Dave-the-Train wrote:Some time back you all helped out with road works barriers and pots/flares... now I would like to look into the abyss.In a 1980s city (a bit like Chicago / industrial district) what sort of hole-in-the-road am I going to find (apart from all the pot holes) and what will be down there? Steel pipes? Electric Cables? Telephone Cables? Concrete Pipes? Brick Culverts? Glazed (dark red) Pipes? Gas pipes?Does anyone have any pics or a link please?How thick would the road be (well, it makes a change from "how wide...)?If a gas leak could happen what service trucks would be around?Now, getting really ambitious... if some clown has jack-hammered through a water pipe... how do I model water spraying upwards?Why do any easy scene when you can make life really hard work?When did utility companies start having hydraulic booms (Hiabs) on their trucks?Anyone got any other ideas?TIA
Some time back you all helped out with road works barriers and pots/flares... now I would like to look into the abyss.
In a 1980s city (a bit like Chicago / industrial district) what sort of hole-in-the-road am I going to find (apart from all the pot holes) and what will be down there?
Does anyone have any pics or a link please?
How thick would the road be (well, it makes a change from "how wide...)?
If a gas leak could happen what service trucks would be around?
Now, getting really ambitious... if some clown has jack-hammered through a water pipe... how do I model water spraying upwards?
Why do any easy scene when you can make life really hard work?
When did utility companies start having hydraulic booms (Hiabs) on their trucks?
Anyone got any other ideas?
TIA
go into a hole in Chicago and you might find an underground 2ft gauge railway!!!
Dave-the-Train wrote: Jimmy Hoffa! That's the guy whose gloves/hands were sticking out of the concrete block in my other thread!What's with Jimmy Hoffa?
Jimmy Hoffa! That's the guy whose gloves/hands were sticking out of the concrete block in my other thread!
What's with Jimmy Hoffa?
Hoffa was the longtime president of the Teamsters' Union, which was notorious for its corruption and ties to organized crime. He disappeared, and his body has never been found, but is perpetually rumored to be interred in various stadia or large concrete civic projects.
If you're modeling the early 1980s, things were a lot grittier than they are now, too - more trash in urban areas, more evidence of neglect, more aging vacant factories with missing window panes, and lots - LOTS - of graffiti.
I can remember Chicago circa 1982, because it was my first visit to the place - it was still pretty run down, but they had gigantic cloth posters with the mayor's name hanging from all the lampposts downtown - it was Jane Byrne - find one of THOSE on the web, fray it at the corners, let one flap loose, and you'll catch the exact convergence of urban renewal and weary 1970s indifference. That was, if I have my year right, just before the South Shore got rid of the last Insull-area interurban cars and replaced them with new Japanese ones - I rode one out to Michigan City and returned on it with my dad.
http://mprailway.blogspot.com
"The first transition era - wood to steel!"
That Portland hole is pretty good
If you're in a large modern city I'm sure you could find just about anything in a hole like that.
How about a Subway cave-in? I seem to remember something like that fairly recently. I can't remember, but I think if it was related to the "Big Dig" in Boston...
But do include Hoffa!
Dave-the-Train wrote: Some time back you all helped out with road works barriers and pots/flares... now I would like to look into the abyss.In a 1980s city (a bit like Chicago / industrial district) what sort of hole-in-the-road am I going to find (apart from all the pot holes) and what will be down there? Steel pipes? Electric Cables? Telephone Cables? Concrete Pipes? Brick Culverts? Glazed (dark red) Pipes? Gas pipes?<snip>Anyone got any other ideas?TIA
<snip>
Jimmy Hoffa
I also just came across this thread, and as a retired Gas Company Serviceman & Service Supervisor in Toronto, Canada, I will share these insights. These were the routine up until the mid 1990's when I retired.
1) On a minor gas leak, there will be one Construction & Maintainance truck with two men (a fitter & a labourer) and a built in compressor to dig up wherever the escape is and one Service van with a Serviceman to disconnect and reconnect the meter if required and to turn off & relight the appliances. The Serviceman would have also checked inside the neighbouring houses and across the street to make sure no gas was following the Gas, Water, Sewer or Hydro lines into the house. There may have been a C&M Supervisor in a Pick-up truck for a short time to confirm the severity of the escape.
2) On a major escape or a major fire there would have been two or more C&M trucks, a C&M Supervisor or two in their pick-ups the area C&M manager in a marked car, minimum of two or three service vehicles, (or more if required dependent on the number of buildings involved), one Service Supervisor in a marked vehicle, possibly the area Service Manager. In REALLY bad incidents, the Metro Operations Manager would also be on site. You would also possibly see fire & police vehicles on site.
FYI, the Gas Mains were usually located on the opposite side of the street from the Fire Hydrants and water mains. The gas main sizes would be anywhere from two to three inches diameter on a short residential street on low pressure, (6.5" to 8.5" Water Column). The gas service going from the main into the house would have been 1 and1/4" in diameter on low pressure.
Blue Flamer.
Edit was for a couple of words running together.
That reminds me... near Sidcup in Kent we had a fill slide out just behind a train - 8 car passenger - in fact the Driver felt a bad rooad and pulled up and when he went back the edge of the hole was under the last foot or so of the last car... he got out of there fast.
The really weird thing was that the slide was about 2 cars long and 25' - 30' deep but the stuff just spread out and vanished except for a huge, almost flat, stain on the adjacent field. It looked like someone had taken a bite out of the fill like a bite out of an apple - but left the track behind. Naturally we blamed it on field mice.
Just as weird the opposite line was not only untouched but good for trains to run on almost immediately - once the engineers had checked it out.
I never heard an explanation (as usual) but I guess that a drain got blocked and that bit of fill just filled up with water until it stopped being solid earth and became a slurry which just slumped away. probably the vibration of the train set it moving.
Elsewhere, where I grew up, they had problems with a fill being eaten out from underneath by groundwater following natural underground courses and decided to grout the fill with concrete to stabilise it... trouble was the grout pumped up in peoples' gardens for a couple of blocks around... they did very well out of it... once their concrete garden was jack-hammered out they got all new topsoil in place of the nasty London clay most of us had.
Bit off topic but, hey it's my thread
In Baltimore, you probably had some inches of black pavement then some old concrete and finally cobblestone with trolley tracks underneath. Or even brick laid in a pattern.
Below that? Anything you can think of.
I once witnessed a hole that was about as large as a regular trashcan. There was approx 60 personel, 10 supervisors with their own vehicles, clipboards and white hard hats. 4 Crew cab dump trucks towing a variety of equiptment. And a bunch of little stuff dragged, towed or carried to the site, the total operation of actually measuring the hole for future repair took about 4 hours.
I believe there are truck stop stories circulating where entire sections will disappear during the night and truckers found themselves on the other side with everything stripped off below the cab floor. No wheels, no fuel tanks no frame, just the cab and box after a really bad impact. Turned out they encountered sinkholes so big that the rigs would jump across and lose everything when they just made it to the other side.
Makes you kind of pay attention on the big road sometimes.
I think any number of overloaded trash trucks fall down through city streets with some regularly. You would see them half in and half out of the street.
Hunting back for the "concrete Blocks" thread I rediscoverd this thread...
Any fresh ideas?
No-one suggested I get a model of Vincent from the TV "Beauty and the Beast" or Lynda Hamilton...? What happened to that series? I never did see the end...
Actually, this could tie in with my question about layout ideas... freight underground?
Beowulf wrote: If you are modeling Chicago, you could also add the abandoned underground freight railroad as used in Sinclare's The Jungle and the railfan book, Forty Feet Below.
Oh no! I'm having enough trouble with street running and grade seperation...
Now I gotta go underground as well!
That's got to be at least a 6" modelled hole in the road... I could lose a semi in that...
To see what's beneath a city, get a copy of Underground by David Macaulay,Houghton Mifflin, 1976, ISBN 0-395-24739-X Reinforced Edition, 0-39534065-9 Sandpiper Paperbound Edition.
It has over 100 pages of cut away line drawings showing everyting under the streets of a city. His books Skyscraper, Cathedral, Castle, Pyramid and others are also very interesting. They are fun to read with a grandchild who is asking about everything.
If you are modeling Chicago, you could also add the abandoned underground freight railroad as used in Sinclare's The Jungle and the railfan book, Forty Feet Below.
Dave-the-Train wrote: if the main street has been built up with tarmac a couple of times is there often a drop into side strees? How is this provided for. And does the same thing happen turning into back/side alleys? Does the street ironwork (drain covers etc) get raised or make a nice hole to fall into?
if the main street has been built up with tarmac a couple of times is there often a drop into side strees? How is this provided for. And does the same thing happen turning into back/side alleys?
