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
If the Police are "looking into it" there could be doughnuts down there, or perhaps the Mercedes. In cities like New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angles, Boston,etc., there could be some form of "commuter" rail service - subway, rapid transit. Probably a wide variety of electric powered cars or locos. The balance of the "things" that you list could or would be possible.
You might try searching the Web for Boston's Big Dig, or New York's history of underground construction for some photos. A lot like box cars, there are too few pictures of the common every day things like that hole in the street. Who cared about those enough to snap a picture, when there was that pretty girl, big ship, new locomotive ready to be captured.
In June of 2001 my wife won a trip to Halifax from New York. Our biggest expense for the trip was film and development of pictures, my wife turned out to be the "japanese tourist" with a camera. Our cruise shp docked next to the Intrepid, complete with a Concorde on her deck. The morning of our return to New York she shot several pictures of the World Trade Center silhouetted against the rising sun. Less that three months later the "importance" of those photos changed so much.
Good luck on your "quest"!
Will
For the benefit of those that appreciate the full meaning of JFK's speach in Berlin I'm planning a doughnut stand called "Kennedy's" with a whole queue of black-and-whites lined up...
For those that need to have it explained to them like I did a "Berliner" is not a resident of Berlin but a German ring doughnut... with nothing in the middle.
Nothing especially political... I just love irony.
For those of you who love the films of that era I am also having "Kissoff's"... either a dentist or surplus military store - haven't decided yet. I can't figure out what business "Strangelove" would be in... an MD doesn't get a big enough sign.
Dave-the-Train wrote: For the benefit of those that appreciate the full meaning of JFK's speach in Berlin I'm planning a doughnut stand called "Kennedy's" with a whole queue of black-and-whites lined up... For those that need to have it explained to them like I did a "Berliner" is not a resident of Berlin but a German ring doughnut... with nothing in the middle. Nothing especially political... I just love irony. For those of you who love the films of that era I am also having "Kissoff's"... either a dentist or surplus military store - haven't decided yet. I can't figure out what business "Strangelove" would be in... an MD doesn't get a big enough sign.
rrebell wrote:Strangeloves could be a sub shop as in some parts of the country subs are called bombs!!!!
Um!
Now I need another explanation...
What's a sub? Is it a huge filled bread roll like a baguette? If so, would it have been around in the 80s or is it one of these modern new-fangled things? OR?
Yes, a sub is a sandwich made with bread similar to a French baguette!
Other names for this popular type of sandwich are:
Grinder / Po-Boy / Submarine / Hoggie
Ryan BoudreauxThe Piedmont Division Modeling The Southern Railway, Norfolk & Western & Norfolk Southern in HO during the merger eraCajun Chef Ryan
Also known as a "Hero" in the New York City area, and purveyed at "Subway" and "Quisnos". One for dietary reasons with less FAT and the other for more meat. Hmm strange names for the same things!
How about "Dr. Strangelove's Famous Snake Bite Oil" factory!
In a short answer to your question, yes and no. Depending on how modern the industrial district is, electric and phone lines may still be on poles. Concrete pipes for storm sewers and even sewers, water maybe in old clay pipes or steel, gas in steel, red pipe would come from older buildings as sewer lines.
Some districs had an alley behind the whole block, so electric and phone lines were in back.
Streets could be quite thick as asphalt/blacktop covered old concrete or cobblestone/ brick paving and even covered up old trolley tracks and rail sidings if they were nearby.
A sinkhole could be done by digging out about a half inch deep by one inch wide hole and partially submerge a car in it, add muddy colored resin water or thin plaster, paint muddy color and coat with varnish. Just bury half the car,
A gas leak would involve gas company trucks, utility boxed pick ups, utility boxed ton and a halves, a back hoe, and at least ten supervisors. If it's a large leak, add firetrucks, emt vehicles, and police.
Telescoping utility trucks (electric and phone have been around since at least sixties.
Silverspike: It's hoagie not hoggie. Subs (short for submarine-sandwhich because of their shape) are generally 12" long.
And as I remember Beriliners, they were jelly-filled dougnuts sprinkled with sugar, (I lived in Germany for 25 years).
About 20 years ago , they resurfaced our main street in Glens Falls,NY, (aka "Hometown, USA" during WW II - made it into Life magazine).
They scraped off the asphalt, (about 12"), down to the original yellow brick pavement which still had streetcar tracks embedded in it. The car barn for one of the trolly companies still stands on a nearby street, (it's now an office furniture store). The streetcars were gone here by the late forties.
Jay
C-415 Build: https://imageshack.com/a/tShC/1
Other builds: https://imageshack.com/my/albums
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)
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
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
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
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).
Lots of great help again
If those doughnuts are jelly filled I'm going to need to know the favourite jelly...
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
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.
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.
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.
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
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
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
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?
Does the street ironwork (drain covers etc) get raised or make a nice hole to fall into?
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
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...
Or chocolate angels from Dunkin Donuts. Covered in sugar and full of chocolate. Thems are good donuts.
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.
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.
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?
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.