Port Facility / Carfloat Possibilty

Lets begin with the biggest space hog, the car-float and its companion the loading apron. Originally I had no intentions to place such an item on my layout,..even though I had all the Walthers kits. It was only when I happenstance acquired a Frenchman River carfloat at a local flea market recently, that I began to give the idea some more thought.

I placed it out on the end of my peninsula,...and it just so happened it was located directly across the aisle from the other waterfront scene I had gotten from an estate sale.

That waterfront scene already has several tug boats on it, and even a small coal barge itself.

In fishing terminology, I was 'hooked'.

Municipal Pier Terminal Building

I needed some other structures in this port peninsula. One that came to mind right away was the Walthers 'Municipal Pier Terminal'

Baltimore had a number of these same type structures on their waterfront in the early days,...and even today there is still one very similar structure in the Fells Point area. I seem to recall seeing a photo of several of these pier street terminals on a cobble stone street with rails that the infamous B&O docksiders used to roam. Can't find those particular images at the moment, but here is something like it,...

 

I was going to have my rail cars entering such a pier/warehouse thru the front door, then out thru the back door onto my carfloat. Humm, do I have enough space for that? Turns out I might, but perhaps a lot of 'condensing'. My first mock-up....

That big rectangular piece of white paper represents the full foot-print of the Walthers kit that feeds the apron, then the carfloat. As you can see, in order to get the pier terminal bldg to clear the travel of the container crane the terminal bldg must overhang the edge of the peninsula deck just a bit,...about 2.5”. I could live with that slight excursion into the aisle.

I even found that the Walthers tug boat might be allowed to sit next to the carfloat with only a slight excursion into the aisle,..

I now had practically no trackage in the front yard of the pier terminal to stage any cars that would be loading onto the carfloat? Plus I had no idea of how some sort of switcher engine was going to manage this loading operation,...pushing, pulling, whatever??

I had one other desire,...a dockside crane down in the carfloat docking area that might load other barges from a track under it. Could I get a single long track to run down to this dockside crane at the peninsula tip?....perhaps that nice companion crane that Walthers pairs up with its pier terminal??.....something like this...

(the crane in the photo is NOT the correct one, just sat there for clarification)
 

As can be seen the paper template of the terminal bldg needs to be 'trimmed'. In other words one side of the terminal building needs to be cut off. I wonder what this would look like?
 

That 'dockside crane track' could also provide some temp storage for some of the cars that would be waiting to load aboard the carfloat.

Tight Fitting

Just above I had hinted that I might have to slice a portion of that terminal bldg off,.....and that I might wish to have some track(s) extend back to a bigger dockside crane.
 

Things were rather tight in this relatively narrow peninsula, so I figured I had to get that terminal kit out of its plastic wrapping and see what its true dimensions were. SURPRISE! It turned out more narrow that the 'footprint' dimensions that Walthers published,...likely because Walthers had included the concrete loading docks on either side of the building. Perhaps I could get away without including these (on at least one side), or make them very brief.

Somehow I saved almost 5” of width over the original template I had fashioned. I got the front face of the building out and laid it over my new paper temple.

Now lets see if I can fit a double track in there leading to the dockside crane? At this stage I had to go back and firm up my spacing for all the container terminal tracks (took time to rework a little, moving the runaround track over ¼” and providing for clearance with the legs of the container cranes). Now I had my confirmed spacing for those container tracks and cranes.

I laid down the 2 dockside tracks I was hoping to fit in, and that determined where the edge of the terminal bldg could be.

I had to move the centerline of my terminal bldg over about an inch towards the edge of the deck to get that all in. This centerline relocation also resulted in my having to move the carfloat and its apron over as well.

Several good details resulted. I would NOT have to cut up the body of the terminal bldg, and I could have 2 full length tracks running back to the dockside crane,....temp storage for cars waiting to be loaded on the carfloat. These 2 tracks and that dockside crane could also be utilized to load other 'unusual' items onto either the carfloat, or any other barge/small ship that could be pulled into that dock.

I'm becoming more convinced that I should include this pier terminal structure on my layout.

