03-30-2011, 08:08 PM
On Front Street in Philadelphia, which ran along the western shore of the Delaware River, the city's many piers were serviced by the railroads. Streets (laid out in colonial times were narrow, with the trackage running down the middle of the street.
In order to be able to access the piers, Trackage was laid such that the yurnout woulf first go west before then sharply back to the east, crossing the trackage in the middle of Front street at an angle and, still curving sharply, entered the street end of the piers. The architecture of the piers made them look like fancy, ornate warehouses.
The piers and the street trackage are gone now, replaced by the high-rise riverfront condos and brick-pavered, flower-bed-lined walkways of urban renewal. I do remember, though, riding the fifteen blocks from my apartment down to Second Street on my ten-speed bicycle to go to work in my first consultant design office job as a real product designer, and at lunch, sitting on a bench and watching the Pennsy shifters shuffle box cars while the automobiles and delivery trucks dodged the rolling switchers shoving cars into the piers and the temporarily spotted strings of cars sitting in the middle of the street.
If you were going to model that scene in HO scale, my guess is that the turnouts on Front Street would be Number 4's or sharper and those curves would be a maximum of 18" radius, if not 15" radius or maybe even 12" radius! The flange squeal would hurt your ears ... even from half a block away!
Unfortunately, I never though to take any photos! Nor have I been able to find any ... yet!
In order to be able to access the piers, Trackage was laid such that the yurnout woulf first go west before then sharply back to the east, crossing the trackage in the middle of Front street at an angle and, still curving sharply, entered the street end of the piers. The architecture of the piers made them look like fancy, ornate warehouses.
The piers and the street trackage are gone now, replaced by the high-rise riverfront condos and brick-pavered, flower-bed-lined walkways of urban renewal. I do remember, though, riding the fifteen blocks from my apartment down to Second Street on my ten-speed bicycle to go to work in my first consultant design office job as a real product designer, and at lunch, sitting on a bench and watching the Pennsy shifters shuffle box cars while the automobiles and delivery trucks dodged the rolling switchers shoving cars into the piers and the temporarily spotted strings of cars sitting in the middle of the street.
If you were going to model that scene in HO scale, my guess is that the turnouts on Front Street would be Number 4's or sharper and those curves would be a maximum of 18" radius, if not 15" radius or maybe even 12" radius! The flange squeal would hurt your ears ... even from half a block away!
Unfortunately, I never though to take any photos! Nor have I been able to find any ... yet!
EDIT: Corrected a misspelling :oops:
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln