Kato piers for running trains under the viaduct?

[Kiran]

Are there Kato viaduct piers that have enough room to let you put a track underneed and have a train pass under the viaduct? I have double track viaduct set V12 and V13 and it might be interesting to put a single track under part of the double track viaduct. The tallest piers that came with the sets don't have enough gap for a train to pass through. In the real world, do they actually have tracks under overhead/viaduct track? I am guessing this would be the possible especially in urber areas.

 

Thanks for any pointers.

[Kiha66]

I don't believe kato makes any piers that would work directly, although you could probably modify the kato pre-cast piers with a little trimming to allow a single track to run underneath.  Most viaduct sections do not have another line underneath however there are a few places where this does occur, including one section where old and experimental equipment was stored.  Most notably this included the experimental kiha 391 gas turbine trainset until it was cut up a few years previous.

[bill937ca]

You can build viaduct sections with trains running underneath with Tomix track. Use a 3073 crossbeam with 3017 piers.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10028696

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10009757

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10028695

 

Edited November 3, 2018 by bill937ca

[bill937ca]

There is a double deck station on the Keikyu at Kamata.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keikyū_Kamata_Station

 

 

[bill937ca]

A portion of Keisei Takasago is double deck.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keisei-Takasago_Station

 

Scenes under the Takasago station upper deck and then a ride along the Kanamachi Line Takasago ~ Shibamata which became a stub line with the opening of the upper deck.

 

 

Edited November 3, 2018 by bill937ca

[kvp]

In this case, using Tomix piers with the Kato station or making your own piers seems to be the easy option. The Kato piers could be modified to allow trains to pass but it compromises their rigidity, so they have to be strengthened.

[Hayashi]

I may be running into a similar dilemma as I'm working out the intricacies of my layout design. Is it possible to create a multi-level design as shown. I would turn the pre-cast pier 90 degrees (the way they are used in the shinkansen viaduct station. Remove one set of cross supports, but leave the others. The questions are:

 

1. Is there enough vertical clearance for a train to pass under the pre-cast pier?

2. Is there enough width between Piers #1 and #2 for train clearance (straight track only; no curves)?

3. Is there enough distance between the ground level double tracks for the pre-cast Pier #1 and still provide train clearance? 

4. Will S-joiners connect the pre-cast piers to the viaducts in this 90 degree concept or do I need to kitbash something?

5. Is there a way to attach catenaries to the viaduct with the pre-cast piers in this 90 degree position?

 

Sorry for the poor and out-of-scale artwork, but hopefully it provides an appropriate picture.

[katoftw]

The piers lift the bottom of the viaduct to 50mm. And he top of the piers have a little solid 5-7mm section.

 

So either you may need to extend the pier legs 5mm or resess the lower track 5mm into the ground.

 

Glue attaches caternaries with ease.

 

Yes piers can be rotated.

[cteno4]

3 hours ago, Hayashi said:

1. Is there enough vertical clearance for a train to pass under the pre-cast pier?

 

Most should make with pantographs down, but as Kato notes you’ve shaved off like 7mm of vertical clearance. There is 44mm of clearance under the pier to the ground. Unitrak is 7mm high so you have 37mm for clearance from the rail head. That’s very tight for a lot of trains and no pantographs up at all. Most trains are around 30mm tall with pantographs down

 

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2. Is there enough width between Piers #1 and #2 for train clearance (straight track only; no curves)?

 

Yes as on straight track cars clear in the track roadbed width. Unless you want to run your galaxy express 999 with turrets attached...

 

Unitrak is 25mm wide and the columns are 10mm wide. The distance between the columns is 35mm. Since 33mm spaced Unitrak has a 8mm gap between the roadbeds it would be shoved out 1mm if up against the center column from being directly below the viaduct track above. 5mm from each column of you center it and that gives you a 35mm track spacing if you run a single track centered down each side of the pier.

 

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3. Is there enough distance between the ground level double tracks for the pre-cast Pier #1 and still provide train clearance? 

 

If you mean loose the center column and then double track ground fit under then yes I think it should (can’t lay my hands on my double ground track right now). If you remove the center column you have 77mm between outside columns. Someone has any handy can measure overall width of double ground track. It will be fine for 2 piece of single Unitrak at 33mm spacing with the center column removed

 

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4. Will S-joiners connect the pre-cast piers to the viaducts in this 90 degree concept or do I need to kitbash something?

 

Yes it will work sideways but you only get the center sjoiner connecting from viaduct to pier

 

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5. Is there a way to attach catenaries to the viaduct with the pre-cast piers in this 90 degree position?

 

As Kato said it would require gluing them up and it will also eat up vertical clearance

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[Hayashi]

Thanks Kato and Jeff. Much appreciated!

[AhmadKane]

I'm posting my Q about piers here

 

Anyone know the difference between K23-016 Gradual incline pier and K 23-015 Incline Pier 15-50mm?

 

 

[Yavianice]

Like with its double track viaduct pier counterpart, the 23-016 goes in between the 23-015. Or you can double the length of the incline.

[AhmadKane]

1 hour ago, Yavianice said:

Like with its double track viaduct pier counterpart, the 23-016 goes in between the 23-015. Or you can double the length of the incline.

So its an addition to a single viaduct set huh... Can you use 23-016 instead of 23-015? Or would you not meet clearance?

 

Also V2 uses 23-015 right?

[katoftw]

No you cannot swap.

 

The extra set go in to allow 5mm rise per per. Compared to the main set which had 10mm rise.