Car Float & Apron

I measure out and made may cuts on my bench work of where I wanted my harbor for the car float and apron. I didn't take any pictures of that process. Next I put 3 coats of plaster on the harbor flooring and sanded it smooth and painted it brown green and blue. I then cut 1 1/2 strips of foam board for my retaining walls around the harbor and painted the dark gray. I turn my attention to the apron. When I was first planning the harbor I was going to cut an Atlas wye switch and place half on the apron and the other on the car float, kind of like how Walther's did it. Once I started build the apron I decided to just have double tracks on the apron and place the why switch on the car float if I wanted one with 3 tracks. Next I cut clear plastic table cloth the shape I needed it to fit the harbor and laid it into place.

Car Float & Apron

I next turn to detailing the scene. I start by cut 1/4 dowel rods between 1 icnh to 1 1/2 inches long. then painted the with a dark brown. More or less just stain them. I places them around the harbor where I thought they would be and glued when in with Walther's Goo. Then I started on detailing the edges of the foam board to cover it up and some of the seams. I used Plastruct again to do this. Some car float apron has some kind of left system so the bridge can be lifted depending on water height so it can be connect to the car floats to unload the rolling stock. I but my lift system from a Walther's over head crane.

From One Dunn to Another...

Nice work!  Really like the idea of using clear plastic table cloth for the water surface! 

Great Shot

Live in Houma, La and have seen the loading terminal on satellite views thanks for picture. 

the Central Gulf Railway.

what's the route of that big car ferry? ...DaveB

I was an engineer and op's

I was an engineer and op's mgr for the Cross Harbor RR in NYC and pulled/loaded many a float. Even have shots of the tug "Houma."

The float bridge you have looks good. Question, the overhead gantry spanning the apron, will that have the mechanism in theory to raise and lower the apron? If not, the apron would be mounted on a pontoon. The apron needs to go up and down with the tide.

Switching a car float is an

Switching a car float is an interesting operation.  Especially on the smaller floats.  Seems the aprons don't usually take the weight of a loco so you need to switch with idlers.  Also if the float is not kept in balance (front to back / left to right) there are dangers.  Lots of fun switching.  Russ

Apron and Switching

I have will have a cable system on the over head gantry for the apron. Just kind of slow getting around to it. Thought about a float system for the apron but I like how it is open under the apron when a barge isn't there.

 When looking for pictures of car float I found a lot of interesting shots. 2 that come to mind are these. One shows a GP9 (I think) on a car float and the other show a switcher with a idler car about to fall into the drink.

I that first shot CP Rail?

If so, there was a room sized trackplan in MR a couple of years back that was based on that float operation. I saw it recently and had I seen it sooner after my scale change from N to HO, I might very well have modeled it. Too late now as I went steam era and have too much time and money invested in my current project.

Michael

CP Rail

Hi Michael

Yes, the first shot is the CP at Rosebury,British Colombia on Slocan Lake. The float ran between Rosebud and Slocan City.  The line was shut down in the Early 80's I believe.

Andrew

Howdya switch that...???

Dear Carfloat fans,

Apart from noting that both presented shots kinda shoot the whole "locos never step-on/traverse floatbridges" concept in the foot,
(I get that it could be "sometimes were kept off float-bridges, on specific RRs or floatbridge locations",
but not "never"...)

I'd love to know how the switching went (and the track arrangement) to load up the Slocan Lake barge...
the last move obviously had to be a pull of the loco + car + caboose onto the float, 

but does that mean it left the yard heading to the carfloat with the loco in the middle of the train???

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

The article......

I'm speaking of is in the April 2009 issue of MR.....  Hope I haven't hijacked this thread but it was bugging me where I'd seen that pic.   I agree with the Prof.  It's interesting and sort of puzzling seeing that loco out on the float like that..... I'm getting the impression from a caption in MR that the Loco was actually transported via the float....but perhaps we should take this discussion elsewhere??

Michael

BC Interior RRs

The BC-InteriorRR Yahoo group https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BC-InterioRR/info is your source for information on the CP lake rail barge operations.

David

to load up the Slocan Lake barge...

Is that the operation Mark Dance models? ........DaveB

locomotives on car float

The "usual" reason quoted for shipping a loco under power on a car float was to service a location that had no switcher available on the other side.  Dead locomotives were shipped for servicing. I've seen a photo of a float in NY Harbour with coal hoppers and a small switcher where the hoppers were heading for a customer with a coal yard with no locomotive of its own. Did the "no locomotive" rule apply on floating bridges and railway ferrys as well as car floats?

