I am looking to model a small railcar float or ferry as a way to increase traffic on the small n-scale pike that I am building. Does anyone have any info on prototype operations, pictures or plans of small floats/ferries, knowledge of any models out there for N-scale car floats or any other info concerning car floats.
Cheton
Patrick Lawson had an article in Railroad Model Craftsman on a prototype car ramp and railcar float several years ago. If I recall, it included plans too. You can probably locate it through MR’s magazine listings. If you don’t have the magazine, you can probably locate it somewhere.
Good luck!
Bob Boudreau
Canada
There used to be a car float on a lake in British Columbia,I remember reading abot it in Trains (1970’s) and CTC Board 1990. The float used to carry a FM diesel with the train.If I find that old issue of CTC Board I will get back with you.They were also used on the Great Lakes.
Take a look at www.oldnyc.com - there’s quite a few pictures of float bridges in varying states of repair, your should be able to scratchbuild something suitable using these as a reference.
There were many car float operation in Baltimore, Md. One of the largest was that the reefers were taken to Peir One to load bananas. There were probably many other rail cars ferried back and forth as well. Bridges were too expensive to get from one side of the harbor channel to the other and tunnels were not practical.
There were some river industries I served when I hauled steel and aluminum that had barges full of coils that were shipped down river from the mills. It would be easy to model a suitable river barge dock for rail cars as well.
At one time I seriously considered using a Walthers Ferry as a sort of a “capsule” to carry cars to and from storage. I decided that I would treat it as a industry for the Bananna reefers etc.
Good Luck
Lee
I am building a very small 2x4 test layout with a car float operation. Sylvan Scale models offers a harbor tug and a car float in N-scale. I have built them both and they turned out very nice. The tug boat is a difficult kit to build, but it came out very nice in th end after some hair pulling and cussing. I’d like to build another now that I know the secrets to building it. The float will hold a total of 8 50’ cars on two tracks and is very simple to build. However, most pictures of floats I have seen show them to have 3 or 4 tracks. It wouldn’t be difficult to scratch build one out of thin plywood and plastic.
The last two issues of Model Railing Planning have had articles on car float operations. Additionally, there are various websites devoted to car float operations which have a great deal of pictures. Walthers also published a book about New York city area car float operations a few years ago when they released their HO scale car float.
As for the float bridges etc, these appear to have come in all shapes and sizes. Some of the pictures I have seen show the gantries as huge structures spanning the bridge(s) with a system of pulleys, cables and weights to raise and lower the bridge deck to the float. Others are as simple as a deck girder bridge with a counterweight type apparatus. I am imagineering a credible likeness with plastic girders, catwalks, stairs, etc based on pictures I have seen. I am simply going for a reasonable representation of a bridge lift structure.
I know its been a while since the original post on this thread, but hope this helps whomever may be searching.
have fun and happy modeling
L
The Sacramento Northern featured a car ferry from 1915 until 1954 across Suisun Bay, carrying both passengers (until 1940) and freight. Here’s a link with some details:
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~ggg9y/ramon.html
The SN was an electric line but if you’re freelancing you could certainly come up with something similar if the idea of a powered ferry appeals to you. A car float would provide an ideal “cassette” system for a small layout to load new freight cars on and off of the layout.