I have been busy tonight laying more rails for switching and my for passenger train station. My passenger train is made up of short Con-Cor Santa Fe Valley Flyer’s smooth side cars. One is a RPO car, 2 Baggage cars and 7 mixed passenger cars. I run either dual E-6’s or dual Erie Built engines. Total train length is around 10 to 11 foot.
Town that is being serviced is Kingsdown, pop around 50,000. It is a stop to a bigger city not yet named or made.
My passenger station is only 16 inch long, then the freight station is around 12 inches. At a small town like Kingsdown, would the passenger just get off and walk down the line to the station or would there be covered walkways like bigger city’s?
Thanks for the coming answers and hopefully a few pictures.
Some large stations had covered walkways, others did not. I depended on if the railroad wanted to spend that kind on construction and maintenance. I have seen some platforms that were only as long as the passenger cars themselves and not the engines.
You could model a short platform and move the train forward and backward so the passengers did not have to stand off in the grass to board.
Two things drive the provision of covered platforms:
How many trains stop here daily, and how many passengers either board or de-train?
How nasty is the local weather?
In places where the sky has a habit of dumping copious quantities of liquid or solid water, there are likely to be roofs over at least part of the platform length. They don’t have to run the full length of the platform, since passengers are frequently worked at only one or two doors toward the center of the train. If there is much head-end traffic, the spot where the baggage and mail will be standing will usually be under the canopy.
On the other hand, where trains are few, mail and baggage handling is minimal and only a few passengers are expected, the covered facility may be a little shed rather like that found at a bus stop.
The paved or rolled gravel rail-level platforms don’t necessarily have to run the full length of the train, but should be long enough to handle the requirements of head end work and the usual places where passengers de-train. Moving a passenger train back and forth simply wouldn’t be done, for safety reasons.
Another thing. There’s no rule that rails can’t cross a platform to reach something on the other side. For an extreme example, find a view of N&W’s Roanoke station, which had a double-track diverging route that cut across the mainline island platform.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with high platform passenger stations)
Ken, you should be OK with what you have. Normally, the train would not open the door to every car when the train stopped. People could board the train in one car in the center of the train and walk to other cars while inside the train. So, a short platform can serve a longer train. You do have to allow for head end cars, however.
Many RRs, including Amtrak today, would try to “block” people into certain sections, especially coach passengers so that the train would stop so that area of the train would be in front of the station… That way when they make their stops, people getting off east of Kingsdown (in your case) would be in one area of the train while the passengers in the other section would be blocked for Kingsdown and west. Also, many passenger trains would do double stops. First stop coach passenger, detrain, and pull forward for the Pullman or sleeper passengers. Again that was RR and train dependent. A deluxe overnight trin may not even stop at a place like Kignsdown so double stops may not be necessary.
The Amtrak loco paint scheme you like is “Pepsi Can”. According to my Atlas search, the photo of loco #505 posted by River Eagle is N scale, Atlas #48831 Dash 8-32BHW. I couldn’t find an Atlas Amtrak Dash 8 #505 in HO in Pepsi livery, only Phase V livery. However, I could be wrong and I’ll leave it to River Eagle to verify.
However, I do know that in HO, Atlas Silver Amtrak Pepsi Dash 8-32BHW (DCC ready) is Atlas 7261 or 7262 and with DCC (no sound) is Atlas 9079 or 9080. I have #7261, road #514, which I bought on EBay. Loco was released in @2003-2004. Excellent runner and I personally think the Pepsi design is the best looking livery for locos that Amtrak has produced.
The PRR would sometimes run trains that were longer than the platforms on what is now the North East Corridor. At a larger station like Philadelphia 30th Street they would usually make two stops, but at smaller cities like Wilmington they would sometimes get the people in the last few cars to move ahead to cars that would make the platform. Two stops takes a lot of time and trying to get people and their luggage to move up a couple cars is a real pain, so neither way is ideal. It would help to try to get passengers for a station to ride in a car that will platform at that station, but no matter how you work it there’s always somebody that doesn’t get the message…
Letting passengers off the train where there is no platform was a good way to get in a lot of trouble.
Thanks for the info Dave! I am ready to buy my new Amtrak train now, and that’s exactly what I want. So it’s not in production any more? I have to look on ebay I guess…
River Eagle, good looking town and great looking engine. Thanks for all the answers folks. I would like to add more covered platform, but if there is not one that sort of matches the one I have oh well. Will places the station about 5 cars lengths from the throat so it will be by the passenger cars. Freight station will be by the throat.
I am using code 100 flex track, there is no road bed. What tips do you folks have on making concrete walk ways and a parking lot?
I wouldn’t worry about matching canopy styles. There are quite a few stations where the canopys were extended years after original construction, in an entirely different style. One that comes to mind was an island platform reached by a pedestrian bridge. The three carlengths or so that included the staircases had a conventional peaked roof. The later extensions had butterfly roofs (high edges, rain drains to the center.) The style of supports and framing made it obvious that the extensions were added when that little farm village became a suburban ‘bedroom’ community.
Incidentally, the advantage of the butterfly configuration is that the rain doesn’t drip off the edges and get the entraining/detraining passengers wet.
Some time ago, I did a study for modeling the train shed at the Bangor, Maine Union Station which was 500 ft long. The station and train shed were demolished in the late 60s as part of an Urban Renewal project that destroyed much of the older buildings in downtown Bangor near the station. The station had 4 stub tracks and 2 through tracks and served Maine Central and Bangor & Arostook railroads
For different lengths of train shed, the following could be serviced under cover; I was considering selective compression to 300 or 350 feet:
The priority is the length of the passenger platform.
Johnstown PRR Station was built in the steam passenger glory days (like the Broadway Limited) on a Pennsy (Harrisburg to Pittsburgh) 4-track mainline.
The station is huge compared to the mainline train platform and people-shelter – accessed going through the ticket counter hallway – to a shiny brick-lined hallway under the mainline – then up steps to the shelter/platform. The rear of the station actually serves as a retaining wall to the mainline.
See the Wikimapia overhead of the Johnstown Amtrak Station – note the platform in the middle of today’s Norfolk & western 3-track mainline. Then see the passenger platform and train station pics at Wikipedia. The train station is 1/10 mile to the right of the mainline in this 1950s picture.
Suggestion: Here’s Johnstown Amtrak Station at Trainweb. Change the city name in the URL to see other stations and platforms – examples for
To whomever says you need to do a double stop, shoot them with your ticket gun. These are a bad idea, only because it ties up the train, the platofrm, most likely the road, fuel, time, crew, shall I g on? They did double stops at Trainfest. I’d never seen one, but it was time consuming to do, BUt they had tom to board a million people into twenty cars.
When ITM does full capacity Fair Train, that;s 7 used coaches at a staion platifrm really no longer than the Atlas model, and only a slightly larger station. Only 4 coaches if that stand at the platoform. We do have a dirt path beyond the concrete we use for those days, but the concourse itself is only 4 traps. One of which is the First Class car then three coaches, maybe four, depending on how far back we’re parked, but if it is four, it’s only just the trap door, not the whole car.
When yuo make your stops, plan them so that the most doors are accessed. If you have a street crossing nearby, nothing is stopping baggage from being unloaded there. If the train’s gonna block the intersection anywaym then traffic isn’t an issue, and it;s handy, and no different than a station stop street running.
I’ve watched passengers get on and off VIA trains at my town’s station at least a 1000 times. The station is very small and passengers get on and off usually in the middle two cars. VIA runs anywhere between 6 to around 14 cars that regularly stop in Port Hope. Here is a pic of it, it was built in 1856 for the Grand Trunk.
