CTA Damen Green Line Station - 1:64 Scale Diorama

Chicago has one of the best public transit systems in the country from buses to railway to bikes and scooters. The CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) trains and buses run through every neighborhood of the city, making it super easy and affordable to get around. CTA trains are super efficient, moving a bunch of people in a short amount of time. An added bonus to CTA trains is getting awesome views of the city. I highly recommend watching the PBS documentary "Chicago by L" with Geoffrey Baer where he rides each CTA train line and makes stops along the way going through the history of each neighborhood. It made me appreciate the train system in Chicago and love it even more. 

One train stop in particular that stands out above the rest is the newly renovated Green Line Damen stop. This train station has a tall, elevated pedestrian walkway surrounded with a bright green metal structure. The train station is very industrial and modern looking, with large artwork and murals inside the station. It's great to see these stations get updated to encourage more people to ride the train.

I designed this model set to have some of the main features of the train station. The model set includes the tall, narrow tower with the giant CTA logo, the long green bridge, large green structure, and the train platforms on both sides. I added some smaller details like a parking lot, ticket machines, benches, and turnstiles. 

One of the main things that I wanted to include was the actual CTA train car. I looked around for 1/64 scale train models and found Dragon Railway by @Rambros. They have more locomotive trains vs commuter train cars, so I just used their chassis and I designed my own CTA train car to put on top. I will link the Dragon Railway models below if you would like to use the same models that I used. 

There is an assembly guide posted but I'll include some notes below. 

• For the train car, I glued the lights and signs to the train car. Then I glued the train car to the base, and then that gets glued down onto the Chassis. The Dragon Railway components take a bit of tinkering to assemble. I also printed their train tracks to use for my diorama. 

• There are some large pieces like the tower and green structures and platforms that take a long time to print. I recently picked up the BIQU Cryogrip build plates (for the A1 and A1 mini) and I highly recommend picking these up to keep your prints sticking to the build plate. I have so many test prints where the edges lifted off the plate and warped. The Cryogrip plates work so well. I think Bambu has their Cool plate which is similar but I have not tried it yet.

• I used a combination of super glue and hot glue to assemble some of the parts.

• Models sliced in Bambu Studio and printed on Bambu Lab printers

Chassis 

https://makerworld.com/en/models/410861-gp7-locomotive-dragon-railway 

Bloomberg B Bogie

https://makerworld.com/en/models/841656-blomberg-b-bogie-dragon-railway#profileId-1256658 

Train Tracks

https://makerworld.com/en/models/410858-train-tracks-dragonrailway#profileId-315234 

This is a large model set with long prints and a lot of assembly, but the model looks so awesome! If you are setting up a diorama, this model set really brings an industrial look and feel to the scene. It adds some dimension to the diorama since the towers are tall and you can see through the green structures. I really hope you enjoy this model set. Feel free to reach out with any questions. Enjoy!