Why so few city/urban layouts?

[JeffG]

Hey Bob: Have you seen Model Railroad Planning 2002? In it, Bernie Kempinski has an article about a waterfront yard that is accessible only by car float - and I believe it's in Norfolk. The buildings are warehouses and the like but not very tall, maybe 3 stories max if remember correctly so this might be of interest to you? Also, Lance Mindheim of Shelf Layouts fame is building a modern day industrial switching line based on rail operations in Miami. At any rate, I too am in the planning stages of an urban layout. However it will be based on the numerous switching lines that laced the streets of the Brooklyn waterfront for nearly 100 years. It will also feature an elevated rapid transit line that runs to a ferry terminal like the ones at the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges. Truth be told, this is my primary modeling interest, but the concept just evolved over time to the point where the industrial switching is the main feature. I don't really have enough room to make an exclusive rapid transit-themed layout. I am planning a layout 24" wide and 12 feet long. If I can manage it, I would love to add another 10 foot section which would form an "L" shape along two walls. I live in an apartment so space is at a premium. Though some structures will be tall, (perhaps with the base of one of the river bridges' towers!) the layout will have a top which will serve as a lighting valance. The effect will be diorama-like and focus the viewer's attention to the scene. This might be something for you to consider if you are concerned about structure height. Track plan is loosely based on John Armstrong's classic Southside Connecting RR. It's not the most ideal plan but I have been fascinated by it since first seeing it nearly 40 years ago. Plus it resembles the jumble of street trackage found on the prototype (to me anyway) and will work a bit better when widened and stretched. Good luck!

[mobilman44]

Hi!

I'm 65 and been playing with trains since the mid '50s, having O, HO, and N scale layouts over the years.  All have represented rural areas circa the '50s.  Landscape has always included hills, fields, and a must have farm.  Also included were loco terminals, and rail serviced small industries.  The only hint of a town would be passenger/freight stations that gave the illusion of being on the edge of town.  My HO layout currently under construction is designed like all the previous ones, with a little more emphasis on "edge of town" rail served facilities.

Ok, so why is this?????   Ha, you are making me think!   I grew up on the northwest side of Chicago about a stones throw away from the C&NW tracks.  I spent a lot of time there, away from the hubbub of the city streets.  I longed for the countryside and for the vacations each year at Grandmom's (see my Avatar) in Anna Illinois, right across the road from the IC racetrack.  She lived on the edge of town (6500 pop), but it was the country to me.  I loved those times there, and I guess I've always tried to recreate that atmosphere on my layouts without really thinking about it.

Another reason is that my interest is in the railroads, and not the cityscape.  

Now the good news is that we can each model what we want - be it city, country, mountains or seashore.  That is another greatness of our Hobby!

Mobilman44

[Doc in CT]

 No one seems to have mentioned "Building City Scenery for Your Model Railroad" by John Pryke [link] which is available from Kalmbach.  Lot's of great information, illustrations and instructions on building urban scenery without robbing a bank to pay for it (oh wait, they don't have any money either).

Some of the City Classics buildings lend themselves to "kit bashing" as do the buildings from RIX's SmallTown collection.

 

[nbrodar]

 John Prkye's Union Freight project layout is one of my favorite MR series.   I also love his Building City Scenery for Your Model Railroad.  He gives several ways to simulate urban areas in small spaces, and I've used many of them.   But the tour de force Union Freight project is a massive undertaking.

A quick glance at my insurance spreadsheet shows structures as the second most expensive component of my layout behind rolling stock.

Nick

 

[johncolley]

My opinion only, but it seems to me that towns and especially cities require a much greater investment in time and resources to get a realistic effect. You need an awful lot of structures, streets, etc. to pull it off. Note that those who do such a great job of it, like George Selios, or Rod Stewart, really enjoy and are committed to that part of model railroading. John

[Anonymous]

johncolley

My opinion only, but it seems to me that towns and especially cities require a much greater investment in time and resources to get a realistic effect. You need an awful lot of structures, streets, etc. to pull it off. Note that those who do such a great job of it, like George Selios, or Rod Stewart, really enjoy and are committed to that part of model railroading. John

 

Sorry, but I have to disagree!

If you plan to have a little forest on your layout, you will be spending either a lot of $$$ to buy realstic looking trees, or you will spend years in fabricating the required amount....

Fortunately, the industry offers a lot of not so expensive kits and modulars, that building urban layouts is not as expensive as you think. The time requirement is IMHO not much diffrent also!

[kcole4001]

Anything you have a lot of, will incur a significant cost, or a more significant amount of time to fabricate.

I originally wanted to model one city section including the hint of a seaport, but I don't have enough space to do it justice, at least to my satisfaction. I'd always be dreaming of what might have been instead of enjoying the scenes that I can represent effectively. I do enjoy building structures and scenery. I'll have to make do with a staging yard to suggest the traffic to and from the seaport.

I think a major railyard and engine servicing facility would be the most expensive and time consuming to model accurately, even when scaled down considerably. Impressive, but that's a lot of expensive trackwork needed.

[Graffen]

It all comes down to this: If you like to build models, make an elaborate layout, city or countryside. If you like to operate on a finished layout, keep it simple and buy readymades.

[arbe1948]

 I am in construction of an urban based layout and am starting to work on structures, a favorite activity in the hobby almost as much as rolling stock.  The January 1999 Model railroader issue has a fantastic article by the Master of kitbashing, Art Curran.  He has in this article built a really nice double-sided divider of mostly 4 and 5 storey buildings to separate the sides of an approximately 6' X 10' penninsula thay might be part of a larger layout, or possibly I think attached to fiddle and staging yards and operated as a stand-alone theme.  This project really captures the essence of a large central city warehouse-commercial-manufacturing district.

This article as well as the others mentioned in this discussion are my inspiration.

Bob Bochenek

[twhite]

Though I've seen some beautiful urban/city based layouts, I'm also wondering if it isn't a kind of 'psychological' thing for a lot of model railroaders, in that the City is the Destination.  It's where the trains 'stop' and are broken up or re-assembled or (in the case of passenger trains) often terminated and turned. 

In other words, it's modeling the Destination, not the Journey.  Now before everyone jumps on me, let me say that on my own model railroad, if I had the room (or had planned better) I would have included either a 'making up' or 'breaking up' terminal representing a fairly large Northern California city in the Central Valley.  However, like a lot of model railroaders I know, I instead chose to show the portion of the railroad where the trains were passing THROUGH smaller towns to get from point A to point B.  I'm in the planning process of at least partially redeeming that particular mistake by having a major urban yard on the other side of the garage, and yes, with an actual 'city', but sometimes it just doesn't figure out into the original planning. 

It didn't in mine, and that was a mistake.  And yes, it's going to be fairly expensive, I'm thinking.  Buildings and warehouses cost a lot more than just making your own pine trees, LOL!

Tom   

[doctorwayne]

twhite

Though I've seen some beautiful urban/city based layouts, I'm also wondering if it isn't a kind of 'psychological' thing for a lot of model railroaders, in that the City is the Destination.  It's where the trains 'stop' and are broken up or re-assembled or (in the case of passenger trains) often terminated and turned. 

In other words, it's modeling the Destination, not the Journey. 

 

You're probably right, Tom, but it doesn't necessarily have to be modelled as the destination.  While the city scene on my layout does represent, more-or-less, the terminus of the railroad, there is no classification yard, coach yard, or locomotive servicing facility, nor is there a major industrial area.  All of these are represented solely by staging tracks - five for actually staging complete trains, plus two that represent (unmodelled) industrial shippers & receivers..  The actual city scene is a handful of fairly large structures, some streets and urban-type scenery, a few houses and stores, and a total of only nine modelled (with their own siding) industries plus three more if you count the combined passenger station, express terminal, and post office.   Most of the visible part of this could have been condensed into an area about 30" deep and 10' long, with the loss of only two modelled industries and some residential development.

I do have a small engine terminal elsewhere on the layout, and there'll be another, larger one, when the second level of the layout is built, but no plans for a classification yard of any type.  There'll also be another "city" scene, probably longer than the current one, but perhaps less "urban" and more railroad-oriented.

Wayne

[leighant]

Quote from original post by rclanger: "...there are very few towns, never mind cities, that are the heart of a layout."

I have always wanted to model a big city scene.  I guess my "Berliner" layout, 27x37", built back in 1971, was supposed to be a slice of a city scene.

My East Texas District of the Santa Vaca and Santa Fe 93x7' layout) , had a courthouse-square town scene as its heart.  I tried to include as much as possible of the "infrastructure" of a town as possible- the courthouse on the square, jail on the back of the same block, U S Post Office, town water tower, a high school (or at least the front of the building).  Then I had the businesses (generally NOT directly railroad served) that every town needs to have-- bank, supermarket, service station, cafe, drugstore, furniture store, movie theater, church, jewelry store.

There were two large industries, a creosote treating plant and a peanut butter plant, and some of the smaller rail-served industries you might find in any town-- a bulk oil dealer and a farm implement dealer.  The residential area sort of ran off into the edge of the woods background and I had only 6 dwelling, far fewer than proportionately appropriate.  I tried to give the feeling that the layout sliced through the industrial and commercial part of the town and there was more there, just as little ways off.

That layout has been dismantled and I am building an around-the-walls layout representing a medium-sized city with a few areas of big city feeling.  Computer rendering of planned layout scene:

 

But even the "not downtown" amusement district needs to have a crowded feeling that days it is PART of a city. 

This "mock up" was over a year ago.  Somebody wrote about needing lots of little people.  The pier nightclub is nearing completion and it must have a hundred or so people in it, counting:

• patrons dining
• waiters seating patrons and serving
• hostesses serving coffee and tea
• chefs
• dishwashers
• cleaning staff
• patrons dancing
• band
• patrons drinking
• bartender and cocktail waitress
• doorman checking at entrance
• customers waiting to be allowed in
• customers enjoying the view halfway down the pier
• club lookout on the shore end of the pier who rings the signal if the law is coming
• Mr. Big and a couple of his "gorillas"

 band: http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/548/Band1.JPG

kitchen: http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/548/Kitchen.JPG

I haven't been able to get into the room where the layout being built sectionally will be set up, so I am not running trains.  But I am having fun.

[BRAKIE]

rclanger

I cannot help but wonder why there are so many mountain, or plains motifs for many, I mean most, layouts?  After joining this forum I visited all of the clubs under the resources menu selection.  I really enjoy looking at the work of others and was really hoping be inspired.

On the other hand there are very few towns, never mind cities, that are the heart of a layout.  Are they too hard?  Do they take up to much space, either horizontally or vertically?  Maybe there are not enough kit buildings, and/or detail parts available?

I have seen just a few in MR and can't remember in the other  publication.  The ones I can remember were spectacular, taking up many cubic feet because of the height of the buildings.

Maybe I have answered my own question by just asking it...  The ones that stick out are the efforts of either a museum or rock star.  Most of us, including myself, do not have the money or the time to invest.  Mostly the money.

I personally have a small layout and want it to look like the period of 1965 to 1975.  The area is in south eastern Virginia.  That would be Norfolk, Portsmouth and Suffolk.  Not New York City size towns but bigger than most of the city scenes I have seen. Three and four story buildings in the downtown city center.

Web site links welcome as are your thoughts?

 

 

That's a good question and one to ponder on..

 In the beginning it was taught layout a needs mountains and unrealistic steep grades.All to sadly its still being taught.

Overlooked is the loop type urban switching layout that has urban scenery..

One needs a large space for a city or town cryth the multitude.

Really?

 Let's take a closer look..

A 4x6' urban layout.

http://www.gatewaynmra.org/project10.htm

 A 4X8 footer..

http://www.gatewaynmra.org/mhslayout/mhslayout.htm

 

So,we see it is possible to build in urban scene layout in a small area.

 

[steinjr]

BRAKIE

So,we see it is possible to build in urban scene layout in a small area.

 Sure. Here is a 2 foot deep and 8 1/2 foot long urban switching plan I drew up for a friend. Not that many or expensive buildings necessary - this stuff could be kitbashed from say 6-8 structure kits, a couple of trucks, a handful of people etc:

 Here is an even smaller 2x4 foot H0 scale urban layout called "Brooklyn 3am" by the Sydney, Australia model railroader known as Professor Klyzr  from the www.carendt.com website:

http://www.carendt.com/scrapbook/page81/index.html

 Urban railroading can be done pretty small - you don't have to model both the route to the city and the whole of the city.

 Smile,
 Stein

 

 

[R. T. POTEET]

Your photography is impeccable there Dr W.

You raise a very good point; representations of small cities is not nearly as rare as major urban centers. Whenever I see photographs of G. Selios' layout I am swamped with sensory details. I got the same impressions with the recent article on Rod Stewart's layout. All that is well and good but when I see something like that I am immediately reminded that I don't really have the time nor money nor inclination to go into that detailed modeling. My layout will have one small city and a couple of industrial burgs set in a rural environment. That's good enough for me!

[ef3 yellowjacket]

There are several notable urban layouts out there; the one that immediately comes to mind is Sellios' Franklin and South Manchester.  Take a good look at George's layout:  There is a lot of detail-far more than the average person would probably consider right off the hop.  Urban layouts are loaded with scads of clutter, function, life-detail.  I remember on a trip into Manhatten from New Haven one evening, I took note of the detail and different types of same that are inherrently present in real life on and around a real railroad (former New Haven).  This in itself, would be a daunting challengeand a half to the average guy.  I am doing just that, and it is just that:  a challenge; but it is something I came to terms with early on, so there are few surprises.  Slective compression and clutter are just two of the tools asvailable to the urban modeller.  I suggest to anyone who is interested, to really give it some thought before jumping in, and really plan your layout to your advantage.  Nothing can beat you down like intimidation, and an urban setting can be just that.  Good luck to you.

Rich

YellowjacketEF-3

 

Rich   

[ef3 yellowjacket]

 

Chuck;

What you say matter-of-factly is very true, but there is still a lot to see and model-in a very small area-like from Greenwich to New Rochelle, or the harlem River Branch.  It is in the details and that can be a royal cramp when you are trying to model that setting.  As I previously stated, I am doing urban; precicely, trying to get some carfloat operations, warf areas, lighterage, etc into my layout, while trying to minimize the city stuff by sticking the "heavy" city stuff into a corner, and jus ttrying to flavour the immediate area.  To me, transitions (ship to rail) are great makings for a good layout-and that can be had in a relatively small area; hence the payoff especially when you don't have much room.

 

Rich 

[arbe1948]

 Here is a photo on my old layout now dismantled as I build anew.  I was interested in the urban aspect then and will have that is my major focus now.

Bob Bochenek

[Hamltnblue]

Regarding the original topic I guess the answer is that the amount of Urban layouts seen probably represents close to the amount of actual urban vs rural track in the US and worldwide. In the US over 90 percent of the track is outside the cities. In the downtown areas of the cities there are relatively no visible railways with most being passenger underground.  Take a drive through manhattan or philly or boston or wherever. You don't see many freight trains. Maybe that's why you don't see many posted.

[BRAKIE]

steinjr

BRAKIE

So,we see it is possible to build in urban scene layout in a small area.

 Sure. Here is a 2 foot deep and 8 1/2 foot long urban switching plan I drew up for a friend. Not that many or expensive buildings necessary - this stuff could be kitbashed from say 6-8 structure kits, a couple of trucks, a handful of people etc:

 Here is an even smaller 2x4 foot H0 scale urban layout called "Brooklyn 3am" by the Sydney, Australia model railroader known as Professor Klyzr  from the www.carendt.com website:

http://www.carendt.com/scrapbook/page81/index.html

 Urban railroading can be done pretty small - you don't have to model both the route to the city and the whole of the city.

 Smile,
 Stein

 

What a sweet ISL!

 

Kudos on a well planed switching layout.

[Doc in CT]

Hamltnblue

In the US over 90 percent of the track is outside the cities. In the downtown areas of the cities there are relatively no visible railways with most being passenger underground.  Take a drive through manhattan or philly or boston or wherever. You don't see many freight trains.

