Weekend Update 10/10/21

[R L Smith]

WooooooHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[davefoxx]

WooooooHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'd say that answers the question, @mu26aeh.

DFF

[PiperguyUMD]

@PiperguyUMD ,

Sorry for the crappy shot - thought I had a better one but I did not.

[thomasjmdavis]

Dearborn!  Wow!  Looks like you're solving a lot of spacial questions.  Looks great.

Thanks Mike.

I wondered if anyone would recognize it.  Actually, not as many spacial questions as I thought there would be- the distance from Polk Street to Roosevelt in real life is about a third of a mile, and State to Clark is 1/8 mile.  The basic idea is to have a 4x12 island that will contain the terminal trackage and scaled down freight house tracks and then modules around the walls to give the trains somewhere to run around.  I have a map of the whole Dearborn complex (I don't know if it is still out there, but this was available on the web a few years ago) and I'm doing my best to make the buildings close to scale.  Freight houses won't have as many tracks as in real life, but that's ok, I don't have as many boxcars as the real railroads. And everything south of Roosevelt road will be fictitious and arranged to fit the basement, but the space between Plymouth and Federal, north of Roosevelt, will be as close as  I can make it with allowance for Peco code 55 (and no, folks, I will NOT be even thinking about doing 5 double slip switches in Fast Tracks)

At this point, I don't know if I will ever get it built in my lifetime....., but then, I watched a 90 year old guy sit on top of a rocket this morning and go to outer space, so even though I am a day closer to 68 than I was yesterday, I feel somewhat younger.

Construction presently held up by the prices of building materials to finish out the basement room it will go into, and because I am also in the overpriced market for a car.

[craigolio1]

The MBTA FP10 body mods are about finished. Here it is in primer.

(Attachment Link)
Sides are pretty smooth and there are only a few body marks near the vents.

(Attachment Link)
Engineer's side is a bit better. I don't think I'm going to do much more on the sides - the marks actually line up with the edges of the purple stripe so they'll be hidden.

(Attachment Link)
Cab windows were opened up a bit. The nose door might need a bit of work. The MU/HEP hookups don't look perfect but they were really hard to get right and I'm not about to try again. Marker lights look about right.

(Attachment Link)
The rear window blank needs to be sanded a bit more and the markers cleaned up a little.

(Attachment Link)
The roof lines still look a little wonky but that's the best I can do with them. I may try to square off the vent box a bit. The holes in the rear are for mufflers to be added after painting.

Is that a Kaslo resin shell you stated with?

Craig

[x600]

WooooooHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

^^^^ This  ^^^^


Greg O.

[Sokramiketes]

Thanks Mike.

I wondered if anyone would recognize it.  Actually, not as many spacial questions as I thought there would be- the distance from Polk Street to Roosevelt in real life is about a third of a mile, and State to Clark is 1/8 mile.  The basic idea is to have a 4x12 island that will contain the terminal trackage and scaled down freight house tracks and then modules around the walls to give the trains somewhere to run around.  I have a map of the whole Dearborn complex (I don't know if it is still out there, but this was available on the web a few years ago) and I'm doing my best to make the buildings close to scale.  Freight houses won't have as many tracks as in real life, but that's ok, I don't have as many boxcars as the real railroads. And everything south of Roosevelt road will be fictitious and arranged to fit the basement, but the space between Plymouth and Federal, north of Roosevelt, will be as close as  I can make it with allowance for Peco code 55 (and no, folks, I will NOT be even thinking about doing 5 double slip switches in Fast Tracks)

At this point, I don't know if I will ever get it built in my lifetime....., but then, I watched a 90 year old guy sit on top of a rocket this morning and go to outer space, so even though I am a day closer to 68 than I was yesterday, I feel somewhat younger.

Construction presently held up by the prices of building materials to finish out the basement room it will go into, and because I am also in the overpriced market for a car.

@thomasjmdavis Good stuff.  Prior to Modutrak taking a distinctive bent toward the Milwaukee Road, I was gathering as much intel on Dearborn as I could.  I still think it's the best Chicago station, and better than Milwaukee Road's Everette Street Depot.

I have never been able to find the architectural drawings of the station.  But there have been several large maps of the trackage, and even a drawing of the trainshed.  I'll have to dig them out sometime and scan them in.  One drawing was all the post locations for the train shed.

[thomasjmdavis]

@thomasjmdavis Good stuff.  Prior to Modutrak taking a distinctive bent toward the Milwaukee Road, I was gathering as much intel on Dearborn as I could.  I still think it's the best Chicago station, and better than Milwaukee Road's Everette Street Depot.

I have never been able to find the architectural drawings of the station.  But there have been several large maps of the trackage, and even a drawing of the trainshed.  I'll have to dig them out sometime and scan them in.  One drawing was all the post locations for the train shed.

Any help gratefully appreciated. 

I have the big track map, and the trainshed drawings with a view of the south elevation, and the post locations (35 posts on 17' centers).  I used that to locate posts for my drawing.  May still be online.  There are also photos (courtesy of the Smithsonian, I think) of the demolition of the trainshed in the 1970s, which are a big help.  I am making some accommodation for Peco's standard track centers (the actual station trackage doesn't have a standard- it looks like they laid out the turnout, got it "close" and that was the center for that track.  Platforms of the real station were not uniform widths- one will be several inches wider or narrower than the ones next to it.  But if what SCARM is telling me works out on plywood, I should be able to get the dimensions of the 10 main tracks to fit within the footprint of the actual station.

What has been the biggest help with Dearborn station is that it is (or was?) a 3D model available (for Sketch Up? maybe) made up from Google earth views- essentailly photos of the N W E S views.  I was able to download this, scale it to 1/160, and print out the elevation views.  The drawing is of the contemporary building as it looked a few years ago- so details like awnings have changed, but the basic structure is still intact.  This gives me window sizes and spacings as well as wall sizes and such.  I've had a couple of major computer overhauls since I did that, not sure if I still have the files, but I do have the print outs to guide construction.

The biggest question for me is how far to try to go with it in terms of details and interior.  There is so much "one off" architectural detail...I could spend months just on the clock tower.

Geez.....I've talked about this at some length now on Railwire....I'd better get to work, or at least order plywood for the station module and 10 gallons of paint for the basement walls. I need to invite a couple of the kids to visit for an afternoon of lifting heavy stuff....oops, I mean...dinner and a beer.