My first fascination with trains began in the 70s as a child with trips into Center City Philadelphia through the Reading Terminal. I memorized the whole route from Fern Rock Station into town. My favorite trains to ride were not the air conditioned Silverliner's but the Blueliner's. I still remember the sound of the traction motors. I thought the Reading Railroad/CR/Septa line was impressive, until I rode the Amtrak /Former PRR Northeast Corridor Metroliner (THE MUs) to Penn Station New York. I knew then which railroad line was the best even at that time when everything on the NEC was falling apart. Although the Original PRR company is gone and I never got a chance to see it in action, it lives on in the achievements of the railroad for example: Stations, Bridges, Catenary, Track, Tunnels and Innovative Equipment. As a young man in the pursuit of my career as an Architect I was inspired by the pioneering creative spirit PRR and their monumental achievements. To me the Northeast Corridor (DC- HELLSGATE) will always be PRR Property .
PROJECT NEC
This Project was started out as a 4’x 8’ sheet of plywood in 1986, which grew into a 10’x 10’ layout area years later. This was an apartment layout and space was very limited. Since then It has moved to a house and it can max out in a 17' x 15' room The layout is cut up into 7 (2'x2') sections so it can be taken apart. The original track design was a 4-track oval, which grew to accommodate a larger main station. The original idea of using the oval design could give the railroad continuous running on 4 dedicated tracks independent of each other. The two inner tracks would be reserved for faster trains For Example: The Acela Express and Metroliners. Slower traffic such as transit trains and freights would use the outer tracks and sidings.
In the Future, I plan to move the city into the basement and expand the city until it reaches the suburbs. See Max Basement Plan.
CATENARY
Once I decided on a track plan, I turned my attentions toward making a catenary system. I was leaning toward buying a Marklin system but my budget just wasn’t big enough. The old Marklin catenary in general was not realistic enough (no insulators) and the single spans look European, but the tower mast looks like the PRR Lattice tower masts without the high-tension extension. I purchased about 10 masts and 10 spans, which was very expensive for me as a teenager. I ran across a French system with insulators that I liked and it was inexpensive, but it was only enough to build about 10% of whole table. So I built the rest of the system from scratch, fabricating catenary poles from plastruct pieces, central valley girders and IHC signal bridges trying to recreate that PRR "Philly Style" (One of earliest PRR catenary styles) a mixture of lattice catenary masts, wire spans and insulators. I actually like this style better than Plain "k" braced style which came along later in the 1930s. I call it the "Philly Style" type because you can find it predominately from North Philly to Wilmington. The oldest catenary is between 30th Street Station, the Philadelphia Zoo and out on the Paoli mainline. Beyond these places the "K" braced catenary structures take over. (For more info See PRR Catenary Styles at prrnorheastcorridor.com)
Building the catenary wire was the hardest part of this project. I had to solder about a thousand connections but it was worth it in the end. "ALWAYS USE LEAD FREE SOlDER”. (available at Radio Shack) To give the catenary that used look I painted all the wires above the contact wire with green water based hobby paint. It's water-based so that I can wipe it off with a moist cloth to make any repairs. All the electric trains run of off catenary and the return is through the rails just like the prototype. It even sparks. 01-22-08 I just switched to DCC and it works Great with Catenary. The disadvantage to running off the catenary is that you have to rewire all electric locomotives for catenary pickup and two rail return. The advantages are smooth prototypical operation, cleaner rails and If any one asks you "does it run of the wire?" you can say YES! " see the sparks"
BUILDINGS
The arrangement of a row of taller buildings in the middle of the layout is meant to create a backdrop separating the Industrial section from the Station Section. It also makes the layout look bigger than it actually is. I picked this technique up from the one of the best city railroads ever built ,the Franklin & South Manchester by George Sellios. It is truly a masterpiece.
All of the buildings in this city are built from scratch. In the first version of the table all of the buildings were made of cardboard and paper, (fire hazard) which didn’t stand the test of time. When I graduated college (Architecture) in 2000.. .
Go Temple!!!!... I decided to rebuild the whole city out of styrene plastics, acrylics & Lexan. These new materials allowed me to build taller and larger buildings and light them with relative ease. The tallest building on the layout is about 22 stories (40”) About 90 percent of all the buildings are new but now I have to take time and weather them ,add some more trees, trash, graffiti and more people . Just like a Real City, It will never be finished It will continue to grow as long as I have more space.
The problem with commercially bought model railroad structures is that some aren't consistent in scale. I model my buildings at 1:96 which is 1/8"scale because a foot equals and 1/8". HO scale is 1:87 scale, which is slightly bigger. A lot of Commercial manufacturers make some buildings smaller than true HO scale and 1/8"scale so you can fit more of them on your layout. Just look at how small some of these factory kits are. Prototypical Factories are a kitbash of at least 3 kits which can get expensive fast.
STATIONS
Over the years there have been a total of 6 different stations on this layout. I have built 4 different large shed type stations and two 30th Street Stations. I have decided on this go around to try and make 30th street permanent. With limited space to work with I couldn't recreate the 3 levels of trackage and one level of street that 30th street has. So I had to forget about the suburban platforms and go for 2 levels of trackage (the lower level platforms & Freight Highline) & one level of street. To satisfy my shed craziness in the future I plan to build a Broad Street Station as soon as I get more room. (See plans)
TROLLEYS
Every Model city has to have a trolley route.
In the first version of the city I had one trolley route and it was very steep to negotiate the grade separations. I was discouraged by this because I had to modify every trolley I bought to make it up the hills. I came up with a plan to raise the entire street level above the tracks, that way the trolley routes could cross the NEC with no inclines. This opened up other trolley routes, and made the configuration of the 30th Street sSation Module possible. My cousin is also into trains and trolleys. Hhe has his own set up and we designed it so that his trolley layout can hook up with mine at 30th Street Station creating a bigger city.(See Plans) All of our layouts are modular so we can take them to Shows. |
/Memberlogo.jpg)
