Garden Railway Forum

Help please.

I am currently building a 5-arch viaduct as a pre-build project for the new Rylston Light. I’ll post on the project board later with build details but I need opinions on the batter of the supporting piers. I have mocked up a pier out of thin card. Have I got the angle of the batter right? Ignore all the polystyrene boxes around; they are just representing the ground levels and filling in for other piers.

I am not sure if the batter needs altering so the base of the pier is slightly thinner. For scale the track bed is 500mm above the ground level. Ol’ Niall Packerman, the PW lengthman, is peering over the balustrade to help with scale.

Thanks for help, and I’ll detail the build on another post later.

Andy

Hi Andy,

I'm not sure there's a right answer to this one. I've seen then nigh on vertical before. Your's look sturdy and workmanlike, always a recipe for an acceptable design in my book! Whilst, from a structural stability point of view, the wider the better, it would make the cost of the real thing prohibitive and ultimately they would meet at ground level and prevent access through the arch - at which point you'd have a vertical stone embankment!

Stick with your excellent work so far, the viaduct looks great.

Andrew

As you've got it, that looks OK to me although if it were mine I think I'd make the foot slightly narrower.
As Andrew says, I'm not sure there is a right or wrong, it would depend on materials i.e. brick or stone, plus the ground type and possibly the qualities of the building stone itself.

The stonework on the bridge itself looks superb BTW.

Don't know if this is any help Andy and not the best angle to show the lack of taper. It would seem if you wanted to make them narrow it would be OK.
Grant.
PS can't wait to see the reincarnation of the Rylston Light.

Arthington viaduct in Yorkshire appears to have vertical supports between the arches with a very slight taper on the outside of each support. Rik

A different shot shows there's no taper on the outer edges Rik

Thanks I thought it looked a tad on the fat side. I’ve tried a slimmed down trial in card again. It’s proportions are better. Onwards with the build. I’ll start a build record in the Projects directory.

See you there!

Andy

Edit: A picture of one of the shorter piers with less pronounced batter.