Wishful thinking

Wish I had the space to do a waterfront scene like this 'Magoun pier',..

https://www.bigbluetrains.com/showthread.php?tid=8221

Port

As I said on another forum, 10 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound bag.  Too much going on in a small space.

You can fit maybe 2 of the three things, but not all three without it looking really funky.

Here are some picks of my port area.  I have a fold down "river" that is only up when the car float is docked (about 20" of a 3 hr session.)

Here is the normal arrangement at Pigeon Pt.  The car float apron is not detailed yet.

This is with the "Delaware River" in position (note the car float on its shelf).

And with the car float in position.  It protrudes out into the doorway but a person can still squeeze by if needed.  The car float is only there while its being worked, once per session.  Its unloaded, loaded and then it sails.

Here is an overview of the entire Delaware River Extension area.  It has 4 industries/facilities, on the left Richmond Radiator and Lobdell Car Wheel, and on the right along the river, Wilmington Marine Terminal and Christiana Wharf (rail to barge transfer).

The entire DRE switching area is about 8 ft long and 18" wide.

Fold Down Carfloat, or half a carfloat

That carfloat/barge does take up a lot of real estate. Wonder if I could make my mine a fold down?...or even just half of it a fold down, since my carfloat is made in 2 halfs  ??

Have to give that some more thought over Christmas dinner at a friends.

Argument for Carfloat

That is an interesting perspective,...just when I was considering reducing the size of the carfloat by making it a fold down/hide away item. or maybe even just half a carfloat since mine is made in 2 parts??

Going to require some rethinking,....over Christmas dinner.

Nice

Great modeling!

Joe

Revised Plan

It has been suggested by several folks that I get rid of at least one of those big structures in my port facilities area on the outer portion of my peninsula,...perhaps the car float or the pier terminal building. I thought about it all Christmas long, and wasn't able to come up with any satisfying imagine in my mind. I decided to get some of the wall pieces of that pier terminal kit out of its box, then tape it together to see what the full size building might look like. WOW, I discovered that I had made my original paper footprint image too small. That bldg is 16” long,...not 12”. Now I'm really in trouble,...or not?
 

For a short period of time I considered leaving that pier terminal bldg off the layout. But once set in place it just looked so inviting as a waterfront item, and one that said Baltimore waterfront (Fells Point) to me. Plus its extra length looked that much more inviting. It could handle two box cars at a time

It was big enough inside that I could well imagine that box cars could be pulled in there, then partially loaded/unloaded by forklifts separating out goods to be stored temporarily in the terminal warehouse vs those that were being carfloated out to some other waterfront destination. (might even be able to leave the roof off of that kit to display such activity?)

Now its time to give Dave's suggestion some more thought. Perhaps I need to modify my carfloat structure so that it only gets full size recognition during operating sessions,..make some sort of extension such as his? At first I thought about putting the 'phantom/removable carfloat' suspended off the entire tip of the peninsula. But that would mean my dock slip for that watercraft would NOT be on peninsula acreage, and thus no need for my dockside crane. I needed some portion of that carfloat (and its slip space) on the peninsula,...thus the 'carfloat half'. The other half would be brought out and set upon an removable extension to the tip of the peninsula.

Now that I have that removable extension piece, why couldn't it support several other watercraft that might make use of that dock slip on occasions,....like a small freighter to be loaded by the dockside crane, or ......

......another tug boat taking a break.

I had to make a modification to those double tracks I originally had come all the back and under the dockside crane, but even that worked out well. I now have a runaround on those tracks for the working switchers.

Aisle blocked?

The plywood base you have cut out for the peninsula leaves a minimum width aisle between it and the layout attached to the walls on either side of the door, right?  So if you have any kind of extension on that side of the peninsula, you won’t be able to get in or out of the aisle on that side of the peninsula.  And that aisle is the aisle you’ll need to be standing in to do any switching on that side.

It’s been said you’re trying to put 10 pounds in a 5 pound bag.  Now it sounds like you’re shooting for 15. 

