My O-SCALE NY EL-Trolley Layout VIDEOS now on YOU TUBE

Hard to believe that it's a model railroad!  Amazing!

I'm a longtime admirer of your work.

Hello Holmes ! (and Jeff C and Jon)

First, Jeff C and Jon -

Thanks to BOTH of you  for your above previously earlier posted support and nice comments,  much appreciated by me !!

Second -- HOLMES --  Thanks also for your support and appreciation !  Here BELOW are three of my recent photos ---  of my O-Scale Third Avenue railway System 600 series Trolley Car # 629 in "Bronx" Service  seen in  the "sunshine" cast track shadows under my EL. 

Here below also is the LINK to the Photo Album on my Flickr Site that these and my other O-Scale T.A.R.S. Cars are found in:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/...ms/72157626164884258

Glad to see that you admire my work, and I suggest to you - (and other viewers) - to use the website links - (and bookmark them) - found and seen  at the (my) very first top posting of this thread to follow up on the regularly continuing newest photos and videos added to my sites as I install them.  I have a lot more modeling and carbody projects ongoing, underway !

Regards ! - Joe F

Great stuff!!!

Joe,

My father worked for the NYC Transit Authority for many years and I spent much of my life on the elevated trains.

Your work is second to none, man !!!

Absolutely, fantastic.

Your street scenes make me feel like I was back in the neighborhood.

Yahoooo !!

Eliot Scher

WOW!!! It doesn't get any better than that! You really have to study the photos to realize they are models. You sir, have an amazing talent!

Hello Rapid Transit Holmes !

I'm glad you enjoy my work...thanks for the Great Stuff !  note of appreciation.  Here are some of my newest videos you may enjoy !

I have provided a prototype photo of these trains in service decades ago -- the the O-Scale models in the 2 videos are which I totally scratch-built and have full authentic interior details, seats, advertising, motorman cabs in motor cars which also have roof marker lights and a center headlight on them;  Scale proper trucks and underbody equipment for both motor and trailer cars..

These two short videos  were filmed as VHS-C video tapes back around 1999 - and which I myself recently converted to computer-digital format.

Regards - Joe F  -

NYC Model Transit System

Your work is AMAZING!

Hello "Scrapiron'  Scher  !!

Also thank for your nice compliments on my work - again I appreciate them.  I see you stated your dad worked for the NYCTA  (the Transit division of the later present MTA).  What positions did your dad have on the system ?   Was he a station agent,  or conductor, or motorman ?  

My father also worked for the original IRT Company   at the "Manhattan Railway Co. Division" on the 4 original Manhattan EL's,  but mostly on the Manhattan & Bronx 3rd Ave EL Line.   His first job status was a Station Agent (worked in the Station agent booth at stations) and became a Station Master (meaning he was in charge of TWO stations,  the uptown and downtown side of a particular station stop.  He worked one side of the track, and had a Station agent under his supervision working in  the opposite side station.

Later he became an accountant in the Manhattan Railway Offices located over the Shops at the E. 99th Street Yards, off 3rd Ave., Manhattan.  He worked all thru1930's periods until illness in late 1939 forced him to take a medical leave.   Perhaps it is thru his genetics that I do the modeling I do !!  He even took some photos of the EL back then with his 4x5 roll film folding Kodak camera.  I today have both the camera,  the negatives (4x5 size !) and the photos he took.

Here is another newest video -- showing more modern equipment in a night scene on my EL

regards - Joe F

Hello "Holmes" (heh)

I got your private email to me and replied to it.  Thanks !  Here are some more photos for you.

Regards - Joe F

Amazing!  How do you do it?  What do you use your third rail gauge and what do you use for "chairs"?

Hello again "Holmes"

I make my own 3rd rail chairs out of  3/16" SQUARE  Bass WOOD (or can be  Styrene) and use a small miter box to cut them square from long strips. 

I think the end result in the above photos serves the purpose

Very tedious for quite many hundreds of 3rd rail chairs to cut,  but that is the way its done by hand.  30 years ago when the system was built !! 

For the "gauge" of the 3rd rail from a running rail,  I used an O-Scale 6'6" Wheel base Baldwin 7220 Rapid Transit Motor truck with 33" scale tread insulated steel wheels having "Elevated Style" drop sled 3rd rail shoes on its sideframes --  the sled shoes "fixed" in the "upper raised position (as if riding ON the top of the rail).  I would roll the truck a bit,  along sections of both straight and curved track,  and carefully spot placed the chairs under the sled shoe on various long cross ties  -- knowing that the 3rd rail head, when attached to the chairs, would be properly under the sled shoe....  making tiny final fine alignment adjustments to the attached 3rd rail as and where needed.   Again, heh,  very tedious and time consuming.  But the tedium-dedication of it all was worth the final results appearance wise.  And VERY cost effective materials wise.

