nkncat

A Building I Need to Model ~ Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The San Francisco Chronicle prints occasional articles about architecture in the City, and this one, about a 1909 department store building on Market Street, caught my eye.

The article probably won't be up on their site forever, so I'll copy it here.

Cityscape: This false front can hold its own

by John King

Architectural overstatement can be a virtue - at least when you're bidding for attention in the middle of a block, and you strike your pose with stylish force. The department store that built this is long gone, but there's still something wondrous about the monumentality of a single broad five-story bay framed by ceremonial Corinthian columns. Equally impressive: This masterpiece of self-promotion maintains its dignity on a tawdry stretch of Market Street that civic forces have let fester. Let's hope that soon, finally, there's action instead of talk.

1019 Market St.

Architect: George A. Applegarth | Style: Greek revival | Size: 6 stories | Date built: 1909

Here's a Bing Maps link, which lets you see the front and roof of the building (if you click bird's-eye-view and rotate), and here's a link to Google Maps street view.

This is a building that needs to be moddled--but keep pictures handy for any nitpickers who don't think there's a real one that looks like that!

New Recruit ~ Monday, November 16, 2009

This is my friend Loic, from Zürich,

trying out my trams. He's reportedly been asking about trains ever since.

Intermodal Urban Traction ~ Monday, October 19, 2009

Here's an interesting prototype: The transit system of Stuttgart (a quite hilly city) includes a cog railway, the Degerloch Zahnradbahn, which has a special open-air bike-rack trailer car.

More information on this Stuttgart Transit site in German, and in English in this Cyclelicio.us Blog post where I found out about this.

Gold Medal Models makes some photo-etched N-Scale bicycles. Hmm!

High-Speed, Narrow-Gauge, Low-Floor, Under Wire ~ Tuesday, July 14, 2009

This new train is the fastest narrow (meter) gauge train in the Swiss network.

It runs at 120km/h (=75MPH).

Original story in German, or in English via Google.

Like this one, a lot of Swiss regional trains look like slightly scaled up versions of what we consider Light Rail vehicles in the US.

Best Father's Day Present Ever ~ Sunday, June 21, 2009

It's a Trolley X-ing Sign!

New at Washington-Mason ~ Saturday, June 13, 2009

This is the latest creation of the craftsmen at the SF Muni's cable car shop, just delivered to the barn for its test run.

Thanks to gripman Val Lupiz for letting me post these pictures here.

A Micro-Layout Staring me in the Face ~ Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Five days a week I wait for a train home on the northbound platform the CalTrain's Mountain View station, which gives me a good trolleyfanning view of the adjacent VTA light rail station.

This is the western terminous of the VTA's Tasman West line. During rush hour, light rail trains do an interesting dance--one train will arrive, another will depart (they have to be syncronized because the last few miles of the line are single-track). And sometimes trains pull in and out of a pocket track. The track arrangement is a double X-over, like this:

Or scroll around a satellite view via Google Maps:

View Larger Map

Anyway, it recently occurred to me that this whole terminal could be an interesting micro layout. For a little bit more interest you could build up the pocket track into a small servicing area (a minimal barn with room for one or two cars plus some work equipment--maybe squeezed into some into some random unused urban space, like Portland Streetcar's under a freeway) and let the rest of the system be "off layout staging".

I've posted a few pictures and movies of the VTA here over the years, mostly centered around Mountain View; you can find them all under the Contemporary tag.

PCC Body Design Patent ~ Monday, June 08, 2009

It is US Patent 110,384 "Design for a Rail Car or Similar", invented by Dan H. Bell, assigned to the Transit Reseach Corporation.

I hadn't realized that the body design itself was patented (though I have heard that Brill was forced to pay royalties for their look-alike Brilliners).

Searches for Transit Research Corporation lead to other interesting patents. Enjoy!

New P&SR Book ~ Sunday, May 24, 2009

Fresh from the presses of Arcadia Publishing:

Petaluma & Santa Rosa Railway, by John & Kristina Schmale

Check out the Google Book Preview.

This is the first full-size book about the Petaluma & Santa Rosa (not to knock the writeup it got by Stanley Borden many years ago, in a special issue of Western Railroader Magazine--which any P&SR fan should still nab a copy of if they can...)

Tomytec Toyama Articulated Tram Available ~ Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Here's a flyer.

I'm putting in an order with HobbySearch--one to build as-is, plus a few extra body shells to kitbash a Zürich Cobra (some day!)

NKNCat