For my home layout i am building an Elevated system (mainly so it doesnt take up much space as I can build it on my shelves), I have the old MR with a series of articles about elevateds in it. However as this magazine is fairly old I wanted to know what sort of models are available on the current market for an elevated system.
I know a german manufacturer makes some models for elevated railway structures but im not sure how relevant thse would be for US themed layout. I have also been trying to find the current issue of Classic Trains for the article on L freight trains but so far no success.
Can anyone help???
The prototype of the Walthers four car "subway" train is a New York City design that operated in tunnels south of 163rd Street and on elevated structures north of that line. I rode them when they were new, on the Westchester Avenue (Pelham Bay Park) route.
The Westchester Avenue line is triple tracked, has one station with platforms between the outside track and the center track at Metropolitan Avenue, and also has a midair junction (connecting to the storage yard and shops at ground level) between Westchester Square and Middletown Road. The structure features plate girder construction, not the airy lattice trusses of some other elevated structures elsewhere. Google Maps provides excellent aerial views of the line as it is configured today.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I was actually planning on using the walthers cars for the EMUs on the line just painted up into a different colour scheme (im thinking maybe purple and maroon).
Are there actually two versions of the Walthers cars? I have seen them advertised as R17/19 and R21 cars - does this make a difference to how they look? Im assuming an R17/19 is a 1917/1919 built car and an R21 is a 1921 built car.
Also does any manufacturer make a HO scale standard gauge Forney tank locomotive that i could use as MoW or engineering power for the line?
Its going to be set in the late 20s early 30s so I am (again) assuming that a Forney would be suitable MoW power - if not what would be suitable? Blanked windowed earlier EMU stock? Electric locomotives?
Im really struggling to find any detailed background info to help me so any help is greatly appreciated!
The Walthers cars are far too modern for 20's-30's operation. IIRC, they first appeared post-WWII. The earlier IRT cars had railroad-type clerestory roof lines, rounded down at the ends, with square 'bugeye' marker/classification lights mounted above the curved area outboard of the main clerestory.
The Forneys were history long before the 1920's. Subway MW equipment was homemade from retired revenue cars, some having on-board diesel motor-generators and/or battery packs (for use where the third rail wasn't powered.) By 1920, the city had outlawed steam locomotives and the various railroads (Class I as well as rapid transit) had changed over to alternative power.
ross31r wrote:I was actually planning on using the walthers cars for the EMUs on the line just painted up into a different colour scheme (im thinking maybe purple and maroon).
Purple might be a bit garish for the 1920-30 time period. The New York cars were mostly maroon and green during that time. There were a few other colors.
If you're freelancing, a dark blue or a slate grey would be nice.
ross31r wrote: Are there actually two versions of the Walthers cars? I have seen them advertised as R17/19 and R21 cars - does this make a difference to how they look? Im assuming an R17/19 is a 1917/1919 built car and an R21 is a 1921 built car.
According to the drawings there doesn't seem to be much difference between the classes.
http://www.nycsubway.org/cars/r17.html
http://www.nycsubway.org/cars/r2122.html
You're way off on the dates. The R17/19s were built in 1955-6. The R21/22s were built in 1956-7.
ross31r wrote:Also does any manufacturer make a HO scale standard gauge Forney tank locomotive that i could use as MoW or engineering power for the line?
I know of nothing in plastic. There might be something in brass or craftsman kits.
ross31r wrote:Its going to be set in the late 20s early 30s so I am (again) assuming that a Forney would be suitable MoW power - if not what would be suitable? Blanked windowed earlier EMU stock? Electric locomotives?
The 1920-30s is kind of late for steam. Steam was banned south of the Harlem River after July 1, 1908.
An electric steeple or boxcab running on third rail would be appropriate. I'd use a MDC boxcab diesel and redetail it as an electric.
ross31r wrote:Im really struggling to find any detailed background info to help me so any help is greatly appreciated!
Try these.
http://www.nycsubway.org
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/SUBWAYS/Subways%20homepage/subways.html
http://www.thejoekorner.com
Im actually using a very very dark purple - i have a set of N-gauge Pennsy Tuscan red coaches that are painted in this scheme and its very difficult to tell the difference between the purple and the red.
Right so, none of the walthers car are suitable for my period then!
Im not modelling New York - its a freelanced elevated in a fictional town in a fictional city on the East Coast so I dont really have to worry about a "steam ban" like New York did, I was actually planning on using the Forneys to operate MoW trains and as power for the freight services (like the Chicago Elevated freight service but behind steam power) as there will be some freight only lines that wont have third rail power
Thanks a lot for those links - been thinking I might be able to adapt the Micro-Engineering 150ft bridge to supply some parts for the more "open areas" such as road junctions where the structure would be more visibel, otherwise i can get some architects stuructural plastic parts from my mums work to supply the parts from the "L"s structural features.
Hi - saw your reference to Chicago and freight service on "L" (albeit with steam in your application). Freight operation on CER/CRT/CTA was primiarly on track sections either on embankment or at-grade. Only a short section was on steel "L" structure from the at-grade yard (where they interchanged with the Milwaukee) up to the begining of the embankment around Lawrence Avenue.
Chicago's rapid transit steam engines were very small (in comparison to mainline/branchline steam) and so could only handle a few wood trailers, even in "L" service. They would be VERY limited in trying to deal with interchange freight cars! As noted in the discussion on New York's rapid transit steam, the Chicago engines were gone before 1900. But as you said, this is your free-lance line, so you can go your own direction.
As for car colors, pre-CER (say, before 1910), there are indications that some cars in Chicago were yellow, others blue, and stil others green depending on the particular company. CRT (like NSL when first under Insull control) used green and orange, later (ca. 1939) going to brown and orange. CERA Bulletin 113 has a color plate of the green and orange scheme, which was based on paint chips collected from a car that was being stripped prior to painting in the early 70s).
Similar to New York, most CER/CRT/CTA work cars before 1960 were adapations from former passenger cars, etc. The exception would have been cranes. Post-1960 there was more commercial construction - ballast cars, etc.
Hope this info's of some use! Art
artpeterson wrote: Hi - saw your reference to Chicago and freight service on "L" (albeit with steam in your application). Freight operation on CER/CRT/CTA was primiarly on track sections either on embankment or at-grade. Only a short section was on steel "L" structure from the at-grade yard (where they interchanged with the Milwaukee) up to the begining of the embankment around Lawrence Avenue.
Im basing my freight operations around a combination of the "L" freight service (as a kinda prototype for freight operations over my transit route) and an elevated freight line in New York that ended in a major elevated multiple track terminal building. Ive forgotten the name of the line but it was feature in Trains magazine within the last couple of years and i have the issue somewhere.
artpeterson wrote: Chicago's rapid transit steam engines were very small (in comparison to mainline/branchline steam) and so could only handle a few wood trailers, even in "L" service. They would be VERY limited in trying to deal with interchange freight cars! As noted in the discussion on New York's rapid transit steam, the Chicago engines were gone before 1900. But as you said, this is your free-lance line, so you can go your own direction.
So i am assuming that maybe it would be better if i had say a larger steam locomotive like a Dockside type for traction (which i was actually thinking about using as the basis for a "super-power" enlarged Forney type) or maybe do a Tri-Power unit based around an MDC boxcab as per some earlier suggestions.
artpeterson wrote: As for car colors, pre-CER (say, before 1910), there are indications that some cars in Chicago were yellow, others blue, and stil others green depending on the particular company. CRT (like NSL when first under Insull control) used green and orange, later (ca. 1939) going to brown and orange. CERA Bulletin 113 has a color plate of the green and orange scheme, which was based on paint chips collected from a car that was being stripped prior to painting in the early 70s).
Yes I saw the Chicago paint schemes listing on a site i found today, I was thinking about maybe doing some units in another paint scheme to suggest that there was another elevated or an interurban that connected with and used trackage rights over my line to reach the terminal of the line
artpeterson wrote: Similar to New York, most CER/CRT/CTA work cars before 1960 were adapations from former passenger cars, etc. The exception would have been cranes. Post-1960 there was more commercial construction - ballast cars, etc.
I didnt think an elevated line would need ballast cars! As for work cars, im still trying to work out exactly the sort of vehicles I would need - I`m assuming id need things like flat cars, cranes and gondolas, but would I need boxcars or cabooses or would a single older, retired MU car be used as a rolling store and transport vehicle, maybe tacked onto the end of the train or up front providing power.
I was thinking that maybe I could use the R17s to represent an earlier deisgn - the look very very similar to the R7s to me apart from window shape. Other than that what other vehicles could I use to represent stock? I have a good number of the Roundhouse Overton type cars - could these be turned into MU vehicles or would the be too small for RT operations?
Hi - yes, there's that ex-NYC line in New York that's being converted to a linear park/bikeway. If I remember right, it's called the "High Line." Of course, it was built to mainline standards, which is probably also more closely the case with the IND and BMT lines.
CTA cars are small - 48'-6" long, 8'-9" wide at the floor line tapering out to 9'-4" or something like that at the belt rail. They are also light! Heaviest of the cars currently running around is only about 56,000 pounds. In the past, the heaviest thing to run on the actual "L" structure was probably North Shore Line diners which came in around 80,000 pounds. A one-off very early steel car (post-fire rebuild of a wood car) was reported to be around 100,000 pounds, though there's nothing to substantiate that. The steeplecabs used in frieght service were 50-ton locos, BTW.
Ballast cars are needed if ballasted deck structure, or on the embankment, or at-grade, all of which are present on parts of the CTA system. In past times, CTA had a wheel car to transport wheel sets to/from various shops. Also had a variety of line cars to deal with the various lines that used trolley wire/catenary. Had many flats which could be made into gondolas as needed with side/end panels and stakes to retain whatever the load might be. At one point they had a funeral car (rebuild of a conventional passenger car) which after the funeral trade ended, became a medical exam car and ran on "L" North Shore and CA&E, conducting exams for operating employees. In the early 50s as the number of wood cars dwindled, some passenger cars were converted to snow plows. These were in a basic yellow scheme, which CTA pretty much adpoted for rapid transit work equipment in the 1950s.
CRT/CTA did not use box cars. If that sort of load had to be carried, it just went in the work motor. By virtue of the "L's" common ownership with the interurbans in the Insull era, there were a pair of ex-passenger motors that were rebuilt to look more like box motors (still had side windows). These had been used on the interurbans occasionally, but by the 30s were used exclusively on the "L." Depending on the exact era, these two cars were in solid gray, solid brown or aluminum paint. CRT had a caboose, but this was gone by the time CTA took over the operation (late 1947).
Yes, R17s would probably make sense for work service, can always paint them a dark green and weather them to make them look older and more forlorn! If I'm remembering the right series of car in New York, the R17 has a simple arched-roof, where the R1-9 has the older clerestory design.
Generally on CTA, the work cars were one generation older than the oldest equipment still in revenue service at a given time. Today, 2400-series cars (Boeing, 1977) are used in work service, but are still revenue-service capable and in fact can be seen in more or less daily use on either the Green or Purple Lines. Work train operation is far less common today than in years past.
North Shore and CA&E both ran over the "L." NSL was green and orange, then to orange and maroon, late 30s to "Greenliner" scheme (green, grey, red essentially), then to simple green and red, but with "Silverliners" red and silver (paint-simulated stainless stell fluting) and "Electroliner" (1941 St. Louis car articulated sets) in torquoise and salmon. CA&E was a maroon and yellow-gold, then to dark blue, red and grey then to brighter blue and light red. These are not exact color references by any stretch! As you've noted, there are more exact sources out there for modelers to use. Hope this helps, nonetheless! Art
artpeterson wrote: Hi - yes, there's that ex-NYC line in New York that's being converted to a linear park/bikeway. If I remember right, it's called the "High Line."
Hi - yes, there's that ex-NYC line in New York that's being converted to a linear park/bikeway. If I remember right, it's called the "High Line."
