Looking for non-specific prototype photos

[velotrain]

While poking around some more, I found this collection of images showing railway viaducts in Japan -

 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Railway_viaducts_in_Japan

 

 

Also, for anyone interested in a history of Japanese railway bridges, I discovered these interesting articles -

 

http://www.ejrcf.or.jp/jrtr/jrtr57/pdf/50-57web.pdf

 

http://www.ejrcf.or.jp/jrtr/jrtr59/pdf/48-55web.pdf

[Kiha66]

Also, for anyone interested in a history of Japanese railway bridges, I discovered these interesting articles -

 

http://www.ejrcf.or.jp/jrtr/jrtr57/pdf/50-57web.pdf

 

http://www.ejrcf.or.jp/jrtr/jrtr59/pdf/48-55web.pdf

 

Great find, do you have a link to the rest of the book?

[velotrain]

The first electric subway was the Budapest one

 

Wikipedia gives London as the location for the first electric subway, starting operations six years before Budapest.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems

 

 

Here is a Pathe newsreel about the 3rd Avenue El shortly before its demise in 1955.  Until 2:35 only - unless you are interested in the Statue of Liberty.

 

http://nypost.com/2015/01/16/60-years-after-its-demise-rare-videos-reveal-third-avenue-elevated-line/

[velotrain]

> Great find, do you have a link to the rest of the book?

 

Kiha - I don't, but I should think you could find one from those sections.

[velotrain]

Bill - that first link for the Marunouchi line has many useful images.

 

I have the Metro Ginza Line Series 01 cars - http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10150095, and am expecting the Marunouchi powered set early next month, so plan to run two 3-car trains.  I would have preferred two-car trains (for the reason given below), but the power car is never an end car.

 

One thing I'm struggling with is wanting to use auto-reversing at the two ends.  Circuitron says they can give me a combination of components that will allow two trains, with a turnout, single track, and delay at each terminus, so I could use left-hand running.  However, that means sacrificing more of my severely limited real estate at each end to the wye turnout and compensating curves.

 

Because of this I'm leaning toward having each train reverse on its own dedicated track, as un-proto as that may be.  If this was the Toden-Arakawa I wouldn't mind having the terminus exposed, but given that it will hopefully represent a subway with a central elevated section / station, I'll have it disappear at the ends, and this is where the proto photos provide some useful examples.

 

It seems the Korakuen station has also been scratch built.

 

From my experience, a majority of Japanese layouts use everything straight from the box, with no weathering or even an application of dullcote or similar to tone down the plastic sheen.  I just ran across the first photo of a layout that I'd have to say was over-weathered, except for the squeaky clean Marunouchi line cars - although one is peeling its trim.  Based on discussion earlier in the thread, I now know (via kvp) that this is depicting the old Korakuen station.

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/blog/img/120809_gmdioama_5.jpg

 

 

Socimi - I recognize the Hanabusa logo from the main fine images of his that I've seen - and saved.  In particular, I find that his framing is always excellent.

 

I have a question from the last (only color) image on the second Nagoya link.  Does the railway company sell/rent the space underneath the line to help offset costs at the time of construction, or does this happen on a piecemeal basis in the following years?  I'm guessing this image wasn't taken that many years after the line was built, as the concrete looks relatively fresh - at least on the two nearest piers, if not the viaduct itself.  It looks like businesses are allowed to expropriate the putative sidewalk.

 

The last image of the third Nagoya link is also fascinating, with a mini helicopter on the deck of a residence, along with drying laundry and children's vehicles - that really calls for a precise landing!  Makes me think of car commercials with angry daddys arriving home after a hard day of work to find his kids' toys in the driveway - or wait, was that when trying to back out of the driveway?

 

[kvp]

Wikipedia gives London as the location for the first electric subway, starting operations six years before Budapest.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems

The first London subway was steam powered, then a tuble line was built for cable haulage (like the earlier Thames tunnel) and then switched to electric locomotives. Afaik the first electric railcar based underground system was developed for the Budapest underground. It was the second subway in the world, the first on the continent and the first to use self powered subway cars, overhead 3rd rail power collection and an automatic electromechanical block safety system, including a dead man's handle controller. Also a first one for using low floor trains (from the start, due to tunnel height issues at Octogon square) and the first to run as a driver only (one man) operation from the start (late 19th century!). And imho this is one of the rare ones still using most of the old infrastructure, including original stations and tunnels (and still having 1st generation 19th century museum emu stock in operational condition that could be run among the modern 20th century articulated stock). If you take a look at the old stations, they look pretty much like later subways (for example the NYC system) during their opening days. The old section looks like a museum line.

 

EDIT: Nostalgic rant about old NYC elevated lines removed due to moderator request.

