I am planning out a new Ho scale lay out and I want to incorperate a river scene into it . Specifically, I want to model a lock system on the river, complete with a boat being lowered in the lock. Has anyone ever done this or has anyone seen this done? I live near the Oswego River in Oswego County, New York and will have no problem getting photos of the locks on the river in operation to build the model after. What is concerning me though, and why I ask is if anyone has ever seen or done this, is scaling out the height of the lock. The ones on the real river vary in height, from 15 feet all the way up to 80 feet or so. I was playing around with some of my son’s blocks and a scale ruler trying to see what it would look like heightwise, but, it looks major leage out of proportion.
Greetings Vin! You have raised an interesting question. I grew up near St. Louis on the mighty Mississippi River yet I never thought of modeling a major dam and lock system. My wife is from the high plains of western Kansas and had never seen so much water (as in the Mississippi) when we moved to Keokuk, Iowa shortly after we were married. We used to go down to the dam at all hours so she could watch the barges and tugboats make their way through the locks. I would think the river operation would become a model on it’s own. Time, money, and space being what they are I suspect it would be practical to either model a railroad with scenery hiniting at the dam and lock system or model the river activity with perhaps some railroad activity in the background. In Keokuk (at least 39 years ago when we lived there) the highway and the railroad crossed the river on swing bridges. The center span would swing from an east-west orientation, which was normal for traffic flow, to a north-south orientation which stopped all vehicular and rail traffic; but allowed the river traffic to move through. This activity plus the dam, which was hydroelectric and owned by Union Electric of St. Louis at the time, and it’s associated system of locks would make a hugh model in HO scale. The Mississippi is nearly a mile wide at Keokuk. I have no idea what Oswego, New York is like since I have never been there or seen pictures of the area; but would it be easier to model the railroad, assuming that is your interest, and hint at the dam and locks? Whatever you decide I find this whole concept interesting and would like to know of your progress.
Cheers,
Ed
Interesting and complex project. I would think the elevation change in the topography would pose a model railroading challenge as well. I would try to take a lot of pics and try to do an approximate scale rendering. Scale is right whether it looks out of proportion or not. A lock with an 80’ foot drop must be huge ! Most of the ones I have seen have much less, but they are still very imposing structures. The ones I am most familiar with are those on the Kanawah River in WVa, built to accomodate barge traffic, and those things are huge in area if not depth.
Good luck.
As the previous posters have pointed out, the huge physical scale of even a small lock (if including a ship or tug/barge) would totally dominate a considerable portion of any layout if done to scale. I would have to assume that you don’t see models of such on layouts for this very reason.
My guess would that the the only hope of accomplishing such a project would be to use forced perspective, placing the lock and river near the very back of the layout and modeling it in N scale. Short of that, I can’t see how it will work out .
CNJ831
What era are you modelling? When I read the title of this post, I immediately thought of the locks at the Lowell Historical Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts. This museum area “models” the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century, and it also has some working trolleys. They have a river excursion through one of the old locks on the canal system. Those locks, operated entirely by hand and water pressure, are small and narrow, and have a rise of about 10-12 feet.
Oh, so we’re talking “Erie Canal” type scale locks. That shouldn’t be too difficult, and quite interesting. I’d like to see the result.
Here are a few pics of the lock I want to model. Any clues on scaling it?
http://photobucket.com/albums/b213/Loco_Master_Vin/
cant see it they are looking for mr v’s password
B -
Loco Master Vin,
Here are the two article citations, not for canal locks, but canal boats that show up in the Index of Magazines:
C&O Canal boat Model Railroader, July 1976, page 81 ( BOAT, C&O, CANAL, DRAWING, “GEISSEL, J. HAROLD”, MR )
A basic barge Railroad Model Craftsman, December 2000, page 86
A little river traffic competition to spruce up your layout ( BARGE, BOAT, CANAL, “CONDIO, GREG”, RMC )
And here are the two citations for canal locks that show up in the Index of Magazines:
Roads & waterways Scenic Railway Modeling, page 41 ( “AHERN, JOHN”, BEACH, CANAL, LOCK, ROAD, SCENERY, WATER, WATERFALL )
Leighton Buzzard, pt.2: the sand dryer and canal interchange Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette, March/April 1993, page 74 ( CANAL, LOCK, QUARRY, “ROWE, DAVID”, “ROWE, SHIRLEY”, SAND, NGSL )
The only book I know of that covers modeling canal locks is:
Miniature Landscape Modeling, John H. Ahern, 1951, Percival Marshall, London
I’m fairly sure that with that copyright date it is long OP, but you might be able to borrow it on Inter Library Loan. I hope that one of our Brit friends will respond to your query, since they seem to model canals more often than we do.
Bob
NMRA Life 0543
I saw a layout on a home tour in Houston several years ago that had an eastern US railroad with canal locks. Took up a large part of layout. I am trying to find layout tour guide for more information. Anyone in Houston area familiar with it?
I think I found the layout with the canal locks. My layout tour guide for the National Model Railroad Month 2000 home tour lists Cliff and Shirley Cheeseman’s layout, the Baltimore & Ohio Pleasant Valley, HO, set in early 1940s. They were in Pasadena. (I have an address but I’m not sure I should publish it here without their permission.) You might be able to contact or get information through the San Jacinto Model Railroad Club of Pasadena/Houston.
Loco Master Vin,
I did a quick search in my basement library and found the following details: