ANYONE MODELLING THE NEW YORK SUBWAY or any other underground railway system?

[Anonymous]

Its only on the drawing board right now, but we recently discovered we have room to add a streetcar loop in Minas Tirith, that will also head into a subway stop visible through a cutout in the fascia. Most likely we'll do the track as a figure 8, with half of it coming through a scene divide into South Ithilian as an elevated line. Because of the figure 8, we can have different route names on each side of the trolley.

All the subway and trolley lines in Boston alternate between under and above ground trackage.

Cheers,
Mo

[lupo]

thanks cnj831,
so it is done do you know if there is a website dedicated to the layout you mention or are there pictures on the net?

[CNJ831]

Some years ago, while attending a trolley modelers' convention, I saw a subway layout modeled in HO. It consisted of a very fine urban scene with the below-grade sides of the layout open at intervals to show stations, tunnels, etc. To say the least, it was urban modeling at its finest, with large, multi-storied buildings and street scenes above the trains.
At a later date I saw a video with the same general concept done in O-guage tin-plate.

I'd think such a design could be combined with a separate elevated street operation, as NYC has, to created a very interesting and unusual layout. I have seen ELs modeled in HO on several occasions but never these two types of trains together.

CNJ831

[lupo]

QUOTE: Originally posted by emeraldisle

It would be rather difficult because you can't see the trains. That train that proto sells is a virtual train ya see, because it runs underground[:D][:D][:D]

I think there are a lot of us around that had other ideas of creating an "underground railroad" as that @#@ engine would not run proper and you had the urge to flush it down the toilet, but that is not the type of layout I had in mind,
It could be an shelf kind of layout made of Wastewater (oops there they are again) tubes with the side cut out, around the room with some stations along the route

btw the pneumatic version of an underground in the link bb4005 posted is cool !

[Jetrock]

Some subway systems also have above-ground trackage--BART alternates between being a subway in the bigger cities and a surface/elevated railroad in the suburbs. One could feasibly have a single system provide elevated, subway and surface commuter service through a judicious use of hills--rather than use sharp grades to move track up or down, build your city along the side of a hill and provide subway and surface service to the "high" end, and elevated and surface service to the "low" end. Cutaways on the outer edge of the high end can show the subway stations and corridors--tunnel portals in the middle pop out into suburban stations.

[DSchmitt]

I have the book "40 Feet Below" about the underground freight railroad that used to run under downtown Chicago. It would be a fun one to model. Besides the underground, it had a few terminals above ground. It carried mail, freight for various businesses (in particular department stores), Coal for heating and the ashes from the furnaces.

[Anonymous]

Great website, thanks.

[Big_Boy_4005]

I love the New York subways, they are so cool. Actually it would be fun to do cut away underground, with transition to EL. This would be a great shelf modeling subject, because in most locations it isn't more than 4 tracks wide!

A 12" wide shelf at least 200' long might do justice and the South Ferry loop station would be a fun one to model at one end.

If you want to see some cool maps, check this out!!

http://www.nycsubway.org/index.html

[cp1057]

There's a friend of mine who bought some N scale subway cars I think its a Japanese prototype. He hasn't done anything with them yet.

Hard to say how satisfying a subway layout would be operation-wise, but I think it would make for some really neat dioramas. A cutaway view of a subway station would make the ultimate shadow-box mounted flush on the wall. A pair of staging tracks on each side and some timing circuitry and you would have the ultimate display layout.

I remember an MR article that featured a Conrail layout and had a subway beneath Pittsburg.

Charles
Hillsburgh On.

[Anonymous]

It would be rather difficult because you can't see the trains. That train that proto sells is a virtual train ya see, because it runs underground[:D][:D][:D]




Ya, I would think that you would model only that part that was above ground although I did recently see an artical, I think in MR, where the underground was modeled out at the front edge of the layout. Really neat too.[:D]

[lupo]

In an ad in MR magazine I noticed a proto 1000 new york subway set, so there must be people around who model a subway system,
I was curious how:
do you only model the above ground tracks and stations with some tunnels or could you model actual underground railways in a tube with an open side,
does anyone has pictures how such a lay-out may look like?
does anyone ideas or suggestions how ?
I saw some subways in the big Chicago lay-out featered in MR mag. some months ago, but thatts all