Aisle Blockage

That slide-in piece on the end will block that aisle, that's true. But I am imaging that it slides in like a ?.....a leaf on a small table?...just a metal bar that slides into two brackets attached to the underside of the plywood deck?

Haven't worked out the details of this, but I am imaging it can be inserted in less than a minute, or removed in a same time. No need for any electrical connection or whatever. No power to rails of that half end of carfloat (maybe no power to any of its rails)

And I don't necessarily need to be on that inside aisle to do a switching exercise/operation. I can reach everything from the other aisle. The overall width of my peninsula deck is only 24". I stand well over it at 6'4" of height, and I have a 36" arm length (normal is 33).

That aisle has room for a mobile chair to operate from

Thats a 36" yard stick with its one edge butted up against the outer edge of that plywood deck against the wall.

Brian,  You keep posting

Brian, 

You keep posting images of what you're trying to do and justify it to us. In your mind, it's right. 

We know it's your railroad, but I have to tell you based on what you've been posting, I think the 10lbs going into the 5lbs isn't going to make you happy down the road when it comes to operating your railroad. It's still congested and based on all of your other postings, you're mixing old with new, which again, it's your railroad. I asked you on on another post what is your operating scenario going to be? Right now, I can't see what you're trying to do! 

Please take this in the spirit that it's intended. Take a step back, think of what you really want to do, write down how you intend to run your layout, whether it's operations, seeing trains run while you do other things, or more of a static display in some areas. 

Neal

watching with interest

I'll be following along to see what you come up with and how it turns out. I have a dock scene also and I am not 100% satisfied with what I have so far.

watching with interest

I'll be following along to see what you come up with and how it turns out. I have a dock scene also and I am not 100% satisfied with what I have so far.

Operating Plans

Per your question about the wharf, car float and intermodal all in one area, that central peninsula area of mine is what I am working on planning at this time. I am trying to cover this in 2 subject threads:

1) Industrial & Port Facilities on my Peninsula
2) Center Peninsula Track Planning, …..Container Terminal

As some have said I am trying to put 10 lbs of stuff into a 5 lb bag. Granted its true. Basically I like trains running thru a variety of industrial scenes. I don't care to model streets, and cities, and automobiles, etc. I like as wide a selection of industries as I can put on my rr,...and sometimes this can get crowded on a relatively small layout,....and even more so on my relatively narrow peninsula area.

I must confess to NOT being very interested in 'operations' in the past. For one thing I've not been back in the hobby for that long that I ever got involved in how it worked, and secondly I never took the time to study it so I could become knowledgeable about train switching operations. So I am relatively ignorant about the subject, (this is one of the reasons I am asking for help in track planning in several areas on my layout).

I am interested in how I might go about switching engines and cars on different areas of my layout. Perhaps if I do a half-way decent track planning effort, I will learn more about it in the future,..as I try to do some operations. I believe I have provided for ways to bring freight trains into my peninsula area, and a way for the big mainline engines to escape back to their 'facilities'. I would like to do some switching operations to get cars onto the carfloat, and to get cars out to the dockside crane, and to get cars over to the 'allied car repair' facility, etc. I am imaging that I could use that little steam 0-4-4T loco I have, a new B&O docksider, a BLI trackmobile, and several diesel switchers I have to accomplish these operations.

I am still NOT interested in waybills, tracking individual cars, etc, etc.

I think you touched on one of my primary interest,...RUNNING  a VARIETY of trains thru a VARIETY of industrial landscapes. And yes I can set that in motion with perhaps 2 or 3 trains running while I do some other projects like kitbashing, decoder/sound installations, loco and car tune-up & weathering, etc. And I have a lot to learn about scenery,..which I have always appreciated, but have little knowledge/experience with.

That variety of industrial scenes I like results in my somewhat 'congested scenery. Perhaps I would liken it to a whole bunch of modules set up next to each other,...scene after different scene, butted up next to one another. And these scenes don't always compliment one another, particularly when you are trying to fit as many as possible in a condensed area. My peninsula area is a prime example,...a pier terminal building right next to a container yard ! Even the era considerations are suspect. But I manage to get both on the layout as a whole. I really could think of NO OTHER spot to put that pier terminal,...and carfloat, so it ends up next to the container terminal,...like you might see at a module layout at a train show.

