I think I once saw a photo somewhere of inner city switching/street running where a railroad track sort of burrowed through the corner of a building to make the curve radius a little bigger - kinda like a short “tunnel” through the building, cutting off the corner of the building at the ground level, but with the second floor and higher over the track.
Haven’t been able to find that picture again. Anyone else seen anything like this and can provide a link to a prototype photo ?
The NYCH - New York Cross Harbor Railroad. Created in 1983 by the merger of The New York Dock Railway and the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal (BEDT).
There was a show on RFD-TV last year about traction lines in Ohio and Indiana that showed streetcar and interurban lines, and I believe there was a rail line in Cincinnati, Ohio that cut through the corner of a downtown building.
This is not exactly what you specified, but maybe it will be of interest. There used to be some concrete frame corrugated-metal-clad cotton transfer sheds at the Port of Corpus Christi, Texas. Most of the sheds were rectangular but one had the building corner cut off on a curve so that a railroad switching line could make a tight curve.
Back in the 1980s, I built a model of one of these sheds for a display layout built by Corpus Christi Model Railroad club inside the display window of a store called Leisure Time Hobbies.
Sorry for the poor picture. I took this 20 years ago through a glass display window, only angle I could get on the scene.
Another building ALMOST cut by two different railroads was the M&M Building on the middle of the North Main Street viaduct in Houston, Texas, now the University of Houston downtown campus. A former Southern Pacific line runs east and west in a gallery partly under the building proper and mostly under a parking lot, with gallery open to Buffalo Bayou on the south side. This is the line that connects the Amtrak Station about 3 blocks west with the main transcontinental east-west Sunset Route not quite a mile northeast. I believe Amtrak still runs through this gallery more or less under the university.
The northeast corner of the building used to have the MKT mainline running under the building at a diagonal northwest by southeast. The MKT’s Houston station building was halfway UNDER the corner of the building.
Cacole, Dave and Leighant - thank you! This subject is more fascinating than I imagined when I asked the question.
Have googled web sites and images on Cincinnati to see if I could locate the place Cacole remembers - haven’t found it yet. But found an interesting place that seems to be a good starting point for learning about Cincinnati streetcars, interurbans and railroads - Cincinnati might be a interesting place to model someday:
Also had a look at the webpage Dave found on the Long Island RRs Rockaway branch. Also very cool information - it gives a lot of good pictures showing how buildings and various structures like bridges etc look, probably enough to build quite a few signature elements if you want to model the LIRR.
And obviously - like Leighant’s model of the cotton transfer shed - this has modelling potensial - to create scenes that really say “very tight corner in urban setting”. The M&M/University of Houston building and those cotton transfer sheds obviously would look good on a layout.
This is cool! Keep em coming, people - anyone seen any other urban tight spots or interesting corners ?
I’ve been wodering about various situations I’ve seen pics of where the RR is under parking lots and even whole office blocks for some time.
It’s kind of clear what is happening at a passneger terminal but much less apparent where the railway either burrows under someone else’s property or someone else builds over the RR’s Right of Way.
Railroads will lease the “air space” above their tracks for locations to build whatever. The builder has to conform to the railroad’s clearance restrictions.
In other locations the city will grade separate the railroads to eliminate delays to surface traffic, etc. The city helps pay for the grade changes.
In rarer situations a railroad will lease or condemn a route under other property if there is no other way and it is important enough to make the connection.
In Oshkosh, Wisconsin there was a C&NW spur that ran west along Ceape Street (IIRC) from near the passenger depot, and passed through a retail building on the west side of Main Street, eventually connecting with the Soo Line and the Milwaukee Road (on trackage rights) near the Wolf River bridge.
