Looking for track plans or just ideas on how to do this. Either L, U, or even donut plans. Max area is 10 x 6 1/2 feet, enough room for 2.5 feet between 2 foot deep legs. Interested in ferry/yard operations only. At most will have two ferrys on layout at once, scratch built (2 tracks, 8 cars) or based off Walthers car float (3 tracks, 17 cars). Have a similar post in General Discussion looking for pics and info, but this post is for actual track plans.
One of my favorites of all time is the KR&D from the early 70s MR. While the plan could use some modifications and improvements to bring it to current design philosophy, the concept was focused on cars on and off the ferry. The plan is a bit large for your area, but you could get some ideas from it. It was something like 1972 as well as in the book Popular Model Railroads (which interestingly is on my desk as I write this).
This is a recent thread on the topic:
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/157740.aspx
It contains one layout plan, which will give you some ideas, even if it’s not directly applicable.
Loading and unloading these car floats takes quite a bit of available siding space. If you watch Tim Warris’s video, you’ll see that the larger Walthers barge is unloaded only a half-track at a time, to maintain balance. Of course, you won’t have a free-floating barge, unless you simulate it with foam or springs, but to do it prototypically you will need to do a lot of switching. To fully unload and re-load the 3-track float, you will need about 5 tracks of siding space to hold the incoming and outgoing cars.
Not usually on the real thing. The crew “holds on” to the string of cars and use it as a handle when loading and unolading, often using idler flats for the first move when unloading and the last move when loading.
They typically wouldn’t pull three cars off, park them, and go back for another three, etc., etc. It’s much less work and safer for the brakemen to switch a longer string all at once.
Byron
Byron and MB
just a question. If I read your posting well the procedure went like this;
Pick one car from the left, two from the right, two from the left etc. to keep the balance. But no parking in between. On a three track ferry the heavy cars are placed in the middle.
I’ve seen a lot of pictures from idlers; long and often homemade.
The problem of needing a big yard remains; 17 cars coming in and 17 going out makes you’ll have 34 cars to deal with. When you are lucky of course. The master of the main yards has carefully put 21 cars on the transfercut, to keep his empire empty. The remainder has to wait the for the next ferry run. How big will your ferry be?
I still remember the Kinnikinnic Road & Dock Co well. (Why are there so few urban/city layouts? is an ongoing thread). I did a lot of tinkering with the hidden runaround connection; TMHO the very same cars came back to soon from another direction; staging could be the answer.
I liked both the coverstory in the 2003 mrr-planning by Bernard Kempinski about Bush terminal (NYCH) and the Norfolk plan he presented in the 2002 mrrp. Did you see the wonderfull pictures of a rainy “Brooklyn at 3 AM”?; a bit older thread on this forum.
Paul
That may be true in the real world, but most of us don’t have the space to handle a 15-car string coming off a car float. In my own attempts at to design a car float terminal that will fit in my layout extension, I’m struggling with even being able to switch 5-6 cars at a time.
In Track Planning for Realistic Operation by John Armstrong, he included a ferry operation on the project railroad that brought all his ideas together. While the layout is larger than available here the ferry operation was on a branch and may provide some useful ideas. Unlike many layouts, this one includes both sides of the water.
Enjoy
Paul
One solution is to not model the boat. Model the yard, the ferry slip, the apron, and just the rear gate of the ferry or float sticking out of a backdrop, and have that be the entrance to hidden staging. Unless you like building boat models, the main point of a ferry or float on a layout is the traffic opportunities.
Dave Nelson
We always have to compromise in the model world, but if one has the length (a big “if”), one really only needs two tracks – one for the outbounds and one for the inbounds, plus a short spur for the idlers. The inbound and outbound tracks can be curved, that’s often the way they did it on the real thing in tight spaces, such as the ATSF’s Alice Street yard in Oakland, CA.
I personally enjoy the realism of doing it the way the real railroad did, so I try to include the track length for this operation and compromise elsewhere – but everyone makes their own trade-off.
I don’t think that would be typical. On a three-track ferry, they would normally pull half of the cars on one of the outside tracks, then all of the cars on the other outside track, and then the balance of the cars on the first outside track. Finally, they would pull the cars from the middle track. The ferry/float and apron accommodated some fairly significant listing through this process.