Does the street ironwork (drain covers etc) get raised or make a nice hole to fall into?
In the past, when a street was repaved, they would have a mason add one or 2 courses of brick to the top of the manhole (masonry, concrete, or whatever), and reset the manhole cover and retaining ring. Eventually, the road surface will get too high for the sidewalk gutters, and the pavement would have to be removed back to the original roadbed, and start over with appropriate downward adjustments to manhole covers, drains, etc.
If side streets were not included in the paving project, probably a tapered ramp of asphalt (tarmac)would have to be added to make everything fit again.
In more recent times, pavment grinders have become popular, so repaving does not change the height of the roadway to a great extent. They just grind away a couple of inches of old material and add a couple inches of new.
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
reklein wrote: As for cars in the hole? not an unusual thing due to peoples disregard for traffic markings.In WA state there are signs stating "traffic fines are doubled in construction zones". Street work is dangerous enough for the guys working out there without sailing thru the construction zones without watching out for the workers.
As for cars in the hole? not an unusual thing due to peoples disregard for traffic markings.In WA state there are signs stating "traffic fines are doubled in construction zones". Street work is dangerous enough for the guys working out there without sailing thru the construction zones without watching out for the workers.
That's an excellent idea. Some of those construction workers must live in fear of their lives. It's a wonder more aren't injured. Around here they've got a fairly agressive education campaign on TV to get people to slow down in construction zones. They post a reduced speed for the construction zone and sometimes put up a radar unit with a very large display of each vehicle's speed as it approaches. I went past one the other day just outside the city, a 60 km/hr reduction in a 100 km/hr zone and it gave me a bit of a start because it jumped up to 110 km/hr on the display between me and the car ahead then settled down to 58 km/hr on my vehicle. The police sometimes also put a photo radar unit in a construction zone and mail out speeding tickets to those who don't reduce speed. The small town I lived in back in the 1970s was having work done on a road outside town and the construction vehicles were all lined up down the centre of the road with the traffic moving off to the sides to get around them. The police positioned a patrol car very carefully in the middle of the construction vehicles so that it couldn't be seen until you got close to it and hung a radar gun out the window. I hear they got lots of business!
..... Bob
Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here. (Captain Kirk)
I reject your reality and substitute my own. (Adam Savage)
Resistance is not futile--it is voltage divided by current.
larak wrote: Dave-the-Train wrote: If those doughnuts are jelly filled I'm going to need to know the favourite jelly... Raspberry!
Dave-the-Train wrote: If those doughnuts are jelly filled I'm going to need to know the favourite jelly...
If those doughnuts are jelly filled I'm going to need to know the favourite jelly...
Or chocolate angels from Dunkin Donuts. Covered in sugar and full of chocolate. Thems are good donuts.
Thanks again all
Didn't get as many suggestions on cars to go in holes or donut fillers as I expected/ hoped for
So, being serious,... if the main street has been built up with tarmac a couple of times is there often a drop into side strees? How is this provided for. And does the same thing happen turning into back/side alleys?
Something else I'm wondering about is car parks under buildings. You know, the ramps you see the cpos chasing up and down in the movies... Then there's the underground/in a warehouse taxi garages like in "Taxi"?
Okay, I'm using films again... but it's such a long walk to my nearest US library... and wet too
Dave-the-Train wrote:If those doughnuts are jelly filled I'm going to need to know the favourite jelly...
The mind is like a parachute. It works better when it's open. www.stremy.net
jecorbett wrote:About 20 years ago in Columbus, OH, there was a giant sink hole that formed on Broad St, the main east/west street through downtown.
A similar thing happened in Lewiston, ME in June. When the city excavated, they found a 130+ year old storm sewer made from brick (brick arch construction). Heavy rains had flooded the sewer and caused the brick arch to fail. This link will take you to WCSH Channel 6 news story about it. Note the 'Play Video' link which will take you to the news video; it has some good shots of a Public Works equipment & crew and what is going on down the hole.
