http://www.amazon.com/Building-Scenery-Model-Railroad-Railroader/dp/0890243433
Smile,Stein
Preface to this entire response. You could sum up your entire question as, "How do I model urban areas?" -- What is the essence of a railroad city? What gives it that certain look and flavor?
Preface to this entire response. You could sum up your entire question as, "How do I model urban areas?"
-- What is the essence of a railroad city? What gives it that certain look and flavor?
That it has a railroad. One block away from the railroad it will look like any other place.
That it has industries that require the support of a railroad (depending on era). The area next to the railroad will have a predominence of industries that require the support of a railroad. The more modern the railroad, the less that is applicable.
-- How does that translate into what can or should be modeled, from a model railroading perspective?
I don't know that it does. By default if you have a railroad running through a town or city, that makes it a "railroad town". There is no difference in a "railroad" town once you leave sight of the railroad and a town of a similar era and area that isn't rail served.
The only difference I can see is that railroads follow the contours of the earth, while streets follow man's plan. One of the ways I find where rail lines are located is to look at street maps. The "diagonal" gap where streets end or jog around or force odd intersections is where the railroads are.
-- How does one achieve the requisite "look" of the density, industrialization, and grit that is so common in those prototypical areas, in the typically small or narrow areas left-over on the layout?
Purely dependent on the era, location, industrialization and size of the city involved.
If you are modeling a city with lots of heavy industry and big brick buildings, then you model a lot of heavy industry and big brick buildings. If you are modeling a city with a lot of industrial parks and low concrete or metal buildings, then model an industrial park with low concrete or metal buildings.
I don't know that the railroad defines the town (other than supporting heavier industries) as much as the town defines the railroad.
One exception is that the bigger and more robust the railroad, the bigger and more robust the infrastructure. A shortline might have tie crib retaining walls while a major class one might have massive cut stone retaining walls. The small railroad might have one story frame buildings while the big railroad might have multi-story brick buildings.
-- How can the use of the third dimension (elevation) help in planning and creating convincing city scenes?
Elevation is a function of geography. In a city, it might be desired to grade separate the rail operations from the roads.
1. The railroad can be on an elevated causeway and the roads on surface level.
2. The railroad can be on surface level and the roads run on overpasses.
3. The railroad can be on surface level and the roads go under the railroad.
4. The roads can be on surface level and the railroad tunnels underneath them.
Which is used depends on the geography of the area.
-- And a question that I've been especially grappling with-- How can you convincingly combine a nice-sized yard, say 10-12 tracks wide *and* a city in a relatively shallow- 24-30 inch depth space? Does something have to give? If so, what are the alternatives?
Duh. It has to fit in 24-30 inches. So you have to compress the stuff that isn't a train. Shallow depth buildings and the city painted on a backdrop.
o Some of the examples I've been studying include Grampy's yard, modeled on the outskirts of the city. That's one very nice approach. Another is DocWayne's incorporation of industrial areas. The city on CNK831's layout... Jon Grant's "Sweet Home Chicago" cityscape, Wolfgang Dudler's "Westpoint Terminal",
Not really familiar with any of those.
Other examples include the many articles by Art Curren and Earl Smallshaw. Both were masters at creating the illusion of dense urbanization in tightly-packed spaces.
Layering of shallow depth buildings combined with backdrops, accentuating any place you CAN create depth. Controlling the viewing angle is important also. Having view blocks so you can't look down a row of building flats at a shallow angle and see all the flats makes it less obvious.
To say nothing of the enormous, exquisitely-detailed cityscape that George Sellios has managed to create on his fabulous "Franklin and South Manchester" layout-- one which mere mortals can only fantasize of duplicating.
The FSM is not the same. It looks deep because it is. He has a 3 or 4 ft deep area and used about half of it for cityscape, while you only have 4 or 5 inches. His space was so deep that he really didn't have as much of a problem with viewing angle. The height of his buildings is to create drama.
