In an ad in MR magazine I noticed a proto 1000 new york subway set, so there must be people around who model a subway system,
I was curious how:
do you only model the above ground tracks and stations with some tunnels or could you model actual underground railways in a tube with an open side,
does anyone has pictures how such a lay-out may look like?
does anyone ideas or suggestions how ?
I saw some subways in the big Chicago lay-out featered in MR mag. some months ago, but thatts all
It would be rather difficult because you can’t see the trains. That train that proto sells is a virtual train ya see, because it runs underground[:D][:D][:D]
Ya, I would think that you would model only that part that was above ground although I did recently see an artical, I think in MR, where the underground was modeled out at the front edge of the layout. Really neat too.[:D]
There’s a friend of mine who bought some N scale subway cars I think its a Japanese prototype. He hasn’t done anything with them yet.
Hard to say how satisfying a subway layout would be operation-wise, but I think it would make for some really neat dioramas. A cutaway view of a subway station would make the ultimate shadow-box mounted flush on the wall. A pair of staging tracks on each side and some timing circuitry and you would have the ultimate display layout.
I remember an MR article that featured a Conrail layout and had a subway beneath Pittsburg.
Charles
Hillsburgh On.
I love the New York subways, they are so cool. Actually it would be fun to do cut away underground, with transition to EL. This would be a great shelf modeling subject, because in most locations it isn’t more than 4 tracks wide!
A 12" wide shelf at least 200’ long might do justice and the South Ferry loop station would be a fun one to model at one end.
If you want to see some cool maps, check this out!!### http://www.nycsubway.org/index.html
Great website, thanks.
I have the book “40 Feet Below” about the underground freight railroad that used to run under downtown Chicago. It would be a fun one to model. Besides the underground, it had a few terminals above ground. It carried mail, freight for various businesses (in particular department stores), Coal for heating and the ashes from the furnaces.
Some subway systems also have above-ground trackage–BART alternates between being a subway in the bigger cities and a surface/elevated railroad in the suburbs. One could feasibly have a single system provide elevated, subway and surface commuter service through a judicious use of hills–rather than use sharp grades to move track up or down, build your city along the side of a hill and provide subway and surface service to the “high” end, and elevated and surface service to the “low” end. Cutaways on the outer edge of the high end can show the subway stations and corridors–tunnel portals in the middle pop out into suburban stations.
I think there are a lot of us around that had other ideas of creating an “underground railroad” as that @#@ engine would not run proper and you had the urge to flush it down the toilet, but that is not the type of layout I had in mind,
It could be an shelf kind of layout made of Wastewater (oops there they are again) tubes with the side cut out, around the room with some stations along the route
btw the pneumatic version of an underground in the link bb4005 posted is cool !
Some years ago, while attending a trolley modelers’ convention, I saw a subway layout modeled in HO. It consisted of a very fine urban scene with the below-grade sides of the layout open at intervals to show stations, tunnels, etc. To say the least, it was urban modeling at its finest, with large, multi-storied buildings and street scenes above the trains.
At a later date I saw a video with the same general concept done in O-guage tin-plate.
I’d think such a design could be combined with a separate elevated street operation, as NYC has, to created a very interesting and unusual layout. I have seen ELs modeled in HO on several occasions but never these two types of trains together.
CNJ831
thanks cnj831,
so it is done do you know if there is a website dedicated to the layout you mention or are there pictures on the net?
Its only on the drawing board right now, but we recently discovered we have room to add a streetcar loop in Minas Tirith, that will also head into a subway stop visible through a cutout in the fascia. Most likely we’ll do the track as a figure 8, with half of it coming through a scene divide into South Ithilian as an elevated line. Because of the figure 8, we can have different route names on each side of the trolley.
All the subway and trolley lines in Boston alternate between under and above ground trackage.
Cheers,
Mo
Hi Maureen,
do you got your inspiration from LOTR?
does your layout resemble any of the structures used in that film?
must look cool!
makes me curious!
[:)][:D]Lupo,
If you haven’t already, go to your search engine (I use MSN) and type in
New York City Model Transit Association. I think you will really like it.
Featured is a very impressive club layout featuring the El / Subway system. Lots of nice closeup shots. Even though it’s O-scale, you will pick up a lot of great ideas! You can e-mail them and ask if the club or any of the club members have additional info that they will e-mail you.
Hope this helps!
Excellent website Antonio!!! Thanks.
http://home.att.net/~sctransit/NYCMTA1.htm
Uh oh, I SAW GRAFFITI !!![:D][:D][}:)][:-,][:-,][:-,][:P][swg][swg][swg]
For more graffiti check out these topics.
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12825
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12463
[:)][:D][8D][;)]Thanks for the kind words, Big_Boy_4005.
[:)][8D]I hope that Lupo reads this thread again and goes to the website. It is pretty impressive and offers so many good ideas for anyone thinking about building an urban theme for his or her layout., regardless of scale.
God Bless!
Antonio, Lupo is a big UP fan, I think this was more of a rhetorical topic for him, but a fun one just the same. [swg][swg][swg][tup]
We started design and planning at the end of 2000, before any of the movies came out. We’re not trying to model the vision of the movies. There’s a great LOTR tradition where each artist creates their own vision of what the world looks like. And plus, we’re modelling the early steam age (and the first electric trolley in the big city), several hundred years after the time of Tolkein’s story.
Our plan is to get a website up shortly after we have the first track glued down. First table frame is up (Hobbiton/Gray Havens module), pink foam is rising, track is on hand… If life doesn’t keep intervening, at some point we’ll actually have trains running. [:I] But the delay in trackwork has worked out well. We now have Atlas code 55 (N) that wasn’t available when we started, and we have better DCC options available now. We’ll buy the DCC system immediately after track is laid to have the most current options.
We’ve been working on structures steadily all along, so the scenes will fill up pretty rapidly once the trackwork is laid and tested. Right now we’re polishing up some fun structures for Hobbiton, putting shopfronts and pubs in arched arcade walls.
We now have all of the kits on hand for Gray Havens, Hobbiton, Bree, Rivendell, and Mirkwood, and some for Esgaroth, the Iron Hills, Mordor, Lorien, and Minas Tirith. Many are complete or near-complete. All the unbuilt ones have already had their kit-bashing worked out, sketched, and measured; so we know their exact footprints and how they will fit into the scenes.
Cheers,
Mo
Thanks Antonio, great website and thanks all others for your posts, I had no chance to reply earlier because of a major @#$% up with my ISP, no internet connection for allmost 3 days!
Bigboy4005 was right about the me and UP but as I was reading my MR mag I found these newyork subway set and I wondered how a lay-out from someone modelling an subway system would look like. I am a very curious guy.
As I am still in the planning phase, I rule out nothing, there are some great ideas around, special the work Maureen is planning!
I am looking forward to the first pics of your layout!
plexiglass streets would be cool so u could see the whole subway system
Elias, Good idea!
[;)]You got something there.
How about just plexiglass over the subway tunnel & station portion only and have pre-cut gray styrene or plastic streets already painted to resemble concrete that would neatly fit on top of the plexiglass for whenever we want to hide the underground view.
Plexiglass cutaway models in museums are common. Just a thought, but I really think it’s doable!
Thanks again![:)][8D][^]
[:D][8D]