Large Scale Central

Tug Fork, Trinity and Western

Other Scales O / On30
#1

Ok, so looking and thinking…I’ve always maintained that the WV&K NG line is a ng feeder that runs from a Standard Gauge interchange at Pearce to a river port at Port Lavender down a narrow marginally industrialized river valley tributary. Somehow the thought of modeling a river port town in Large Scale, without a body of water, just seemed unappealing. So I’ve got some ideas!

My On30 project sort of died two years ago and I haven’t really been able to rekindle interest , it was to be sort of a copy of the WV&K in On30, so there was nothing really different about it, just smaller. Now here’s the idea! The On30 layout becomes an extention of the Large scale line…The Port Lavender Terminal Railroad. The Large scale line would end in a yard, which would be represented by staging on the indoor line. The current layout will be re purposed into a general switching layout, using the supplies and components I’ve had stockpiled for the last two years. It means lifting track and rearranging some things. I’m thinking two separate switching areas, one a loading point for barges and car floats (note 'm not refloating the imfamous “car ferry” discussion) and the other a general industrial switching area.

To start will have to clean up all the crap that has accumulated over the last two years, and I started by getting new tubes for the overhead shoplights in there so I can see what I’m doing. Thought and or suggestions for industries to include?

#2

Port repair facility, ice house for reefers ( lots of seafood shipping ),Coors brewery cause they use mountain fresh water

#3

Actually the iceing facility already made the list…but this is a river port …no seafood…no ocean going vessels…no space for a shipyard…

#4

even small boats need repair work and parts. Sail shop. Crated engines sail material. Ric could chime in. :slight_smile:

#5

If it’s back up the river, and your barging stuff down river for a connection, you could have just about any industry you want…

The general switching area could have a smelter for ore from the mountains… a sawmill for lumber… a furniture factory, if you didn’t want to haul the timber & lumber on the barge… you could have a meat packing facility… ore, rock and coal could be hauled out on the barges, along with finished products… Maybe they just found oil in them thar hills… :slight_smile:

Possiblities are endless, depending on what you want to model/create/haul… Raw materials are picked up on the G layout, and hauled into the inside layout(Staging area)… Staging area raw materials are hauled into your industrial area, and made into finished products, then run down river on the barges and car floats… Empties come back in off the barges & car floats, and go to the industrial area… empty raw material cars go back to the staging area, for refilling… :slight_smile:

If you talking about being on a small island somewhere, then that’s a whole other story…

#6

River port usually meant a button industry, also fuel and oil for the marine industries. The ideas are wide open.

Bart, you said “It means lifting track and rearranging some things.”

Isn’t that how you start every project?

#7

Sounds like bad luck using terminal in the name :wink:

#8
Gary Buchanan said:
Sounds like bad luck using terminal in the name ;-)
Quite true. The Danbury Terminal Railroad only lasted a few years. And there wasn't any navigable water in sight of the tracks.
#9

I vote for something like the Harlem Transfer http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/indloco/ht.html

#10

Is it done yet?

#11

OK so far I got a REALLY insidous trackplan worked out, part modified Timesaver (of course, every switching layout has a timesaver in in fer some reason) and part Inglenook Sidings (this part will actually incorporate the car float) and will at minimum incorporate an artificial ice company and a grocery wholesaler (both receiveing and sending out loads) WisI had paid a little more attention to the carfloat discussion at Rics! How much track should the yard for a float have? At least enough to hold the average bargeload of traffic? (note I successfully avoided saying ‘ferry’) anty really rule of thumb, and any good ideas where to look for ideas of how to model a riverside carflaot terminal? Ric?

#12

Bart asked - “How much track should the yard for a float have?”

To me, it actually seems the the car float yard should have the capacity of twice the load maximum of the car float. That way a load could be removed and a outgoing consist could be loaded. Of course to add to the turmoil, but make the balancing easier the outgoing could be placed on the float while the receiving is removed. I’m sure that would get messed up. Don’t forget the location for the idlers.

#13

Ohh yeas…I already have constructed 4 idler flats (not what they were originally built as but that they are now!) Soon as the Christmas thing is out of the way I can clear the Real Estate I want to use and the madness can begin in earnest!

#14

Ok have put a lot more thought into the car float idea…how big a carfloat shoulfdI build? 4 cars? 6 cars? (gonna need a lot more rolling stock!) thinking will prolly be cleared down to a benchwork level for phase 1 this weekend and then see where I need to go from there…would it be unheard of for the flat yard to be on a warf up on pilings? Any thoughts of construction of said warf with pilings? Just thinking I would not want to have to be reaching over cars in an exposed position like on a narrow float at the edge of a layout to reach the yard behind it…

#15

you could put it up on a wharf, but you’d need extra thick pilings and lots of them to hold and distribute the weight… One requirement with this design would/could be a limitation of ““Freight Cars Only”” on the wharf area. Have signs posted… ““No Locomotives past this point””… This might also reguire an ““Idler”” car to work the Wharf Yard area…

Another option, would be to build a ““Piling Retaining wall”” on the side where the float docks, and use fill and a rock covered slope on the non-docking side of the yard area…

With the Piling wall, the yard is closer to the car float and you’d be required to reach that far over the car float…

#16

I actually think the prototype would go to great lengths to not put a yard on a wharf pier. I think you would see a far greater chance of pilings or channeled seawall pilings placed to hold fill along shore and create width of a yard that way. In the Peoria, Illinois area they actually traveled great distance to the top of a hill and then into a corn field to get open ground for a switching yard. Shore side space is always premium.

While traveling across Missouri on 12/31, we stopped in Booneville on the MKT. In a simple gas station/convienience store, we found a mural with a Missouri River car ferry and about 3 or 4 locomotives above the beer cooler. Very little signage giving the name of the vessel, but a sign was easily visible stating, “Save a Lump”. I got the idea it had something to do with coal.

#17

Not to mention piling walls along fill is a lot easier to model…

#18

Is it done yet?

#19

Do any of you people own a camera? Let use see what you are up to, we might be able to help! Paul

#20

New issue of MR has some 4 x 8 layout plans. One of them has a pier and wharf setup that is interesting. No idler car siding and really not that close to the yard.