Again, that would not be typical. The yardmaster is aware of float capacities, both in terms of weight and length. In the real world, he wouldn’t shove four extra cars down to the float operation.
In many cases, such as the Bush Terminal operation you mentioned, the float and yard were pretty well integrated, so there’s no separate car float yard needed. One can sometimes tell when this is the case, because the yard tracks will often be designed as a “diamond” style yard where all the yard tracks are about the same length. And this length will be the same as the number of cars to be handled on one float.
As I mentioned on that thread, I think the “Why so few urban city layouts?” question is a bit of a canard. It turns out there are quite a few, with more being built all the time as the stucture kits become more available. Of course, I’m always happy to see more!
Byron
hi
This was the ferry in Amsterdam, just 120 foot long. No yard problems
from Holland with love
Paul
Well, you could do that, but I personally think the car float itself is a very dramatic and interesting modelling element - a combination of scenery and function comparable only to a turntable and roundhouse, or a transfer table.
The car float itself can function as a casette, which gives it the ability to become “dynamic staging.” All other things being equal, in a limited space I’d opt for a car float over using the same space for hidden staging. Personal choice, and I’ll admit to being more of a scenery guy than an ops guy.
Just some givens to add to everything:
-
The rail ferry is to be fully modeled. I’m not just going to plop down a wood board, nail down some track, and glue down a cardboard box for the boat house.
-
The ferry has to be removable. As mentioned I planned on having it also be used as a cassette track, setting it on a lower staging level and swap out consists. I have a good imagination, but not goon enough to imagine the same consist of cars I just put on the ferry is suddenly a different consist of inbound freight cars.
-
Realistic operation. I’m like the prototype, if I have to use something like a switchback I will, but if I can find away around it I will chose that direction first.
-
Realistic track. This one is easy but a given none the less. Weathering and prototypical scale height rail sizes. One compromise is on turnouts. I can be happy using a #5 turnout where the prototype might not use anything less than the equivalant of a #10.
-
Era. Not neccesarily a given year, but very early 1940’s. Nothing larger than 40’ cars, pre-1940 AAR (e.i. 1932 AAR 40’ box car), single and double sheathed 40’ box cars, 40’ wood ice reefers, 40’ or smaller tank cars, 50T coal hoppers, 40’ gondolas. Really the only car longer than 40’ would be maybe a 50’ flat car for MOW and idler car. Power roster would consist of a 0-6-0T for steam, possibly an AGEIR boxcab (like that of Tim Warris’), and a mix of 44-70T GE switchers.
-
DCC with sound. Most likely will be Digitrax, but don’t know what model. I also have the opportunety to have a track loop going around the living room at ceiling height, so I have to figure that factor in. I will most likely be looking at something like Super Empire Builder so I can use one hand held throttle but still have a sepperate booster for the display track. It will be fully operational too, so trains can go around it and look pretty i
Mine plans not as complicated. Only a 2 track ferry, four cars per, eight cars total. The I saw it, the 44 tonner would back up to track B (right track), pick off the first two cars and pull the last two cars to the center of the track. Then the switcher would switch to track A (left track), pull all four cars off at once, switch back onto track B and pick up the remaining cars, then head off with all 8 cars in tow to the yard where it would set on a holding track. The switcher would then couple onto the outgoing consist, which has already been blocked for the tracks to get the weight distribution, and reverse the unloading process. The last two cars for track B set on the ferry at the middle, then load all for cars onto track A, then load up track B with the remaining two cars. Marc Magnuson just posted a picture in a different post (it may have been I can’t remember) of a 2 track ferry that I really liked. I’m trying to get ahold of him to see if I can get plans and pics of the full ferry.
I’m still working on the rest of the ops, trying to get them down to 2 ferry’s per session. Right now I need at least three, so this is what will keep my mind occupado over the weekend.
Your are looking for plans; so i sent you mine. Changed it a bit; i replaced the boat yard and added the ferry. Beside the ferry, the rest of the plan is fairly prototypecaly. The ferry apron should be at the very end of the old main yard on the wye.
Have fun, good luck
Paul