Guymartin is doing planning and fact gathering for the former ICC Poydras street yard (most of which is now, sadly, under the Superdome).

Cliff Power's Mississippi, Alabama & Gulf has a great rendition of several parts of New Orleans in the 1950's - including the fantastic Union Station in nearly all its glory.

You should also think about visiting the Crescent City Model Railroad Club.

And while I am not modeling any part of New Orleans, I grew up in Baton Rouge, so have a passing familiarity with the area and its railroads.

Oh, and for railfanning around New Orleans, no one that I have found beats Jimbaux's Journal.

So, what part of New Orleans are you looking at modeling?

Cliff Powers has a nice layout based in part on New Orleans in the fifties:

http://magnoliaroute.com/

As for the Superdome...unless you are modeling in T scale or have a small auditorium of your own, you will have a bit of trouble fitting that in.  Perhaps on the backdrop?

Ward,

You have grandiose dreams, like so many of us have and still do.  You do not mention either your budget or available space, nor your skill and comfort level, all of which will have major impacts on what you end up modeling and how happy you are with it.

From what you have said, it sounds like you might be happy with a layout centered around a single yard.  From there, you could run through trains into staging, and of course receive trains from staging.  Locals and interchange traffic would make up the bulk of non-yard operations.  The trolley could be easily automated (either using DCC or older DC methods well documented on line and in print) and would basically be animated scenery - since, as I recall, the trolley and the trains do not interact much if at all.  The Super Dome is probably best left as a 2D scene on the backdrop, or at best a partial scene in the background.

A layout like that could be built as small as a spare bedroom, or as large as a warehouse, depending on how much time and money and help you have.  It could be operated by a single person, though a combination of yard, locals, and inbound/outbound freight could easily occupy 3-4 people for several hours.

I do not know of any New Orleans layouts (though there is at least one really nice one based on southern Mississippi, where I grew up), but I have no doubt that it has been done more than once.

Thanks for all the heads up on different people modeling the area.  I have been looking through magazines and the web to see examples.

I know that I will have to model just one yard and the Amtrak station.  Just deciding which one of the many here will be fun.

The pun is on my last name.  Hobby! 

I will be looking around and deciding what I can start with and what I can afford that is for sure.  Don't have those unlimited funds that my mind seems to want.

Ward,

Is the Chemical Pier serviced by rail?  I haven't been down to the pier.  The last time I was near it was 2 days after Katrina and the Chemical Pier was on fire.  However, if it is served by rail I think it would make for a more interesting layout.  I bet there is a nearby yard for it too.

Den

Philip,

Thanks for all the great comments.

My planning is in early stages.  Mostly taking 40 plus years of reading about but never building past that first circular HO track I did after I got out of high school.  I spent 21 years in the Air Force moving around the country and world so never really wanted to build something that I would just end up tearing apart.

Now looking for that retirement plan to occupy myself with.  One thing that I really have liked in my recent reading is the DCC capability that now offers more of what I imagine.  Saw one video of a control area with 2 or 3 computers and about 10 screens for a really good control center area.

I have been driving around both in person and on Google Earth checking out which yard would best fit my desires.  The Tchoupitulous Street area or the Airline Drive yard.  I do like the idea of an intra-module area using the Mississippi River activity meeting up with the railyard. 

I plan to do my layout in N-scale.  Mostly so that I can put more into a smaller space.  I like the idea of having the Union Station with its Amtrak daily schedule to Chicago or New York and three times a week to Los Angeles.

So far the response has been great.  Plenty of layouts and Jimbaux's Journal is great.  Many pictures to view and ponder.

Ward

The City of New Orleans 
by Steve Goodman

Riding on the City of New Orleans,
Illinois Central Monday morning rail
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders,
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.
All along the southbound odyssey
The train pulls out at Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields.
Passin' trains that have no names,
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.

CHORUS:
Good morning America how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

Dealin' card games with the old men in the club car.
Penny a point ain't no one keepin' score.
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor.
And the sons of pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel.
Mothers with their babes asleep,
Are rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.

CHORUS

Nighttime on The City of New Orleans,
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.
Half way home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea.
And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain't heard the news.
The conductor sings his song again,
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.

Good night, America, how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

©1970, 1971 EMI U Catalogue, Inc and Turnpike Tom Music (ASCAP)

The Superdome would certainly be an imposing landmark to set the scene for your railroad. It is about 800 feet in diameter, which works out to five feet in N scale.  IF you had enough layout space, by golly, you could make a five-foot diameter dome stadium model.  If you downsized it slightly, you could make a four-foot diameter model, and fit the stadium, parking lots, and part of the surrounding area (with backdrop high-rise buildings nearby) on a 5 x 8 sheet of plywood.  If you cut the downsized stadium in half and mounted it to the backdrop, it would only protrude two feet.  That would be easily doable, and still be unmistakable as the Superdome.  It would certainly be a key feature on your layout!

Roger

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/7804

I saw your comment after Jurgen's and both got me to thinking about the Super Dome.  I was thinking that the Amtrak runs need to go off track for a day or two.  So why not use the Super Dome (5 feet diameter to cover a helix down to a staging area to await their return on the next day?  The Super Dome could be removed if access were needed for the helix but it would cover it competely.

Any used something to cover a helix or have all left it open for viewing upward/downward spiral?