Railroad Forums 

  • Model Philadelphia/SEPTA Layout Now In Progress.

  • Discussion related to everything about model railroading, from layout design and planning, to reviews of related model tools and equipment. Discussion includes O, S, HO, N and Z, as well as narrow gauge topics. Also includes discussion of traditional "toy train" and "collector" topics such as Lionel, American Flyer, Marx, and others. Also includes discussion of outdoor garden railways and live steamers.
Discussion related to everything about model railroading, from layout design and planning, to reviews of related model tools and equipment. Discussion includes O, S, HO, N and Z, as well as narrow gauge topics. Also includes discussion of traditional "toy train" and "collector" topics such as Lionel, American Flyer, Marx, and others. Also includes discussion of outdoor garden railways and live steamers.

Moderators: 3rdrail, stilson4283, Otto Vondrak

 #991469  by N-Trizzy2609
 
Hello all,

I came with alot of news. I've built three 8x4 tables and put them together in a J shape. I'm embarking on building the city of Philadelphia in HO scale and having a SEPTA set up. Basically, the city of Philly will sit in the middle of the table with suburbs on either side. There both a Reading and PRR side to my regional line as well as an Northeast Corridor loop.I will scans the plans later. But here's a preview of the both the table and future fleet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0uAkZD4 ... ideo_title
Image

More will be added later on.
Here's a breakdown of what I'm modeling:
-SEPTA's Chestnut Hill East Line
-SEPTA's Chestnut Hill West Line
-SEPTA's Fox Chase Line
-SEPTA's Cynwyd Line
-SEPTA/Amtrak Trenton and Wilmington Line (the NEC)
-Conrail's Bustleton Branch
-SEPTA's 10,11 and 15 trolleys. (combined but with different loops through the layout.)
-SEPTA's Market Frankfort Elevated (End-to-end but abridged and ALL elevated.)
-Suburban Station
-Underground staging yard. (Powelton Yard)
-Room for future Broad Street Subway under the table.
-Overbrook Loop (rt 10)
-Chestnut Hill Loop (Rt 10,11, 15)
-Richmond Loop (Rt 15)
-Bala-Cynwyd Loop (Rt 11, Fictional)


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 #1044299  by Melstien
 
I am very interested in your layout. I am beginning to plan for my layout and I was thinking of modeling it around Union Station in Philly. This location will allow me to get in a river for sculling (daughter), a college for a football/lax field (son) (UPenn or Drex), a rail yard, high speed rail (Amtrak), a zoo and a few very nice city landmarks like the museum of art.

How is your project coming?
 #1045689  by glennk419
 
Melstien wrote:I am very interested in your layout. I am beginning to plan for my layout and I was thinking of modeling it around Union Station in Philly. This location will allow me to get in a river for sculling (daughter), a college for a football/lax field (son) (UPenn or Drex), a rail yard, high speed rail (Amtrak), a zoo and a few very nice city landmarks like the museum of art.

How is your project coming?
Welcome and good luck with your future layout, sounds like a great plan, but one small note. The station shared by Amtrak, SEPTA and NJT in Philly is known as 30th Street Station. While it could operationally be considered a "Union" station, it has never gone by that name, much like Penn Station in New York City.
 #1045823  by green_elite_cab
 
I'm not sure that is practical in the span of a few 4x8s. You're pretty much talking about modeling most of SEPTA. Consider a 4 car Septa train. You'll need at least 4' for a station platform to fit the train. Even if you truncate the trains down to just pairs and singles, You won't have a whole lot of room. The Northeast corridor is 4 tracks wide AT LEAST.

Not to shoot down you parade, but you might be trying to put to much in a small space. Even if you did manage to fit the track on there, there would be little room for anything else.

I would pick a specific piece of SEPTA and stick to that. You might not get all the different lines in, but for the ones that you do get in, you can do a much nicer, more practical job of modeling.

For example, You could model the tunnel heading to the "Reading side" from Market East, using the tunnel as staging, stick that staging on the "tail end" of the J. You could also model just a "section" of the NEC or Harrisburg line, with one of the smaller branches coming off of it, like Chestnut Hill West off the NEC.
 #1048061  by N-Trizzy2609
 
Dear lord! I totally forgot this tread existed, okay, long story short, I have 4 4X8 set up in a circle and I made simplified plan. GEC, yes you were right. I cut the Fox Chase, Bustleton, and few other out the plan. But the plans still include both Chestnut Hills. (the CHW is only N. Philly and curves right into Chestnut Hill West for exaple.) I''ll put the revised plans up later. Stay tuned. Pics as well.