Help with Finding an Interactive Brridge

jordon412

33 Year Old Railfan
I need some help finding a swing bridge, bascule bridge, lift bridge, rolling bascule bridge, etc. of different lengths. Both of the bridges must be single track. The lengths of the bridges include the length of the span and the bridges leading up to the span. A preferred length of the span would be 100 feet and the entire bridge must be made of steel. One must be about 400 feet long, the other is 600 to 650 feet long. Can someone provide some assistance?

The reason:
The route I'm working on, named Waters & West Point Railway Museum, is based on the Columbus & Greenville Railway (C&G) features two bridges over the Tombigbee Waterway, crossing an island in the middle of the river. In the real world, the U.S. Army Engineers Corp. was rechanneling the Tombigbee Waterway, and had just built a brand new bridge for the Illinois Central Gulf (ICG) eight miles south of the two bridges I've stated. The Engineers Corp. did not want to spend about $3 million to replace on of the two bridges on the C&G with a bridge at a higher elevation. However the C&G was already in discussion with the railroad with the ICG to run their trains (C&G) over the ICG tracks from Artesia, Mississippi, to a connection with their tracks (C&G) at Columbus, Mississippi, and then to the end of the line not far away. The section between both connections with ICG was then abandoned, though the bridges were still intact. In my route, the museum slowly expanded from Waters, a suburb in Columbus, back to West Point, following the original route. However, upon reaching the Tombigbee Waterway, the railroad managed to get several state grants to get across the waterway, eventually making it to just outside of West Point.
 
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Check the bridges made by Ben Dorsey. He made a ton of moveable bridges of various lengths and styles. There must be a least one that meets your needs. :)

John
 
Search for:
Lift bridge
Vertical lift bridge
Swing bridge
Bascule bridge
Strauss heel-n-trunion bridge
Scherzer bridge
Rolling lift bridge
Direct lift bridge
American bridge
Offset bridge

and if you are really brave just search for bridge, lol.

Note: many are for 2004 so be sure to check that box before doing the search. Most will easily convert to use in newer versions of Trainz.

Ben
 
@bendorsey:
I had a slight problem with the previously mentioned bridge, 'Swing_Bridge_26': instead of the invisible track, I got some white dashed lines. I had seen this regarding some routes and it shows that there are missing dependences. I looked at the config file and I found that the 'attached-track' section was missing. I copied this section from the config file from 'Swing_Bridge_23', <kuid2:210518:1257:2>, needed for philskene's Port Loleta Railroad Co - Model Trainz, and added it to the config file for 'Swing_Bridge_26'. I committed it, and there's now no problems with it in Trainz. You may want to check your other bridges and make sure that the 'attached-track' section is in the config file.
 
Thanks for the heads up. I'll check it.

Almost all moveable bridges are done as mocrossings to take advantage of code built into Trainz so a separate script file is not needed.
One slight disadvantage is they will automatically trigger when a train is about 80 meters from the end track attachment points. This can not be changed for the bridge itself but there are ways using track marks and so on to make it start to open farther away. Ask on Forum how to do tis if needed.

Next - trains cross on invisible track. What you see as track are parts made in Gmax (or Blender) that look like ties and rails. The advantage to this is even if the bridge opens with a train on it the train will not derail and crash your session. Look weird yes - bomb your session no.

Finally there are a few (very few) moveable bridges done as transfer tables allowing manual operation.

Glad you found one that fit - - - Enjoy,

EDIT (a few minutes later):
That bridge was made for TRS2004 and at the time did not require an attached track section. From TS2009 and up it did. Bridges I've made and uploaded since TS2009 have the attached-track section. Most of what I made back then easily converts to newer versions. The exceptions being splines and traincars where the config file is considerably different. A little looking around will show the differences and they can be converted too.

Ben
 
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