I personally wouldn't really want to duplicate it because I have a civil engineering degree and love old brick buildings. As a result, his buildings always looked odd to me. He was using castings of 3 or 4 story brick buildings to make 15 or 20 story buildings. Kinda like kitbashing 40 ft boxcars into an 87 ft long boxcar or 40 ft flatcars to make a 90 ft piggyback car. If he capped all his background buildings at about 5-8 stories, it would be much more prototypical, but much less dramatic. Brick buildings cap out at about 15-18 stories (for an office building) and those require walls about 6 ft thick at the base. The tallest load bearing masonry structure in the world ithe Philadelphia City Hall and it has walls under the tower 22 ft thick. All the brick warehouses in my area are 8 stories or less.
Look at the pictures you posted. How many 20 story brick buildings are there? None. How many lower 4-6 story brick buildings are there? Dozens. If you duplicated George Sellios you wouldn't achieve the look you wanted
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
The railroad runs through the town, or, from a historical perspective, the town grew up around the railroad. So, while we often get a lot out of the rear-most inches of our layout space by using flats and background buildings, we can also add to the close, urban nature of city modeling by putting the buildings in the foreground, and having the trains run behind them for a stretch.
The roads are narrow here. There's no space for parking or passing. While prototype realism suffers a bit, the narrow streets help that "vertical" dimension. This is the same intersection, viewed from 90 degrees away. It has more of the "urban canyon" look, though, because I made the street a half-inch narrower, and I used half-inch sidewalks instead of the full inch in the first photo.
And then, there are the subways. Here, instead of just playing games with the vertical dimesion, I've actually used it to create 2 levels of modeling and get twice as much layout into the same space.
Phase 2 of my layout is a 30-inch shelf. It started as a staging yard, with a balloon at one end to allow trains to run through and return. Then, I added a passing siding to the balloon track, and a crossover gave me a reverse loop opposite to the one on Phase 1, so I could reverse any train without backing, regardless of the direction it was heading. A chance purchase of a couple of Railway Express reefers put a siding with an REA depot on the drawing board. So, in this narrow 30-inch space, I ended up with 8 nearly-parallel tracks at one point. I decided to hide the original 4-track yard behind a row of tall buildings, but still model the space as a station.
The station on the left is the Walthers YMCA kit, and the office building on the right is from City Classics. Both were too deep for this tight space, so I cut the side walls an inch narrower to leave room for the street and sidewalk. I like the effect of having the trains once again run behind the buildings, with the viewer getting a glimpse now and then as they pass the station platform or the back of an alley.
This part of my layout is tucked under a 45-degree roof, so the tall buildings reach up almost to "the sky."
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Hi
I would think that if the railroad came first, there must be some service or product that if transported to a distant location would make the RR a buck. For instance, GN forged West to Everett just to get to the Pacific Ocean for the connection to the Far East. Everett boasts protected harbors and channels deep enough for ocean going craft. There were towns that sprung up from the Divide West all along the RoW mostly supporting the push West. Other locations were already growing ( say Spokane, Wa ) and it made sense to align with it as during that time there were also paying travelers wanting to go East to visit people. There were also workers available if needed. Spokane boasted lumber/timber and lots of it. Note that Spokane also had other RR's - UP, Milw, NP, SI, SP&S although not necessaliry in the same time frame.
A little different perspective - Essex Pit supplied all the ballast ( Montana pink ) for miles both ways on the RoW. We even have ( still ) roads paved with the stuff. I have visited it multiple times and it is amazing how little of a hole there is in the side of the mountain! There isn't really a town except for the Issac Walton Inn which was a crew/cook house back then. Nowdays that Inn is a flag stop for Amtrak with people getting on/off most every day.
As a modeler, we kinda create the cart before the horse. Figure out what your railroad needs to make a buck, then build it. Remember that old addage: "If you build it, they will come!" Over the years those small towns grew, stagnated or became ghosts. Pretty much all of the Pacific Northwest was known for lumber/timber with a few smaller industries that popped up AFTER the fact. Railroads then had additional revenue and could cherry pick.