Thankyou thats what i was thinking of - my freight line is on similar principles but will be built to the same "open-deck" lightweight standards that the passenger routes are built to as a "money saving" exercise.
artpeterson wrote: CTA cars are small - 48'-6" long, 8'-9" wide at the floor line tapering out to 9'-4" or something like that at the belt rail. They are also light! The steeplecabs used in frieght service were 50-ton locos, BTW.
CTA cars are small - 48'-6" long, 8'-9" wide at the floor line tapering out to 9'-4" or something like that at the belt rail. They are also light! The steeplecabs used in frieght service were 50-ton locos, BTW.
So Overtons (36ft long) would be ok for use as very early open plafrom end cars albeit a bit short. Not sure what else would be suitable for use as a passenger car. Im thinking of maybe bringing my era forward if its the case that transit cars are hard to find (i dont want to end up having to pay loads for a fleet of brass cars). I have thought of maybe bringing forward my time period so that the R17s are brand new (maybe even like a year or so before the cars were new in New York) and using older types of cars (again, if i can find any) as work units
artpeterson wrote: CRT/CTA did not use box cars. If that sort of load had to be carried, it just went in the work motor. CRT had a caboose, but this was gone by the time CTA took over the operation (late 1947).
CRT/CTA did not use box cars. If that sort of load had to be carried, it just went in the work motor. CRT had a caboose, but this was gone by the time CTA took over the operation (late 1947).
The lack of any use of boxcars suprises me, but if i am saying that the line has a freight only operation running off it i could always just run the boxcars and normal stock onto the freight-only line rather than use them system wide. I could actually use some Interurban kits as stock on my line - maybe under the pretext that the L is owned by a large interurban company (would tie in with my other layout which is an interurban line) and say that the interurban has "handed down" some of its older stock to the L for use as work vehicles and things like that. I have found that interurban stock is easier to find. My other plan was maybe to birng my timeline even further forward and use some shell kits I have found for the 1968 Baltimore MTA cars (dunno how big these are though) and use the R17s as work cars with some older freight cars brought from the railroads as work stock. Not sure how realisitic this would be though.
Still trying to find somewhere to get some really good prototype information from - im mostly basing my line around the CTA system as its prototype but drawing influences from other transit systems such as the so-called New York subway`s "Money Train" service to collect revenue from stations and saying that some older practices (such as the newspaper train run over the L) but bringing them into the modern era if i brought the era forward.
Hi - Best resource for CTA/CRT information is Graham Garfield's www.chicago-L.org site.
In there you'll see many of the older work cars, including 2721 and 2750 (former Metropolitan Division passenger cars rebuilt to look like box motors, and used as such on C&IT, etc.), 2756 (the funeral car, and later the medical car, again a former Met passenger car), and many of the older types of passenger cars.
NSL ran its box motors over the "L", but in this case they were handling LCL to/from a facility on the south end of the "Loop." As far as I know, the only NSL loco that ran on the "L" was the 450 which was kept at Wilson Avenue to handle the NSL trailer on flat loading/unloading. The "L" freight did take a Milwaukee Road SW9 up on the embankment one night (along with the interchange freight cars) on accoount of the engine having died in the yard and there being no way to switch it out and get at the cars.
CA&E box motors and steeple cabs came onto the Garfield "L" line (which was acutally at grade in the section they used) to get to a B&OCT interchange around Central Avenue (5600 West) on the City's west side. This came to an end in September 1953, when all CA&E operations east of Des Plaines Avenue was terminated. In earlier days, CA&E ran some "paper trains" to/from its downtown terminal (Wells Street, on the west side of the "Loop") to the west suburbs. There's at least one instance that's photographically documented where CA&E used an older North Shore Mechandise Dispatch car (converted from a passenger car, in that particular case) to run this service. However it was far more common for the papers to just be stacked in the vestibule of the passenger car and thrown out at the stop as needed.
Another thought that occurs is that at the beginnings of CA&E's freight service their box motors were hauling milk and other farm products to a facility around Laramie Avenue (5200 West, where the CA&E ownership ended and the "L" ownership began, at that time). That didn't last long, and the road quickly moved into a LCL and carload freight business, in which it continued until 1959.
As always, hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. Art
Met 717, later CRT 2717, was the wood car that was rebuilt with a steel carbody and was indeed very heavy, the 100,000 lbs mentioned in a prior posting may not be too far from the mark. CTA had a freight service which ran until 1973 on the North Side Main Line to serve several coal yards and some other customers. CTA operated the service under contract to MILW since CRT/CTA leased and later purchased the North Side Main north of Wilson from MILW.
In the case of CA&E freight service on the Garfield Park Line, the CA&E actually owned the line west of Laramie and CRT enjoyed trackage rights west of Laramie all the way to Westchester.
So, in theory i could run a limited freight service using standard freight cars over the line for example running a couple of coal hoppers or gondolas to my lines power plant or use some old wood boxcars to run a paper train service behind a freight motor?
Im just wondering now if maybe it would be easier to bring my time period forward and maybe model the modern day as a "what if" example to suggest what might happen if city ordanences banned heavy goods vehicles from withing the city limits and forced certain types of goods to be carried in freight cars over my elevated.
Also seems like it might be easier in terms of stock as well - i have seen shells available for the 1968 Baltimore RT cars (not sure how big these units were though) and i would also be able to use the Walthers R17 cars as older stock that was in limited use for say rush hour crush periods.
Hi - Sure, it's your pike, so you can run it as you wish. Because of the small CRT/CTA car size, they had to use gauntlet track at several locations to keep the mainline RR cars from coming in contact with the third rail, etc. The north side freight crew also had a template that could be put next to the freight car trucks to ensure journal boxes, etc. would clear.
On the Westchester and Garfield Park lines, the additional clearance needed to get the mainline freight cars past high-level "L" platforms was provided by a series of flaps along the platform edge, which the lead brakeman flipped over onto the platform, while a man on the caboose flipped these back down to close the gap for the following CA&E or "L" train.
This same principle was used years later (albeit with motorized flaps) to allow the SOAC car (a dressed up R42) to operate on the CTA-Skokie Line and into stations that also had to serve the much smaller CTA cars. In SOAC's case it was restricted to one platform face at Howard Street (a major interchange with other CTA lines) which had these flaps.
In terms of prototype rapid transit cars, I guess it depends on what scale you're modeling. In the past there have been several O or HO Chicago prototypes, and MTH does a CTA 3200-series car along with NYCT prototypes these days.
As always, hope this helps! Art
actually thats of great help to me, it means i can justify having some "oversived" standard freight cars rumbling over the line behind an older withdrawn motor car or freight locomotive and there would be a reasonable prototype for it. It also would give me an excuse for a reason to still have a caboose in service on my L! Im having platforms on the outsides of the tracks so there wouldnt be room for gauntlet tracks to run up the centre of the track structure unless passengers were willing to put up with a freight train passing and causing delays to the more important passenger services so the flip-up platform edge prototype sounds a lot more useful to me.
I have only seen the IHP car shells for the Baltimore cars advertised on e-bay. I havent been able to find any CTA cars but im doing HO scale so i assuming that the MTH cars wouldnt be suitable if they are thats brilliant.
HO CTA models in the past have included some series' of wood cars, the 1914 and 1922-24 orders of steel cars, the 1947-48 artic PCCs, the 1950s married-pair and single-car PCCs and the 1969-70 Budd-built 2200s. Those box motor conversions (Met 2721 and 2750) were just typical open-platform wood cars before being rebuilt into their freight/work car configuration, so I expect you could do a similar modeling job. I'm not sure when the models listed above were last offered, but you might check some of the hobby shops or e-bay. Good luck with it! Art
Here are a few more links that may be helpful or inspiring:
New York City Model Transit Association: http://mysite.verizon.net/sctransit/nycmta.htm
2007 Transit Modelers Convention: http://mysite.verizon.net/sctransit/2007details.htm
East Penn Traction Club (source of my other links): http://www.eastpenn.org/
In the East Penn manufacturer links, check out Imperial Hobby Productions (mostly more modern equipment) and Images Replicas http://www.imagesreplicas.com/index.htm .