Could monorails, elevated and subways be modeled more in the future?

As you may well know by now, I like to ask the question that many may not.

Do you see monorails, elevated trains or subways getting popular enough to be model or for people to want them. The only commercial made subway train that I have seen made was by Lionel. The only monorails I see are distributed by Disney. My nephew loves monorails and has collected all of the DIsney ones that came out. I have not seen any other subway trains made.

Imagine a large scale subway in your garden that you could run thru a large pipe to simulate a subway and then come out to a station.

Speaking of unusual trains, I wondering if there is alot of model bullet trains available.

I have seen trolleys and PCC cars on layouts, but not alot with subways other than a Lionel layout and no monorails or elevated trains on a layout.

How about a model layout of a Amtrak train taking you to Walt Disney world in Florida and then you get picked up by the Disney monorail , I guess you could if you had a layout big enough.

Here is another scenario, A New York Central going thru the city under a elevated train. I know most don't model big city scenes.

 

Well, here's my two cents worth, at least in Canadian currency... wink:

Subways? The main obstacle here is that you can't see the layout or the trains except at the stations. It would probably be good as an automated side attraction in an urban setting, like an industrial or port district, stopping momentarily at stations and starting up again to proceed to the next one.

Elevated... I vaguely remember some very elaborate models of the Chicago "El" from magazines back in the 70s. They were very well crafted.

Monorails... I just think of Springfield, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook... I suppose it would work so long as you don't buy it from a fellow named Lyle Lanley... laugh:

 

There was a subway modeler featured in MR many, many years ago. His O Scale (IIRC) layout was quite innovative, the tunnels were all open on one side facing the viewer. He had made several pre-WWII cars, all accurately running from a hot third rail. I remember he had at least two stations going up to the street level. At street level he modeled at least the first floor of buildings.

As I remember, he did not model any specific line or company, but it clearly was a line on Manhattan. I rode the Broadway-7th Avenue line for a number of years, and I felt that he had captured the feeling of being in the tunnels back in the late 40's and early 50's.

 

I want to say Roco did a monorail in HO & N, thought at doesn't sound right. It's a neat piece, but the desore is limited.

With Walthers having done Subways, it doesn't surprise if their modeling presesnce increases. Elevateds too, but they've always had the option of being more prevelant. the fact that they aren't I don't see changing because the reason hasn't. The thing about Subways is, a lot of them will surface to interchange with mainline passenger. And because you don't have to scenic every inch of line, they can A) be more cost efficent, and B) afford for better detailing when you do have to have scenery. They don't give you much for operations though.

 

It's possible. Back in the "Golden Days" of model railroading, practically the only city in America to have a subway was NYC. Now we have subways and light rail in so many cities now, there are more people who are exposed to urban transit today.

The only problem is that most cities have proprietary rolling stock, which makes it difficult to justify a model manufacturer to produce. When Athearn released its Bombardier commuter rail coaches in HO and N, it was an easy thing to do since the prototype commuter lines all used the same Bombardier coaches, only the paint schemes were different. Not quite the same situation with light rail, and definitely not the same case with heavy rail subway.

Monorails? I only really see them in amusement parks and airports. Not many cities use them for urban transit, and not many model RRers model amusement parks and airports.

 

Ooo, a lot of cities would dispute that!

In any case, most subway trains also run above ground for much of their routes, even in NYC. I think the roadblock has been the lack of cars close to the prototype. On my layout there is a space for a subway line that emerges from underground--the return loop was "underground." It was never built because suitable traincars were not available.

 

I'd have to say that potential for increased interest in any of the three in the future would be highly unlikely. Subways and elevateds have traditionally been a part of traction modeling and that aspect of the hobby itself has been in decline for many years now. With elevateds all but history except for just a few large American cities today, these are more likely to simply vanish in the future than find broader interest.

Likewise, subways, elevateds and monorail systems all deal exclusively with passenger operations, in some respects limiting interest in them relative to combined passenger/freight operations railroads.

Finally, the current very limited product availability for any such systems further discourages today's hobbyists, as does the lack of uniformity in equipment from system to system. At best, I see these as modeling subjects for advanced scratchbuilders.

NYW&B

 

Boston and Philadelphia and maaaaybe Cleveland and Chicago don't constitute "a lot"

My point was, many more cities in the present day have subway systems, whereas only a handful had them in the early 20th century, and NYC's was the only one of any complexity.

 

I actually remember seeing an HO module with a regular trolley above ground, and a transparent subway underneath. The kids loved the subway, since it was at their eye level.

 

The problem with monorails, el trains and subways is that they all are pretty much unique prototypes and don't justify mass-production. Sure there's some exceptions for all but the most famous types of those trains (like the NYC R-series subway cars or the Alweg Disneyland Monorail). Commuter trains are already being modeled, mainly because the prototype is so ubiquitous (most systems use an F59PHI pulling Bombardier doubledecker cars), so that justifies making the same model with different schemes for different regional systems. I would dare say that commuter railroads are the passenger roads of the 21st century.

I could see light rail vehicles being modeled more than monorails/els/subways for the same reasons as commuter trains -- there's common prototypes shared by some systems, like various Siemens models, although a good number of LRT systems have unique prototypes.

But unlike commuter and LRT, there's only a limited amount of monorails/els/subways coming up in the future. Subways and elevated trains are expensive, and monorails as urban mass transit isn't very practical from an operational standpoint -- which is why you only really see monorails operating in closed-loop systems like amusement parks, fairgrounds and airports.

 

Indeed they did, and within the last twenty years. They had a version with the BART noses and one that mimicked Washington, D.C.'s Metro.

And in Chicago, the El and the subway are one and the same. Which is to say the Jackson line runs underground while downtown.

 

Actually, I always thought a well done layout based on Chicago's El Trains would be a very interesting layout. I always think about it when driving down the highways around Chicago and looking over at the tracks in between the different directions of traffic. Chicago would probably be the best way to model a subway-type line, due to the fact that the majority of it is above the ground (hence the name El, or Elevated Train). Though, every now and again, the tracks seem to disappear beneath the pavement of the road. Then, of course, you also have the potential to model the Metra lines in Chicago as well.
Interesting concept...