LIRR Float

That shot of Alco 421 looks like the Long Island Rail Road float bridge in Long Island City, NY.

Engines on the float

At the Cross Harbor as with most former floating operations in NYC, the NH, PRR, B&O, RDG, etc., reacher cars were used to keep the engine off the float.

At Cross Harbor, we did load the engine on the float on Friday evening at Greenville, NJ to send it to Bush Terminal in Brooklyn for servicing and mechanical inspections.

NYCH info, interested!

Dear Rick,

What era of NYCH are we talking?
Was the reacher car NYD101, or did you just use whatever spare cars happened to be in the Greenville yard?
Which loco was assigned to Greenville? Was it a regular assignment, or a rotating-rostered job?

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Website that helped me.

Here is a website that helped me in understand the operation of a car float system.

http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/

Good Source, but watch the context...

Dear Donald,

Yes, the TrainWeb NY Rail-marine site is a wealth of NY Rail-Marine knowledge and research. I know I used and relied on it extensively when researching and building my "Brooklyn : 3AM" layout.

However, as I think this thread has already highlighted,
- taking even this well-researched and presented "info source",
- extracting any "this is how things were done" comments,
- and then indiscriminately applying the same "rules" and operational practises to other non-NY Rail-Marine carfloat operations or eras

would be unwise, without additional confirmation and context/railroad-specific research...

IE Slocan Lake carfloat transfers
VS Seattle <> Alaska Foss "ocean going float"
VS MILW-era Tacoma <> Port Townsend carfloat ops
(love that wood trestle wye floatbridge lead)
VS ATSF "Alice Yard" carfloats
VS NY carfloating
(and even considering different NY railroad's approaches to the same carfloating task at individual terminals)

are each unique and intrguing ops in their own rights, each with their own "rules" and "typical operating procedures/processes"...

 Happy Modelling,
Aim to find the right info for the op you are modelling,
Prof Klyzlr

Steam era vs. Diesel?

As Prof Klyzr has pointed out, we may get in trouble  assuming hard and fast rules based on one specific proto operation but I find myself wondering if there may have been any specific differences, besides the motive power of course, between steam era and diesel era car float operation. I've always wanted a car float but I model a freelance mountain line and not coastal stuff so that's why the lake operations of the CP intrigue me.

Michael

VS ATSF "Alice Yard" carfloats

  Hi Prof,   Alice Street is one of my favs since it's Santa Fe with SP connecting in the adjacent road. That area is now fancy condos and tourist district.  The NWP also had a neat little operation at Tiburon. The SN crossed the delta on a unusual overhead wired ferry for the trolley wire fans among us.   The New York scene was so unique because it was a system of many terminals linked with compatible floats to facilitate rail delivery to anywhere in the area. The same floats could take cars to brooklyn or to harlem. It's amazing that the same design floats are still used today by NY-NJ rail, that's over a hundred years of service( IIRC the Harlem transfer was built around 1900). There's video on youtube of recent NY-NJ carfloat operations BTW. The New York float scene would be a great operation for a group of free-mo type modelers to build. Each person could model one terminal and they could interchange cars between them with floats on wheels carts. An N scale New York scene could be done as a home layout with each terminal a separate construction spaced along the walls and in the center of  the room as desired, would be ideal for the "build something now" concept of layouts built in sections.......DaveB 

NYCH

"Prof"

I was at the NYCH from 1998 until late 2001.

For reachers, we used boxcars. The regular engine assigned to G'ville was an ex CN SW1200rs.

Rick

Slocan Lake Barge

Yep, that's the one.  I find it fascinating.  

The trains reorganized themselves at both Slocan City (south end) and Rosebery (north end) for the trip.  In fact, there were winches on the barges and on the shores so that any excess cars could be left on the slip and winched on to empty barges afterwards.  We give priority to loaded cars returning from Nakusp at the Rosebery end so it is a bit of a head scratcher for crews to figure out the order of the cars so that MT's are left on the two slip tracks behind the loco while the loco, caboose and LDs are loaded onto the barge.  

I have two barges in circulation and often inbound crews will find cars waiting for them on the slip that have been barged up the day before making for long trains for them to assemble and take to Nakusp.

Even more interesting is this was an out-Wednesday and back-Thursday operation and on returning to Slocan City on Thursday the crews would often meet a second train which had come up from Nelson that morning to switch the mill.  They would then combine trains and head back to Nelson as a single train with two cabooses on the rear!

We try to model all these cool, laid-back Kootenay operations!

md