The Death Star idea was one of those brain-farts you have after midnight, when kicking other unrelated things around. Initially, the idea was for a 6-foot radius corner, segmented into 30-degree pieces, for ease of handling. The larger radius lets us run MUCH longer trains, without concern for the "Flop Effect". Additionally, the 30-degree math was complimentary with the original diamond mill, those being 60-degree corner segments.

The original corner idea (Click on the thumbnail for the full-size image) :

Then the thought occurs. What happens if we overlay opposing-direction 30-degree corner segments? You get something like this :

Well, that's a fairly interesting doodle. I wonder what we can do with it? There's this thing :

And there's this thing :

Hmm, then there's *this* thing :

Which are all quite useful combinations. Hmm, i wonder if we could do a different version of the Diamond Mill. So i doodle up a few more of the templates. Yes, now we have this thing :

Hmmm, what an evil plan this is. Considering that each segment is 6-foot radius math, it works out to about 10 feet across the inside of the pit, and almost 18 feet across any 2 opposing points. Plenty of room for even the Largest members, and lots to keep them busy. However, we'd need 18 of the Y segments to build a full Death Star. (Ouch) Well, i wonder how hard they are to build?
Not very :

About 5 years worth of late-nite conversations and BS went into the Corridor idea before i actually started building. When the idea was initially hatched, it was just Jim Wilding's "Brill" trolley plant module, featuring the corridor as the mains, and CSX as the mountain line. He was also considering building the CSX overpass at 58th street, so i figured on building the airport flyover at 60th to fill in the gap.

So it started.

Brill sketch :

Jim's "Brill Interlocking" module was the first frame constructed, but it's since languished a bit in his basement. My 60th street was the next one built, and during the whole process there was a great deal of debate on the issue of catenary. To do, or not to do? Eventually, it was decided to at least build the poles, and attempt a trial of full compound catenary.

The initial cat was actually spun up out of copper-stainless strands. Two strands of copper lamp cord, one strand of stainless steel suture wire. The idea was that the copper would take solder, and the stainless would resist the streching. Initially it worked well, and looked decent. As it aged, however, the copper turned green, while the stainless stayed bright, so it kinda looked funny. I also discovered a dielectric reaction between the dissimiliar metals, and they even tended to unravel a bit, causing the stainless to work loose, and allowing the copper to strech. Further investigation showed that the twisted cables had a tendency to chew pantograph shoes, so the idea was given up as being an abysmal failure, with the intention of trying again with actual cottage-industry model trolley wire.

Having aquired a spool of nickel-silver wire, cat was again installed. Much more sucessful than before, i now plan to install cat on all the corridor modules, with the intention of running live overhead with DCC.

The first module nearing completion was 60th street. The initial drawing had been fairly simple, as these designs show :



These photos show the extent which it's been completed, and it's fidelity to both the concept sketch and the prototype location itself :

Most of the original concept sketches are either on full-sheet sketchpads used at the prototype location, or doodled out later on beer napkins. I'm sure many modelers are familiar with beer-napkin engineering, so i don't really need to scan them to show here.

Anyway, 58th street had not yet been built, and i needed a way to get onto my flyover track, so 57.5 street was built as a temporary connecting piece.

The second pic here was taken at the East Penn Traction bi-annual meet in May 2001, in SJ. (Yes, that's a yellow BN boxcar it's hauling. It's my track cleaning car. you don't honestly believe i'm nuts enough to try cleaning all that track by hand, do you?)

Now, 2 years later, 58th street is actually standing, and is soon to get scenery and wire work. Sketches, Module, and some proto shots :

One of the other ideas was to throw a jughandle on the front, connecting the R1 flyover and the CSX mains, so you could effectively loop up into the mountain lines from the mains. Problem being, this would end up hanging 3 feet off the front, and effectively kill the aisle clearance, so it was decided to shift back the pair by 2 feet, and maintain the aisle. To accomplish this, the "shift pairs" were designed.

First pair doodled up was the right-hand 'north' set. The sweeping curves along the schukyll between Greys Ferry avenue and South Street seemed natural for it, and had a great deal of modeling interest, such as the R3 connection, Arsenal tower, and the south end of the High Line :

Having designed up 2 separate subgroups of modules that represented locations quite close together, the idea to fill the gap between them came into play. so Phil Interlocking got drawn up :

As for the 'south' (lefthand) shift pair, we weren't even sure what location we wanted to model. Initially, the thought was to do Curtis Park / Darby :

After they were drawn up, Brian stump mentions to me he's interested in doing a module of the Fels Naptha Plant. Okay, that can work :

Since then, i've decided that the Darby/Curtis Park pair don't hold enough interest, they're a bit too bland. What am i going to do instead? Holly Interlocking/flyover. Holly/Bell can be seen alongside 495 in Delaware, for quite some distance. Brian's Fels plant can be built as a pair of standard straight modules, so no problems there.