track (that is how far you can go sideways before you fall of) varies depending on how much space is available and if they planned additional lines or spurs ... this time it's the prototype following us modellers. You should aim to allow about the same sort of gap as you'd find between the track and a platform edge (as a minimum) see

but width such a clearance you should add refuges for workers on top of every piller ... or you could make it wide enough for workers simply to step back to avaoid being turned in to jam. Both variations (and more) exist on the prototype ... just look at the aproaches to London Bridge for inspiration.

Er, I think he wants the width of the arch, span would probably be a better term, not the width of the trackbed carried by the arch.

MBQ

Ribblehead Viaduct, for instance, has 24 arches in 440 yards, or 55 feet per arch. The width of one pillar would have to be subtracted to give the width of the arch itself. 40 feet might be a rough approximation. Granted, this may not be typical of a smaller urban viaduct.

Yes,that's what I'm after. Cheers, Bill.

"Bill Davies" wrote in news:43cbdd3a$0$2716$ snipped-for-privacy@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net:

Rollocks ... sorry went of on a tangent.

This may help...

Ian,

That really is an excellent site for the scratchbuilder.

Jim.

My fault, poor choice of words. As MBQ said, Span would have been less ambiguous. Still struggling to find a scaleable image online though, those I have found with doors are either plate steel or shutter types, nothing like a standard size to use as a reference. Cheers, Bill.

It might but it doesn't! Lots of these arches are rented out to businesses or have roads under them, IMHO for your typical urban viaduct you won't go wrong with a span of 15 to 20 feet. As already mentioned major viaducts with high piers the cost of piers becomes much higher in proportion and hence spans are increased with 40 to 50 feet being typical. Keith

Isn't there a book that came out about 15-20 years ago called Bridges for Modellers or similar. They seem to be easily available.

Kevin Martin

"Bill Davies" wrote in news:43cbf866$0$82667$ snipped-for-privacy@ptn-nntp-reader03.plus.net:

The Greenwich to London ...

From

"Railway Viaduct, Edward Place and Crossfield Street, Deptford --Grade II, Built between 1833 and 1836 for the London and Greenwich Railway, this viaduct carried the first passenger railway in London and is one of the first major achievements of railway engineering in Britain. The viaduct is over five kilometres long and is built from yellow-grey bricks. Each arch is 20 feet from centre to centre and 22 feet high."

Search on "London Greenwich Railway viaduct" and you'll get loads of hits and with a bit of sniffing around some good pics.

Have I redeemed myself?

Thanks very much Chris. The internet is a wonderful place, if only you know what you're looking for in the first place!

No redemption necessary, you have provided plenty of information to be getting on with. More apparently trivial questions to come as the project moves along. Cheers, Bill.

I've got some strips of bricked-in arches, made in plastic. Can't remember if they were from the U.K. or Europe. Centres of the supporting piers are

75mm, which >

Minor error in my previous post, the reference to 'spring height' as being to the underside of the arch is incorrect. The 'spring height' is the spot from whence the arch begins to rise. Regards, Bill.

Coming very late to this thread, but a subject I've had under consideration myself as I need 8 foot's worth of arches to run along the back of my layout.

I have quite a lot of photos of arches and bridges as part of my website (sig below) and reckon that most of them come in at between

18-22 ft in width. (in the Bristol area anyway!)

Because I want to be able to model 8fts worth of this as easily as possible I started looking for ways to easily scrathbuild the 'the arch' itself. Eventually I realised that a Tesco can of baked beans is exactly the right size for the larger arches while a Tesco can of own brand prunes are perfect for the smaller ones. In fact I prefer the look of arches measured with the prune can than the bean can and that's probably what I'll mainly use. I simply stand the can on some plasticard and scribe around it. Voila! perfect arches, all the same size, every time :)

Pete