Bottom line is that YOU make the final decision and figure out what YOU want your railroad to do. Given the constraint placed on modelers ( time and area ) it seems that selective compression is the way to go. You may not have to build the whole industry, but just parts that folks would recognize, and their brain fills in the rest.
ctclibby
Todd Hackett
Libby, Montana 59923
I take only pictures then leave footprints on railroad property that I know is not mine, although I treat it as such...
What is the essence of a railroad city?
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A railroad city is usually a division point yard with large car and locomotive shops and employs thousands of the local population.
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What gives it that certain look and flavor?
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The town or city will look like any other town untill you find the large railroad shops and yards.
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How does that translate into what can or should be modeled, from a model railroading perspective?/And a question that I've been especially grappling with-- How can you convincingly combine a nice-sized yard, say 10-12 tracks wide *and* a city in a relatively shallow- 24-30 inch depth space? Does something have to give? If so, what are the alternatives?
Actually there was usually a lot of homes nearby that the shop and yard workers lives in..There would be a RR YMCA near the yard so the inbound crews will have a place to shower,eat and sleep.
I would model the RR YMCA with a back drop showing homes with a city skyline in the distance.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
"Modeling the Railroad Town"
Pennsylvania Railroad's Altoona Yard
Railroads exist to transport things from a place to a place, and they go wherever they need to go-- where they think they can make a buck-- to haul goods and cargo, and of course people, to their various destinations. As the railroads established themselves, they typically extended outward from the major population centers through the rural areas, and eventually connecting to other population centers, developing transportation networks over which to haul their loads. These connections permitted producers of all kinds to get their goods to a market-- farmers, factories, mills, you name it-- the railroads connected businesses to consumers and became a fundamental element of the economic backbones of many nations.
But today I'm mainly interested in cities-- railroad cities. All across the country as the railroads extended outward they spurred economic growth and industrialization, particularly along the corridors established by the railroads. Additionally, many rural communities sprang up-- sometimes out of literally, nothing-- to service and provide for the needs of the railroads, providing wood, water, food and lodging to the railroad and its employees and customers. And in turn, many of those communities grew into large towns and small cities in their own right.
And this is what I'm interested in-- as I have been thinking about designing and implementing a large city and several smaller towns across my layout-- what is the essence of a railroad city? Beyond the obvious I mean-- the train goes through it... And secondly, how does that translate into what can or should be modeled and included on a layout, from a model railroading perspective?
(And I realize that there are many books out there on the subject-- so my questions are really, in addition to those, what else...??)
So My Questions For Today Are:
o It is particularly this question that is consuming my thoughts of late-- I suspect my layout "realities" are similar to many others-- as much track as possible for the trains with something left-over for establishing the scenery. Let's suppose that we are working with perhaps an area of 24-30 inches in depth, with up to half maybe taken up by the railroad parts-- yards, switching, etc. So that leaves maybe 8-12 inches or thereabouts for creating the look of the city. The photo I used at the top is one that I have in my head in particular that illustrates this concept. Here's another example:
Pennsylvania Railroad Passenger Depot, Altoona PA
o Some of the examples I've been studying include Grampy's yard, modeled on the outskirts of the city. That's one very nice approach. Another is DocWayne's incorporation of industrial areas. The city on CNK831's layout... Jon Grant's "Sweet Home Chicago" cityscape, Wolfgang Dudler's "Westpoint Terminal", amongst many others. Other examples include the many articles by Art Curren and Earl Smallshaw. Both were masters at creating the illusion of dense urbanization in tightly-packed spaces. To say nothing of the enormous, exquisitely-detailed cityscape that George Sellios has managed to create on his fabulous "Franklin and South Manchester" layout-- one which mere mortals can only fantasize of duplicating. All of these folks have done a great job borrowing thematic elements from their various prototypes and incorporating them into their layouts.
So what is that something-- that je ne sais quoi??? How is it done?
As usual, I'm looking forward to your thoughts and opinions-- and hopefully this week, as many photos as you have to share!! Let's see those cities and urban areas. Tell us how you did it, what was on your mind-- what you paid special attention to, where you drew your inspirations from...
John