Airport?


TRAINFAN9510

TRAINFAN9510

Member
Hello all! I love flying (Im a private pilot) as much as I love railfanning and model trains, so in a discussion with my better half one night as we were working on our current layout brought me to start to build an airport! Ill post some pics when I get it closer to done, but as of now its going to be 2'x8', with a LED lighted runway and custom built hangar, control tower, and airport facility. Just wondered what you guys think, and if anyone else has done an airport post some pics!
 
As I remember there's a layout somewhere in Germany where the planes actually "take off." I haven't seen many other airport rigs though. Looking forward to what you come up with. :)
 
Great idea but I doubt many have the space/real estate that even a small private airfield would take up, apart from maybe those that have an entire basement for their railroad...
 
Now this I'm looking forward to! Model Railroader had a layout in it maybe two years ago that had a small airfield on it. There was a discussion about building an airport on their forum a while back. One poster felt it was a waste since it would generate no loads for the RR. I guess he didn't realize that that's not the only reason some people model things on their layouts.
 
Gary B said:
There was a discussion about building an airport on their forum a while back. One poster felt it was a waste since it would generate no loads for the RR.
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Most airfields require fuel! lol..

Not to mention spare parts, the odd fuselage etc that may be too big to be shipped all the way by road!?! Tyres.. The list could go on & on, depends on how many workshop hangers there are (or are assumed there are)...
 
There is a long series of videos about the airport at Miniatur Wunderland. Go to Youtube and search for "Gerrits tagebuch".

If you want a quick explanation--the planes are lifted off the ground by two rods that emerge from the ground and travel along a slot in the runway. The slot is opened and closed as the plane moves (shades of Brunel's Atmospheric Railway), but the planes follow a magnetic guide wire while taxiing.
 
Yep that miniatur wunderland is nuts! Me and my gf ordered one of their videos about the layout and....wow, impressive! I didnt like how they really portrayed america though :( anyway, our airport is modeled after the small airport I fly out of (just over 5,000 feet) and meant for just small planes, not big 747's. And there are alot of loads you could take to the airport, including fuel like an above poster said, but I also came across 2 athearn flatcars with, you guessed it, planes on them. They are pretty sweet if i must say so myself. But we really werent trying to think of a way to incorporate train loads into the airport, we just thought it would be really sweet to have one along side the mainline! But now that you guys bring up those points about the loads, we just might have to branch off of the mainline and put some track into the airport. That would be pretty fun IMO
 
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Yeah I have seen some of those videos from that airport in production before. That is just freaking insane lol. I would LOVE my airport to function like that, but for now I will just be happy making the planes take off and land by hand haha
 
I'm curious as to why you feel the need to model the entire airport? You could have the hangers, tower and other assorted buildings and an end of the runway with taxiways, and have the rest of the runway (which just amounts to a huge flat open space) running off into a backdrop?
 
Because we have mini planes and I think it would be fun to actually make them land and take off. (Yes I am a little kid at heart, always will be lol) Plus it is a fun way to teach my gf about approaches and different landing procedures and how to deal with certain crosswinds, crab angles, etc
 
My HO heritage trolley layout is going to have a 1/400-500 airport as a background feature with a shuttlebus in the foreground that connects the trolley stop with the airport.

Before you think that's implausible, that is sadly how the light rail line here at Los Angeles International Airport works. For reasons too complicated to get into, the light rail line stops about a mile before the airport, and you have to transfer to a shuttle bus to get from the light rail station to the terminals.

Aurelio

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Or you could bring it underground as a subway. At ORD that's the way it works. Since it's not visible, scale doesn't matter.
 
What's weird, Gary, is that they could've brought underground at LAX as well, but chose not to for political reasons, which pretty much makes that shuttle a laughingstock.

Aurelio
 
alocsin said:
My HO heritage trolley layout is going to have a 1/400-500 airport as a background feature with a shuttlebus in the foreground that connects the trolley stop with the airport.
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If you have the space and your clever and good with electrics (a couple of timed shuttle units), you could have your chosen scale airport train in the foreground disappearing in to 'something' then a short while after a smaller scale airport train (N or Z) in the background appearing from 'something' and arriving at the airport station... :cool:
 
That is a great idea. Bachmann has their DCC Peter Witt trolley in HO and N, so that could work with that.

Since they also have it in O, one could also have the HO disappear in a tunnel and then reappear closer to the viewer in O, lol.
 
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