Bungalow Row

A Suburban Neighborhood Module Designed For The Southern California Traction Club Layout.

Since the old SCTC modular layout was a continuous loop, adding a module to one side of the layout required another module of the same length on the opposite side. So by adding the Tarnation Module to the industrial side of the layout, a companion module would be needed for the suburban side of the layout. So I designed this:

Bungalow Row. A standard 2'x4' double track traction module.

Nothing fancy in the way of trackwork. Just the standard double-track on a private right-of-way on the center divide of a boulevard. 

This postcard of a neighborhood in Pasadena, California with the Pacific Electric tracks down the center of the street has the look and feel I wanted to capture with this module.

A couple of narrow residential streets like this intersect the main boulevard.

These streets would be populated with various styles of craftsman homes.

To break-up the grid pattern a bit and as added interest, a dry wash cuts through the module at an angle. This would allow for a short wood pile trestle for the tracks and a couple concrete bridges for the boulevard.

I would have like to have included this passenger shelter on the module, but I just wasn't able to get it to fit. Too bad, that would have been a nifty detail.

The Models

There are some pretty decent models of bungalow style houses available out there:

Barbs Bungalow by Atlas could be built up into a really beautiful house.

Alpine Division (old Suydam) has a couple of rather nice craftsman kits of Craftsman style houses. With a lot of work, these could be built up to look great.

Woodland Scenic's Granny's House, all built up and ready to go.

 Rix even offers a couple of houses that could be built up into some pretty decent models.

Speaking of Rix, they offer this overpass that would be perfect for boulevard crossing over the dry wash.

The tracks would cross the wash on these trestle bents by Grand Central Gems.

AMB LaserKits even offers the Pacific Electric style passenger shed seen in the prototype photo earlier in this post. I would love to fit this in!

But alas... the SCTC has taken on a fresh new direction rendering this module obsolete. But the module could conceivably be redesigned to fit the new layout. So maybe there's life in this after all! Yes sir! Maybe there is some life in this after all!

Dandy