The trains I will be running are also significantly different in types and variety. In this case I am certainly NOT paying attention to a specific era. I have steam of different roads. I have diesels of different roads. I have freight cars of many different types, and eras. I have passenger sets from at least 4 different roads. I have an several different Acela sets. I have an Orient Express set. I even have a Disney type monorail set.

Obviously I am not married to any era. I like to run different trains.
 

Brian, to help you....

I read your reply as well as many other people have read and replied to you on the forum.

To quote you "I am interested in how I might go about switching engines and cars on different areas of my layout." If you're interested in this, then you're interested in operations as that is what you will be doing! 

You can 'split the scenes' with a section of Masonite painted in a sky blue on both sides. This 'separates' the scenes and gives you what you want. 

I know you've seen the images of my intermodal yard. Let me tell you how an operator works the yard. There's a pair of MP15 engines that sit just beyond the curve leaving the yard as the other side of the divider has another industry. The Intermodal train pulls into the secondary track to the right. The larger engines cut away from the rest of the train and the switchers take over. They will pull well cars out of the yard, stage them on one of the secondary tracks by the area (never tying up the main line), then shove in the new well cars to the yard. That is what you call, as well as others have pointed out, operations! 

PM me if you have any other questions on how I operate that area on the layout.

Cheers!

Neal

Neal, refresh my memory please

Neal, can you refresh my memory with a few addition photos to go along with your explanation about yard switching?

I've been looking at so many images lately I'm getting confused.

Alternative Location for Pier Terminal Bldg

There was only one other spot on my lower peninsula that had enough real estate where I might relocate that pier terminal to. I placed the partial bldg over that spot where I intended to place Allied Rail Rebuilders

I'm not too enthused about it,...not exactly a 'pier/waterside/dock location'.

Justifying Track Thru Pier Terminal

Justifying Carfloat Loading Track thru my Pier Terminal (Part 1)

Right up front I must admit this is NOT prototypical at all.
 

Having said that, then WHY did I attempt this terminal location of mine, and with a track right thru the center?

Lack of enough width on my peninsula deck,...plain and simple.

Maybe if I had devoted the whole tip of my peninsula to a Pier Terminal and a Carfloat, I could have created a dock scene like this work of art,..

…...with tracks and cranes on either side, and perhaps a ship loading dock on one side, ….., maybe a carfloat on the other side,.....wonderful scene.

But that would have left me with NO SPACE for a container terminal on my lower deck,...and my basic layout theme of container traffic ( intercontinental railroad) between the west coast and the east coast would no longer be valid.

Justifying Track Thru Pier Terminal

Justifying Carfloat Loading Track thru my Pier Terminal (Part 2)

I needed to see IF I could share that real estate on that central peninsula,..share between
a) the container terminal,
b) a carfloat operation
c) a pier terminal building

My container terminal came first, and it took up a little less than half the width of the peninsula. A carfloat operation could easily fit at the tip of the other half of the peninsula. But then I would have NO room for the pier terminal bldg, NOR the dockside crane(s) that I so ADMIRED, and were documented on that other forum site I quoted in Part 1.
 

There was no way I could find ANY dockspace (for a ship, nor a carfloat) ALONGSIDE that Pier Terminal bldg I proposed for my peninsula. My only option at that point was to locate the docking space for the car-float, or small freighter, or other type bulk material barges, out back of the terminal building. This of course is HIGHLY unusual as most carfloats and ship slips were always along side those pier terminal buildings.

 

In order to reach my 'out back' carfloat I was going to have to extend that track (that brought break-bulk into the terminal building) right on out the back to the carfloat dock. Could this be justified, even while not being prototypical ?? After all there are hundreds of different arrangements that the real railroads utilized,... depending on the geography and real estate available at each of their waterfront sites.


So here is how my waterfront pier terminal building works. I have a track along one whole edge of the terminal building. This track can operate as a holding track for some of the cars waiting to be loaded onto the carfloat. It is also setting next to a concrete ramp running along that whole edge of the bldg that allows break-bulk loading/unloading via forklifts,....like this...