 

That may be true of the very largest urban areas, but here in CT/western MA - RRs in Hartford, Springfield, Waterbury have an obvious presence.  Hartford and Springfield have elevated lines, Springfield, Waterbury and Hartford have yards (with another major yard is actually across the river in E. Hartford, along with multiple trackside industries.  If anything is lacking it is lot's of industry serviced by rail, yet there are a number of them.  The north end of the Hartford yard for instance has a sand/gravel business that received shipments by rail.  RT 5 on the east side of the river has a number of warehouses, brickyards etc also serviced by the line that runs back up to Springfield.

As someone pointed out, you would need a lot of selective compression to get everything to fit.  (One possibility is the Springfield Union Station Complex, see an example here on the Modular Railroading site.)  

[fwright]

 I won't even try to speak for other model railroaders, nor try to guess as to their reasons for doing or not doing something.  Generalizations in the hobby end up with contra-examples proving the generalization is not as general as once thought.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of cities.  I choose not to live in the city, and I prefer not to work in the city.  I certainly don't want to spend a lot of effort modeling something that doesn't appeal to me in the first place.

As for towns on my layouts, space constraints drive me to just enough modeling to suggest a town.  I'll focus on the part of town adjacent to where the tracks are, and the buildings that support or interface with the railroad.  Perhaps if there's room, I'll add some structures that suggest some of the rest of the town.

But these are my reasons.

Fred W

[accatenary]

Being a Urban Modeler I must chime in!

First I would say that modeling a city model railroad takes allot of time and effort versus a rural or mountains layout. City Modeling though has to be the most expensive even if your scratch building your buildings. The city has to be filled up with trolleys, cars, buses and thousands of people.  I have been building my HO scale Philadelphia for almost 20 years now since I was 16 and I’m 70% finished. It’s relatively a small layout in plan and fits in a small space of 18 x 15, but it appears Huge.  I was inspired by George Sellios Model Railroad back in the 80s (his railroad was only 10’x8’ then) and how he used tall buildings as a backdrop on an “island” style Layout. .

There are Two Types of Urban Layouts: Against the Wall with a Urban Backdrop a Great Example is - John Grant’s “Sweet How Chicago” and the Island Type- George Sellios “Franklin Manchester” I Gravitated toward the Island style at first because I wanted to build city blocks and have trolleys running down every street, Modern Skyscrapers, Large factories with sidings, traffic congestion, Large train Stations with the Railroad running right through the city. I also wanted it to be set in the 1980’s to present.  All these things are rarely seen in Model railroading. I eventually used both the backdrop style & Island style  In Philadelphia, and cities on the east coast the railroad come right into the center of town. It’s not on the outskirts. The railroad main line is usually grade separated so pedestrian traffic and train traffic happen of different levels.  There aren’t many layouts of this type because of many factors. Space can be one of them. Some people think Cities are Ugly filthy places and aren’t familiar with the city environment. I’m from the city and any other type of railroad for me was not an option.  

Below are a couple of shots

 

 

 

[Doc in CT]

Steve

Fantastic urban layout.  Something to serve as a model for the rest of us.

Alan

 

[doctorwayne]

Very ambitious, Steve, and very impressive, too. 

Wayne

[rclanger]

accatenary

Being a Urban Modeler I must chime in!

Keep chiming, you have a fansatic layout.  I have the felling your ocupation has been a great help.  But that in no way lessens what you have accomplished.

Seeing your results gives me a very high bar to strive for... I will never get there but I can try.

[steinjr]

 First, let me say that Steve has built here obviously is a marvelous model - with great structure modelling, streets, amazing details, all the cars, people, catenary wire, signature Philly buildings, trolleys and so on and so forth. It is truly breathtaking.

 But when Steve says:

accatenary

The city has to be filled up with trolleys, cars, buses and thousands of people

 I respectfully have to disagree with this statement. 