The 3rd Rail is Nickel Silver HO Code 100 rail to represent the original smaller profile 3rd rail of the early IRT (and BRT-BMT) "Elevated" lines -- with the 3rd rail in the higher and closer to the running rail "Original Elevated Lines" position (and like the present Chicago EL system-- which retained the original 3rd rail system from 100 years ago) .  The present MTA / NYCTA system in the NY City area uses a heavier style third rail presently  -- in subway position as a bit lower and a bit further from the running rails, and with cover boards, of course.

regards - Joe F

Joe, Please take a look at Custom Brass Subway Transit Signals on Integrated Signal Systems.com

Also: Plastic Kits NYC Transit Signals on Shapeways.com   

Please type in the search box  :  NYC Transit Signals

Thanks, John

Thanks Joe!  I'll email my response since it's lengthy and contains more questions than answers.  If we hit upon some Miracle Cure, you can post it for the benefit of all interested parties.

Hello again "Holmes"

These two photos on my "EL" show how my scale "subway paddle" type 3rd rail shoes contact the closer to track "EL" style 3rd rail that I model on my "EL", but extend further out so they can contact "subway position" 3rd rail la bit lower and a bit further away from the track  -- just as the prototype Subway paddle" shoes did.       Regards - Joe F

Having shed the manner of speech acquired during my 20 years in NYC, I can only say:

HOLEY BUCKETS!

While you were posting the incredible photos, above, I was droning on endlessly in a detailed email to you.  I'll await your comments regarding that email before clouding the issues with more of my ramblings.

Thank you.

Hello  Holmes

I got your large email - much enjoyed all the background info - heh --  and replied to a few parts of it but was tied up with snow shoveling and etc for my home and 2 cars.  My N.E. Phila. area got 30 inches between the 26 inches falling and the 50 mph blown wind drifts.  Will get back to that one and other emails waiting !!

Here ABOVE is another "night" video for you -- a night time "catwalk track level" view of my 2 Rail O-Scale R-42 trains passing by  -- NOTE:   click the smaller attachment square image seen at left-below --- to see full screen video version

Regards - Joe F

Hello Joe,

These storms seem to be on a 20 year (+/-) cycle ('66, '78, '96, '16) and I suggest you clear out of the east coast before 2036.  At least you weren't having to shovel that amount of snow to clear a live 3rd rail!

I loved the video and only suggest that you look into SIRT's strobe effect to imitate arcing.  Very cool!

Take it easy, stay healthy!

Hello Sam  (Holmes) -----

You are correct -- re: the 20 year cycle -- and I remember and lived thru (and shoveled thru) them all, heh.  In 2036 if I am still able to shovel snow, like I did since 1966, well,  ---umm---- I don't want to even think about that far ahead now - if I am even still around  by then !

Here are three photos in my collection on my home EL line - the Manhattan 3rd Ave EL -- I was around in this period (1947-48) but as a small boy was not shoveling any of this snow !

The top two photos are looking north from the northbound East 76th Street local Station in the blizzard of 1947 - the 2nd one is a zoom showing the  5 blocks long hill up to my local station at East 84th Street  - I lived just off to the right of the right hand uptown station house. 

The third photo is a a view north from E.76th Street on 3rd Ave in 2008 showing how most of the avenue is now  lined by towering hi-rise buildings -- to compare with the 60 years earlier 1948  two images !!

The fourth photo is north along the sidewalk along 3rd Avenue at East 45th Street, by the EL, in a snow storm , showing a northbound local.  I lived thru and remember a lot of snow storms along my neighborhood EL line, as I rode it frequently until it was demolished.

The fifth photo was taken on my O-Scale EL Layout -- replicating in modeling format - the generalized way it was as I remember it -- see photo above !

regards - Joe F

I was born in '48 and NYC was already too built-up, it certainly hasn't improved since then.  I hope your snow is disappearing, ours is but slowly.

I've been struggling with my layout design and I think that I've done as much as I can do, pre-construction.  I'll email a screenshot in the hope that you'll critique it - I already know that it has too many "straight lines" but jamming 20 miles of busy railroad into 80 linear feet(3,840 scale feet) has it's limitations.  My other "hero", SIRT, has done the scenic stuff far beyond my abilities or patience and I'm happy to leave him to it.  Like you, the guy is brilliant.  I hope to do a creditable job of replicating the tone and atmosphere of the environment but this is primarily an operating freight railroad that must coexist with rapid transit service which is primarily a nuisance to the guys who actually make the money...  There should be enough switching possibilities and timetable dodging to keep "a couple/three guys" quite busy during a session.

Hello Sam ---

I got your email --- and will respond there.  Here is one more photo I overlooked to place on my previous post  -- another in the snowstorm taken at the north end of the East 76th street uptown station on the Manhattan 3rd Ave EL -- showing the rear car of a departing IRT EL "MUDC" class local train heading north towards the (and my) E.84th St Uptown side Station.

("M.U.D.C." means "Multiple Unit Door Control" - the class name given to IRT wooden former open end platform EL Gate Cars converted in 1923 to enclosed end platform vestibule cars with Air-Electric operated doors instead of manually operated platform gates.)

Regards - Joe F