...and/or hand carts like this...

Selective break-bulk items can be placed inside the terminal bldg, stacked on the floor on either side of the track running down the center. Mostly multiple forklifts operate inside here. That terminal building is a 2 story high building that might have a small portion at the front devoted to office space, and the remainder out back to more break-bulk storage/staging. On the opposite side of that bldg, there is another row of doors, and a long concrete dock that accepts multiple truck loads of break-bulk. But that side of the bldg faces the aisleway of my layout so it has to be 'imagined'. (If I include the concrete dock that is supplied with the bldg, then the structure protrudes out into the aisle by 1.5”. If I were to leave that dock off of that side it would only be about 7/8”,...both acceptable).

Certain cars and their particular cargo would require no 'break-bulking' and would be streamlined thru the loading process. Certain types of cars might be halted inside the building to be 'resorted' as to items staying and items going. The building is long enough to handle two cars at a time, with forklifts working on both sides of the cars,...then subsequently loaded on the carfloat. Some unloaded flat cars might be placed on the carfloat to be subsequently loaded with beams, pipes etc by that big dockside crane.

There are hopefully a few other sidings out in front of the terminal building that might also be utilized to stage cars waiting for carfloat loading. All in all this could be a very busy switching/operation area unto itself. Then add in that container terminal and getting those empties back over to the freight yard, and/or dividing out the non-container cars (breaking down an incoming mainline freight train) , and getting them over to the freight yard or steel mill,....it gets to be a real busy scene. (enough to keep me busy).

(PS: Yes I realize the terminal's back door is partially over that Y switch, but if I were to move it forward the required 5” , I would loose a LOT of real estate out front. I voted to leave it a little non-prototypical,...after all much of my layout is already.)

 What about putting the

What about putting the terminal building in the middle of the peninsula and the crane on one side and the container tracks on the other, similar to that last night shot. Containers could be in the place of the steam locomotive. 

Tim S,...not sure I

Tim S,...not sure I understand your proposal. Would I even still have container yard with cranes, or just a small stack of containers (  "in the place of the steam locomotive"  ) ?

Other Buildings in the Port Area

Quote:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ensign

Excellent work John,on that station and with all of your other structure conversions as well!
Just goes to show,what can be done with plastic kits,if a little time & care is given to them.

I recently came across some kits that I built as a kid, and found at a train show.
They have been released over the years by different plastic model companies,but are well worth picking up if you come across them.











I can't tell you how many articles that I've read about using these 2 kits as a starting point for kitbashing structures.
I picked these up for 10 bucks apiece.





They have some of the nicest brick walls ever made in plastic!









There! I feel much better now,that I have this plastic kit compulsion, out in the open on a craftsman forum!

Greg Shinnie

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I also have a few of these kits, one new and several used. I believe i might be able to make something out of them to fit a few spots out front of my municipal pier terminal



 

Wonder where someone would find images specific to kitbashing those older kits??

Lots of Changes

A good number of changes have occurred since I last posted to this particular subject thread.

a)....container tracks no longer have 2 tailer tracks, and no double slip turnout.

b)....car float is no longer behind the wharf building, but rather over where the traveling crane is

c)...traveling crane is now behind wharf building

d)....wharf building is slightly longer, and is more of a warehouse

e)..... presently working on track plan out front of wharf house

etc

I think I will retire this tread and put up discussions over on the other 'center peninsula thread'
https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/center-peninsula-track-planning-%E2%80%A6-container-terminal-12214324
Actually I think this subject thread would be better, since it covers the reconstruction of the deck structure on the tip of the peninsula where the carfloat and the terminal building are located,..
https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/baltimore-wharf-area-municipal-piers-docksider-locos-12214366

PS: There was a time when I was tempted to eliminate that wharf building (the Walthers municipal building). But I am so enamored with that wonderful structure and the Magoun version of it, I just have to have it on my layout. I also obtained a second kit so I could have those 2 identical front faces.