Edited June 9, 2017 by kvp

[kvp]

I have the Metro Ginza Line Series 01 cars - http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10150095, and am expecting the Marunouchi powered set early next month, so plan to run two 3-car trains.  I would have preferred two-car trains (for the reason given below), but the power car is never an end car.

The Tomytec railway collection Ginza line cars (both batches) arrive with unpowered cars and you can put the motor anywhere. The first batch with the old 2000 series cars is even a two car set off the shelf. You just have have to add the right motor kit and half of a trailer kit.

 

For solo cars, you can mod an earlier Tomytec set that had two rebuilt cars painted for each of the two lines, but in that case, you would have to remove the retrofitted pantographs and fill+repaint the roof.

[Socimi]

 

I have a question from the last (only color) image on the second Nagoya link.  Does the railway company sell/rent the space underneath the line to help offset costs at the time of construction, or does this happen on a piecemeal basis in the following years?  I'm guessing this image wasn't taken that many years after the line was built, as the concrete looks relatively fresh - at least on the two nearest piers, if not the viaduct itself.  It looks like businesses are allowed to expropriate the putative sidewalk.

 

 

According to google tranlate the pohotos were taken in 1977, 8 years after the elevated section between Kamiyashiro and Fujigaoka opened in 1969 (as part of the Hoshigaoka-Fujigaoka extension).

 

As you said, it was probably to offset costs from construction by selling the unused space under the viaduct (and right beside to the sidewalk) to shops and other commercal activities. 

I tink it's a common practice to do this, not only in Japan, but also elsewhere in the world (i recall seeing similar placed shops under a DB viaduct in Berlin)

Edited June 9, 2017 by Socimi

[velotrain]

kvp - I was surprised by the images of Osaka one-car subway "trains" posted by bikkuri bahn early in the thread, and briefly considered that, but then realized that a single car just didn't fit my image of a subway.  The video has images of a car running solo over the new concrete viaduct.

 

http://satoyama.in/info/sharyo/img/imgBA327.jpg

 

"The Tomytec railway collection Ginza line cars"  I normally like orange, but in this case there's somehow too much of it - it just feels unrelenting, without sufficient relief.

 

"you can mod an earlier Tomytec set that had two rebuilt cars painted for each of the two lines" - this must be ancient enough that it has rolled off of HS, but I did come across a proto photo that I think shows what you're describing.

 

https://matome.naver.jp/odai/2141129901439425001/2141224148090076003

 

This looked like the Choshi railway shops with the soy sauce plant in the background, and so it was!  That's scary that I've looked at enough photos to be able to recognize someplace ;-)

[marknewton]

This photo was in an old pamphlet that was inside a book I bought off Yahoo JPN:

 

 

I'm guessing it's Tokyo?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[kvp]

According to the wizard of Google:

Tokyo · Kureokobashi Electric Terminal Station The Kuretsubashi temporary station is located between today's Tokyo and Kanda between September 1910 (1910) and Taisho 3 (in the very short period of December 1914, While opening, it became the terminal point station of the Yamanote Line train and was abolished at the same time as opening the Tokyo station.The train which is stopped is Hode 6110

[marknewton]

Thanks for that. I had no success trying to translate the text using the idiotPad.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[railsquid]

From my experience, a majority of Japanese layouts use everything straight from the box, with no weathering or even an application of dullcote or similar to tone down the plastic sheen.  I just ran across the first photo of a layout that I'd have to say was over-weathered, except for the squeaky clean Marunouchi line cars - although one is peeling its trim.  Based on discussion earlier in the thread, I now know (via kvp) that this is depicting the old Korakuen station.

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/blog/img/120809_gmdioama_5.jpg

 

FWIW those Marunouchi trains look like kit-built ones, probably a GM kit distributed with the 10th anniversary edition of RM Models ( http://www.geocities.jp/minkuru3902kawaguchi/marunouti.html ).

 

Going back to the question of elevated lines, Tokyo (and as far as I know, no-where else in Japan) has the kind of "ooh, we have a nice wide boulevard, let's build an elevated metro line above the middle of it" found in Europe and North America (mainly due to an utter lack of useable streets of sufficent breadth). I'm not talking about elevated railway lines on arches, embankments etc.

[bill937ca]

You have to remember that L lines in Boston and Chicago were limited to relatively short cars just like the Ginza line usually because of tight clearances.  The CTA spam cans of the 1950s built with PCC parts were 48 feet long or 14.6m, much shorter than the standard 20m car in Japan today or 70-75 foot subway car in Boston and Toronto. Shorter will probably look "right".

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6000_series_(CTA)

 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WkYtGxRYyP4/UrDzrID36BI/AAAAAAAABEo/nviRAT0mvS4/s1600/NRS-710.tif

 

http://chicagopatterns.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2200_blueprint-900x630.jpg

 

http://irm-cta.org/Blueprints.html

 

http://irm-cta.org/Blueprints/RT_6471-6600_1956-08-00(W).pdf