LION likes to use these plastic thingies (called plastic canvas in the fabric store) and cuts them to the shapes that him wants. Him figured him could make a stairway. Subway stations need stairways, and I am happy to have found something that will work.
I’ll show more of how this works as I built it out.
ROAR
Yes, indeed, subways need stairs. I made one set of stairs with modeling clay, and then painted on latex rubber to make a mold. Then, I poured Hydrocal into that. I’ve made quite a few stairways that way.
Mr. Beasley,
You have just showed that there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Oops…I shouldn’t have said that. [:O]
Bob
[%-)]
Actually, the saying ‘more than one way to skin a cat’ is referring to catfish, so your comment really shouldn’ t offend any of the large cats![*-)]
-Bob
[:-^]
Mr Beasely, I didn’t know that the Grim Reaper traveled by Subway.
Johnboy out…
LION, it strikes me that if you didn’t want the sides of your stairs to look like latticework, your plastic canvas would make an excellent template for cutting and gluing stringers for realistic wood stairs.
If that is indeed the Grim Reaper down there in the basement, does that mean that the stairway along the back wall is The Stairway to Heaven?
I’m sensing another workshop tip submitted by Lion…
–Randy
I dunno…in my experience the NYC subway tends to go with solid risers, even in a lot of the elevated stations (not all) - for one thing, keeps the lunkheads from catching their feet under the stair treads and tripping. Helps keep trash from piling up under the stairs too, especially in an enclosed stair well. Not saying there aren’t applications for this (good for wood exterior stairwells, with a “wood” siding sheet hiding the lattice, but it may not be ready for prime time MR yet (MRH, OTOH…[:P]).
If we could get Mr Beasley and Brother Elias to collobrate (why not, we’ve been all connected since the 1980s), they probably could come up with a kick-butt impressive article on subway modeling.
Finally, the reason for the Grim Reaper on Mr. Beasley station platform is quite obvious from the second image, with the lady figure in white (and heels!) picking her way down a steep stairway with NO railings or handrails - I know some people who could barely navigate three steps without a railing, now image 1000s of people walking down such a stairwell during rush hour - even better if its wet from rain. You’d never get the blood stains out from the bottom of the landing…
Exactly. That is all I am using the plastic canvas for in this case. I already have walls glued to the sides of the steps. I still need to put the cover over the top of the stairs, and add lighting to the stairway. These stairways will rise from the platform level at the south end of the platform up to the mezinine level. At track level I will add the bench wall and from the bench wall there will be a doorway to access the space under the stairs. On the NYC subway these doors are labled with a room number (not unlike the way that spaces are numbered onboard warships), the name of the department that is responsible for the space and the phone extention of that department.
Since this station has two island platforms, there are two stairways, and the doors will be labled for the “SIGNAL” and “POWER” departments. This location on the railroad is also “Chain Zero”, the point from which all other locations on this line are numbered. The northbound tracks would be A1 and A3, the south bound tracks would be A2 and A4.
Oh? LION has tried it both ways, and it is an easy matter to add a riser to this design if it is wanted.
ROAR
Aha Brother Lion, I always qualify my statements (hence the word ‘tends’), since any serious railfan/modeler knows there are (or have been) exceptions to probably every rule. And indeed, I had found several open riser stair cases in google image searches of NYCTA stations, but almost all of them were in elevated stations. You do have to admit they are pretty rare in passenger accessible areas in the underground stations, but because the NY subway system consists of additions and remodelings (and subtractions) made at many different times over a century, nothing would suprise me (I guess the same can be said of the Chicago L, and Boston, and London etc).
That said, I have notice somewhat of an uptick in subway modeling (perhaps just confirmation bias on my part) - at the Amherst Winter show this year (yes, I went on the Snowy Saturday - traveling really wasn’t that bad at all, and with smaller crowds you could see the layouts and talk with the operators), saw at least 2 layouts with subways modeled, might have been more. Also, the TMB O-gauge club out in Farmingdale that I visited in December had a subway system.
I still say it’s time to strike and have the subway modelers on this forum collabrate to develop a great article (or series of articles) on subway modeling for MR (and for the ages). Me, I couldn’t help as even if I wanted to bend reality some (way too much) and include transit modeling on my planned modules, it would be the elevated Market-Frankford line - alas, no 1970s style dank and dimly lit underground modeling for me…
Nice work Lion.
Incidentally I was in Jerusalem about a week ago You would like it the city symbol is a Lion. It was everywhere.