 As Steve himself points out:  

accatenary

There are Two Types of Urban Layouts: Against the Wall with a Urban Backdrop a Great Example is - John Grant’s “Sweet How Chicago” and the Island Type- George Sellios “Franklin Manchester”

 I'd say the "thousands of people" is more a function of choosing to do a deep/panoramic model of a largish slice of the city, instead of modelling railroading in a city as a thin slice of industrial or modest residential buildings that forms the backdrop for a narrow corridor of freight railroading.

 Most railroading (or at least most freight railroading), even in the larger cities, tend to take place in the more industrial parts of the city, where buildings tend to be no more than 4-6 stories tall (and often are low warehouses), or thorugh medium or low income residential areas where the tracks run by the back yards of row houses or tenement buildings, rather than past the amazing gleaming towers reaching for the sky.

 An along the wall model of the Sweet Home Chicago style or in the style of Dr Wayne still takes a signifcant amount of effort and quite a bit of detailing (plus of course - if you want to to look that good, the talents of a great modellers like Jon Grant or Dr Wayne).

 But "thousands of people" are not necessary for modelling a smallish, yet believable, slice of railroading in a city. They are only necessary if your primary goal is to is to model a largish, deep, panoramic view of the city.

 Smile,
 Stein

 

[accatenary]

Thanks for the compliments, but im still along way from being finished

Stein You are absolutely right!  The Island Style Urban railroad emphasizes the Urban City with the Railroad as being almost secondary verses the around the wall Urban Railroad which emphasizes the railroad as the primary interest, and that is a choice of the modeler.  With a around the wall railroad you will not need tall buildings, plenty of cars, trolleys or people. It will all be contained in your backdrop. This is the easier route. (In my opinion)  If your modeling a primarily freight switching Outfit most likely there wont be and high residential/ commercial buildings any where near the railroad. So maybe around the wall would be best for you. The interesting thing (in my opinion) is some urban railroads do travel in the industrial or run down parts of town but once (if) they reach the station areas. The industrial/low income residential zones turn into High commercial/ high residential Zones.  These railroads however are mostly mixed use (passenger & freight). Railroads that have a passenger terminus in the city will definitely have high residential and high commercial and low industrial zones around them. Once again it’s a modeler’s choice 

 

[steinjr]

accatenary

Railroads that have a passenger terminus in the city will definitely have high residential and high commercial and low industrial zones around them

 Mmm - "terminus" implies end station, right ? If so, probably right. But if you are simply modelling a passenger station in a city, it really depends on what city and era you are modelling.

 If you model a present day downtown passenger station in e.g. Philadelphia or Chicago, there certainly should be high rise buildings around the station, to make it look real. Maybe even a subterrean station with a skyscraper on top for Chicago (or NYC).

 If you model e.g. the passenger trains arriving at the Union RR station in Minneapolis in the 1940s or 1950s, it was not surrounded by skyscrapers. Even today, when both downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis has a skyline consisting of skyscrapers, there is no skyscrapers in the immediate vicinity of the Amtrak station in the Midway area of the Twin Cities. So it is certainly possible to pick a city RR passenger station to model without having to model skyscrapers.

 Anyways, I'll stop nitpicking - I just wanted to make the point that it is quite possible to represent railroading in a city without making the city itself so big - it all depends on whether you go for creating an illusion by carefully controlling what viewing angles are possible, or whether you build a layout that you can walk around and study from all (or most) angles.

 Smile,
 Stein

 

[rclanger]

I have been reading the many responses to my original question with interest.  I have been collecting magazine articles for a long time and have all of the ones mentioned.  I really do appreciate the pictures of those who do model urban railroading.

I am not going to try to summarize all 50 plus comments because the ranged from one extreme to the other.  The main point I did pickup on is that it is not necessary to have a huge amount of space to give the viewer the impression of being on the outskirts of a city.  Cities range in size, everyone has a different idea of a city when they hear the word.

It just so happens that the subject of an urban industrial area is covered in a good article in this months RMC,  The article is by Don Spiro entitled Shallow-relief structures.  The author gives the impression of exactly what I was thinking about.  Selective compression and good skills does get the idea across without taking up a lot of real estate.  That is what I would like to do...

Again thanks for all the comments.  I learned a lot and have tagged a few of you as being MR I would like to follow.