Increase height of Kato Viaduct Pre-cast Piers

[Hayashi]

I am interested in increasing the height of portion of my viaduct track. Is there a method for modifying Kato viaduct pre-cast piers to increase their height by 1.5x or 2x? It is easy to create poured concrete piers, but I'd like to keep the look of the pre-cast piers.

[cteno4]

To match it might be best to just take a second pier and hack it up to stack up. Doing 1.5x would be pretty easy just hack it off just above the middle crosspieces and glue under one. 2x would be tougher with the top cross section being different than the middle one. You might find some shallow I beam strip styrene stock to make a teaching cross piece.

 

sacrafice a few and play with it some.

 

you are right the poured Y piers are easy to make out of wood, I made a bunch a long time back for one of our club members that had like 4 layers of viaduct. Just have the base section long and he just cut them off at the heightsnhe needed and glued onto some base foundation sections we made.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Hayashi]

Thanks cteno4,

 

That's what I was thinking...a little jerry rigging. I was hoping someone had some ultra clever way (i.e., quick and easy) or there was a third party product out there. 

[cteno4]

None I’ve ever seen. 1.5x should be very easy.

 

jeff

[gavino200]

On 8/15/2018 at 1:13 AM, Hayashi said:

I am interested in increasing the height of portion of my viaduct track. Is there a method for modifying Kato viaduct pre-cast piers to increase their height by 1.5x or 2x? It is easy to create poured concrete piers, but I'd like to keep the look of the pre-cast piers.

 

Did you have any success with this? I have a similar height challenge. The Kato viaduct piers are actually quite low. I'm designing a two level layout. My viaduct will become ground level as it enters the high side of the layout. However, I want a commuter train on the low side to go underground on the high side. But the height of the viaduct is too low for the height difference between ground level and the height of a tunnel plus some intervening space. 1.5 or 2 times Kato pier height would be more suitable. 

 

I see that Kato have used custom piers on their show layout in Tokyo, that are really quite high. You can see them in the video below. I have to wonder how prototypical these are. I'm not worried too much about being exactly prototypical but I don't want to make piers that are ridiculously tall. 

 

It's probably possible to extend the stock piers using styrene or perhaps something more rigid. Carving T or Y shaped pieces out of wood would also be an option. There's also 3D printing. An advantage of custom making piers would be the ability to vary the height of the underlying terra firma. 

 

An advantage to kitbashing the stock Kato piers is keeping that Quick release connection to the viaduct track. 

 

The Kato center piers can be seen at 2:35 where the look to be about double the stock height at least. These look like custom made piers but it should be possible to get a similar effect by stacking Kato piers and extending the legs. 

 

The piers at 2:39 look very much like two stacked kato piers. There is a cross beam type pier a the very right of the screen that's completely different. It looks simple and easy to copy. 

 

Close up of the pier at 2:56. Some roughness and an indent on the bottom crossbeam makes me think this is two kitbashed kato piers. 

 

One of these at 3:23 has been chopped very prototypically to allow a train to pass through underneath. (If it's ok for Kato...)

 

 

 

 

 

It would be a bit of work to kitbash these piers together but I think it's doable. The hardest part would be removing the top platform on the lower piece without ruining it. 

 

 

This kato solid type pier would be quite easy to extend. Simple cut, splice in a carved piece, sand and paint. Not sure it would look as good, but I fine that some variety tends to create a nice illusion.

 

 

Edited December 9, 2020 by gavino200

[Kiha66]

I believe the kato marketing team has confirmed that they are two stacked precast piers.  They sometimes to "how tos" showing how they take catalog and advertisement photos, and they did a bit for shinkansen ads showing them using this technique.  

[gavino200]

2 hours ago, Kiha66 said:

I believe the kato marketing team has confirmed that they are two stacked precast piers.  They sometimes to "how tos" showing how they take catalog and advertisement photos, and they did a bit for shinkansen ads showing them using this technique.  

 

Thanks!! I'll see if I can find one of these features.