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.
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...
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?
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.
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
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.
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
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?
<snip>
Anyone got any other ideas?
TIA
Jimmy Hoffa
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!
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?
That Portland hole is pretty good
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?
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!"
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
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?
go into a hole in Chicago and you might find an underground 2ft gauge railway!!!