Indianapolis - walking around Block 47

I started to quickly. I first drawed the elevation of the shed on Market Street. And then I tried to build a trackplan around. But figures are somtimes unknown, sometimes there are conflicts between sources. There are 2 inch missing here and a feet in surplus there. Not so important, but I want to build a set of drawings who are coherent and scalable from scale 1:10 to 1:500. Before building up, I need to draw an accurate set of ground plans. To avoid errors converting imperial to metrics, my basic drawing scale will be 10 pixel for 1 foot from now on.

The Indianapolis Traction Station was located in "Block 47", a rectangle between Market, Illinois, Ohio Street and Capitol Avenue. Each side of this block was 420 feet long. The surrounding streets were 90 feet wide. To build up the station with the freight depot and adjacent tracks, I need to handle a rectangle of 600 x 600 feets (182,88 meters).

In scale HO, this will give a square of 6,89 (decimal) feet (2,1 m) , in Z scale only 2,72 ft (0,831 m) wide. If somebody want to tryout scale O, you need to have enough space for a square with sides of 13 ft 1/3 !

But first we make a walk around Block 47 :

His surface is cut in the middle by Wabash Street, 30 ft wide, into two equal parts. This sections north and south of Wabash Street were 195 ft wide. This two sections are cut in the middle by a small street 15 ft wide, but this street was discontinued following the edification of the Terminal.

The space covered by the terminal is marked in yellow. Soon, I will lay tracks and build up the station, the shed and the freight depot...

Indianapolis Traction Terminal - the trackplan [2]

Yesterday, I found this nice Indianapolis Baist Atlas from 1916 in the Digital Collections of the IUPUI University. That is not a real track plan, because there are nine tracks going into the shed from Wabash Street, but only seven coming out in Market Street.

But this map gives a good position of the three freight depots and some indications about the freight tracks. With the help of some photos, it would be possible for me to draw a complete track plan of the Terminal Station including the freight depot.

Indianapolis Traction Terminal - isometric 3D draft

Here comes a very first draft of an isometric 3D drawing. Many, many things are still missing, some are simplified or even wrong.

But this shows the way to go

Indianapolis Traction Terminal - the blueprint [2]

Drawing was made for the trackside elevation. Some details are extrapolated from photographs.

This drawing also needs still some refinement and a version with measures. Colors will be checked with the one and only color photo I knew from the terminal, taken a short time before demolition.

Ohio Electric

The Ohio Electric Railway Company, formed in 1907, was a consolidation of 14 smaller interurban railways and one of the largest interurban systems.

It connected Toledo, Lima, Dayton, Columbus, and Cincinnati, providing passenger and express freight service to scores of small towns in western Ohio.

Beside my special interest for the Indiana traction lines, I am doing much research on the Ohio network, as both were connected and tried a last modernisation campaign in the 1930s.

A list of Interurban Railways in Ohio is here .

Indianapolis Traction Terminal - the trackplan

The second step of the virtual reconstruction of the terminal is the design of the trackplan. I made this trackplan as of published in the Street Railway Review Vol XV, 1905, page 34. Later additions like the freight terminal are not shown.

This is a first drawing, some improved versions with (imperial and metric) measures and more details will be posted soon.