Modular standard for elevated city?

[Retroshift]

wow, I like the idea but this seems like a lot of work and very costly; it's nearly impossible to integrate a subway grid below a lego cityscape: you'd have to surround it with rock and add several underground stations to make it realistic; but then again you need to elevate the entire city because otherwise the subway wouldn't be underground, it would be more like a regular tunnel

[Wookiee]

wow, I like the idea but this seems like a lot of work and very costly; it's nearly impossible to integrate a subway grid below a lego cityscape: you'd have to surround it with rock and add several underground stations to make it realistic; but then again you need to elevate the entire city because otherwise the subway wouldn't be underground, it would be more like a regular tunnel

I disagree. With scale of modular buildings you are only going to get one station at best the "city" will be 20 houses wide at best.

Scale is definitely is out the window when we talk trains verse city size every time.

Yes you are correct there is a cost but you also double your space and add depth to the layout. Personally i am going with one underground station with 4 platforms and above will most likely be 2 platforms or none. This is yet to be decided.

One underground train will just loop from one platform to the other once it passes out of sight. I have left space for two lines behind the station to run longer distance trains past and around the entire layout and maybe up to the street level eventually.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Wookiee

[elleana]

My display area is only around 3 baseplates by 12 baseplates wide, all I have space for is an oval track. Not particularly large scale. Am going to elevate one row of buildings, that's all.

[elleana]

Quick update: a few bricklink orders arrived so I managed to get started on this. Pictures are mostly self explanatory, had a problem with having sufficient clearance for the train's nose so the layout of the first layer of girders isn't totally regular. The entire structure is very stable though, but I will have to test it again once I get the second layer of the structure done.

[Retroshift]

nice, the pantograph misses an overhead catenary wire though ;-)

[PastVPresent]

Great to see this happening in real life! I think an elevated city/city with subway would be incredible but just haven't seen many out there so really look forward to seeing this one complete!

[MusicaRibelle]

I missed this thread a year ago, I'm pleased to see it updated with an actual build, nice.

One of my next projects is to redo a not-so-great tunnel for my trains to have three modulars on top, and the suggestions found here are going to be very useful.

Thanks to all who contributed!

[Beren Erchamion]

One solution for quickly-removable buildings that I haven't seen (unless it's here and I missed it) is to incorporate the 1x2 1-stud plates into your building foundations, with the rest of your foundation being tiles.

[Wodanis]

Actually Beren that is what the original designs I have do. This is looking grand Elleana! So glad you decided to impliment it. How is the clearance with the beams? Did you have to adjust much?

[elleana]

My reference was the passenger train from last year, which I think of all my trains (cargo, HE, maersk) had the most bulbous nose so I figured needed the most clearance. It wasn't too difficult to adjust (Some of the girders had to be moved laterally by a few studs) but it didn't affect the stability I don't think. I was using 1 x 14 technic beams and there was only one place where the girders were too far apart to be spanned by 1 x 14 (1 x 16 would have done it, but I don't have any on hand). I was able to compensate in the second level where I didn't have to make the same adjustments.