http://www.wcsh6.com/news/search/article.aspx?storyid=37025
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
Some older neighbor hoods may have what is called wood stave waterpipe. It was acually formed in the manner of the old wooden buckets or barrels and held together with closely spaced wire banding and then covered with tar. Joints were connected with wooden collars packed with oakem, a fibrous brown hairy looking stuff and then molten lead poured on to seal the whole thing. The next step up was cast iron with beel shaped ends and is still used today except the seals between joint is rubber intead of oaken and lead. Individual services were drilled into the main with special equipment and small services were threaded on and run into houses. Sewer lines back in the day were often Terra Cotta , a kind of clay or pottery, sections that had a small end that was inserted into the bell end and you guessed it oakem wasa used to seal the joint. Nowadays plastic is used for both water and sewer with heaavier gauge plastic for water lines and lighter for non-pressure sewer lines. Also found in the streets are found storm drainage lines which are supposed to be on there own system. These are usually larger diameter pipes of plastis or corrougated metal called culverts.
Watch your language boy, you're too young to be talking like that.
Seriously though, I do see a lot of people get into accidents because they're too busy talking on the phone instead of paying attention to the road.
David Parks I am the terror that flaps in the night!
modelmaker51 wrote: And as I remember Beriliners, they were jelly-filled dougnuts sprinkled with sugar, (I lived in Germany for 25 years).
And as I remember Beriliners, they were jelly-filled dougnuts sprinkled with sugar, (I lived in Germany for 25 years).
Lots of great help again
You know when you forget to check out which way the jelly injection hole is? Well at least some of the officers standing around are going to need to be "weathered"...
The large main with tar covering is interesting. I think that some of our ould mains were like that. Certainly where a main laid on the surface alongside a rail track came out of the ground/ went into the ground the curve and about 6' were always banded with a thick black fabric that looked like the black stuff was tar.
That reminds me... our telegraph and utility poles used to have the 8' from the ground up coated in black goo... thick cresote I think... where they were in sidewalks they would have 1"x1" strips of wood about 2" apart all round them to stop people brushing against them and getting messed up. The goo used to get hot and sticky on summer days. The whole of the post and the strips were brown like an ordinary creosoted fence. Did any of this or similar happen with poles in the US?
I very much like the idea of running an alley at the back of the buildings on "main street" with the utilities there. As I am planning things there will be main street, shopd/offices, the alley if I have space and then a raised double track. Main street will have street running/switching... so my leak can't be too big or it would stop ops.
I guess that there's a difference between hydraulic/telescopic loading booms and the cradles used by utility cos for accessing pole lines. I think that Boley are doing some modern ones (probably post 1990 so too late for me) but I've never seen any of either modelled for any period...? Anyone got any suggestions please?
In my experience clean water mains have some pressure in them to lift the water from below the street into peoples' bathrooms and therefore rip up the road a bit more when they break... and can make a fountain. Unpressured water is usually run-off drainage or a sewer. YEUK! I don't want to model a broken sewer! Even my realism doesn't go that far.
Anyone want to suggest some candidates for cars to go in a hole... and say why? I'm pretty sure my candidate would be a Porsche 911... possibly with the YUPPEE still in it. That doesn't need explaining... epsecially if the Yuppee is in real estate or futures...
Thanks for all your help
the 1980s was before my time and the only city i have lived in or rather close to is leesville, la. the main highway goin through town is a 4 lane called 171. the part goin through the city itself is asphalt over concrete. the concrete is 5 or 6 " thick and the asphalt around 3 or 4" thick.
hope that helps
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
reklein wrote:Ask Fugate. He got personal experience as to whats in a hole in the street.
If I recall correctly, Joe's sinkhole was in (or under) his driveway.
Some time back, Bob Vila and company renovated a house in Chicago and had to dig down to the water and sewer mains to make a new set of connections. The water main was about four feet down and appeared to be cast iron covered with tar. The excavators also uncovered (but didn't damage) a small-diameter gas line - the main was farther out in the street, in unexcavated pavement.
In an older city, it might be possible to uncover several layers of asphalt (each about 2" thick) with brick or Belgian block below, and maybe even split logs below that (flat sides up.) A more recent subdivision would have thinner pavement - a single 3" layer on residential side streets, possibly as much as 6" on a major thoroughfare. Also, present-day repaving usually starts by stripping the old pavement right down to bare ground. (A lot of modern bedroom communities in Chicagoland have a core nugget of antique historical construction surrounded by a sea of cookie-cut tract houses.)
If you are excavating Main Street it might be possible to find old streetcar rails (on ties, surrounded by Belgian block) under tho layers of asphalt. That would be an interesting effect.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)