exPalaceDog wrote: tomikawaTT wrote: You pulled my New York-bred teeth by stating that you had deliberately chosen not to model the car float connection. FWIW, multiple car floats make great staging devices, but that's your call.Not only that, but car floats are a Great way to "connect" multiple levels on a layout. This design is basically a shelf that would allow the room to be used for other functions especially if mounted fairly high. Be going to multiple levels could cut the space requirements even more, if desired.
tomikawaTT wrote: You pulled my New York-bred teeth by stating that you had deliberately chosen not to model the car float connection. FWIW, multiple car floats make great staging devices, but that's your call.
You pulled my New York-bred teeth by stating that you had deliberately chosen not to model the car float connection. FWIW, multiple car floats make great staging devices, but that's your call.
Not only that, but car floats are a Great way to "connect" multiple levels on a layout. This design is basically a shelf that would allow the room to be used for other functions especially if mounted fairly high. Be going to multiple levels could cut the space requirements even more, if desired.
And that would have been a good point, except that the rule framework I tried to stay within limited the amount of shelf available to what could be cut out from a 4x8 piece of plywood.
But by all means - here is a variety of Brooklyn Terminal Railroad plan that uses a car float for staging instead of having the South Brooklyn RR yard for staging.
Costs me one industry, but I could have lived with that, if I was actually building this plan.
Smile, Stein
tomikawaTT wrote:As I recall, Brooklyn had a Navy Yard (HUGE - They built battleships and carriers there.) I don't recall an Army base, but as a teenager I wouldn't have been looking for it.
As I recall, Brooklyn had a Navy Yard (HUGE - They built battleships and carriers there.) I don't recall an Army base, but as a teenager I wouldn't have been looking for it.
You recall correctly! While the Old Dog would NOT advise trying to model the navy yard itself, including an interchange with the yard could make for a destination for many types of interesting loads such as marine boilers, marine engines, marine turbines, ordnance, and so on.
Have fun
SpaceMouse wrote:And why aren't you entering this?
Mainly because of how I am motivated. In the simplified world of Myers-Briggs personality testing my preferences tend to end up in the category described as INTJ - I tend to be more interested in arriving at a design I am happy with myself than in winning bragging rights from others.
Since layout design is an iterative process, I would rather get maybe half a dozen comments and suggestions for improvements, and be able to incorporate some of the improvements suggested, than have maybe 40-50 voters rate the initial draft of the plan relative to several other plans.
Thus far I have gotten five or six interesting comments. One of the comments made me do more research on Brooklyn Army Terminal plus other railroads and float operations in Brooklyn in the 1940s and 50s. Brooklyn is a really fascinating place. As is most places I have researched in some way.
Three of the comments I have received thus far made me change the layout in three ways that improved the plan - providing more depth for the pier area, adding a runaround by the 1st Avenue yard, and changing the industry tracks to the warehouses on 1st Avenue so I didn't use one industry's track as a switchback to reach the loading dock for another industry.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
More advice received by email:
The 1st Avenue yard area (bottom of layout) have issues about running around cars and interchange.
There is a lot of space for interchange (22 cars on the three track staging area to the right of the 1st Avenue yard, plus room for 7-8 cars on the track labelled F in the yard area.
At the same time, runarounds down here in the yard area will be difficult - one either has to use the tracks by the warehouses (along bottom wall), which is hard to do when there are cars loading or unloading here, or use the short diagonal runaround in the yard, which only fits one car if you don't want to couple or uncouple in a curve:
Also, the two middle industries along the bottom edge (labelled K and L in the drawing above) are hard to switch, since we need to use the tracks for industries J or M as a switchback lead to switch industries K and L.
Suggested modifications:
1) Add a runaround long enough to comfortably run around at least three cars between the track labelled F and the bottom rightmost 1st Avenue yard track (red turnouts on right side of drawing below).
2) Create a new spur leading to industries K and L. This spur will cross the spur to industry J in a crossing in the middle of 1st Avenue (red turnout and crossing on left side of drawing below).
And then just use the three tracks on the extreme right of the layout as a visible interchange yard with room for a maximum of 22 cars (but normally holding less than 70% of that - ie 15 cars or fewer):
Sounds like an improvement to me. Thank you to the person who suggested this change.
Any other suggestions or comments ? In public here in the forum, or by email or PM, whichever way you guys prefer.
steinjr wrote: The 4x8 sheet of plywood has been cut like this: And reassembled like this:Parts A and B forms the 11 foot long by 18" deep 1st Avenue Yard Area (lower wall)Part C forms the 8 foot long by 10" deep pier area (along the left wall)Parts D and E forms the 40" wide by 8" deep pier 32 (w/8x10" piece for corner)Parts F and G forms the 64" wide by 10" deep South Brooklyn RR staging yard
The 4x8 sheet of plywood has been cut like this:
And reassembled like this:
It has been pointed out to me by email that if I cut the sheet slightly differently, I can use all of it:
This would make the shelf with the piers (part C) along the left wall 2" deeper, the pier at the top 2 inches longer, and the staging part 4" longer.
Only thing that gets smaller is the corner piece between the left and top parts of the layouts - that goes down from 10x8" to 8x8". But that's no pain when the left shelf has gotten 2" wider. I can even cut that 8x8" piece diagonally into two triangles, and use one triangle for each corner along the left wall.
Thanks for the tip!
Sorry about causing pain to New Yorkers like you. I agree that car floats are interesting, but I wanted to have more industrial switching. So it is a combination of prototype based and freelanced.
tomikawaTT wrote: As I recall, Brooklyn had a Navy Yard (HUGE - They built battleships and carriers there.) I don't recall an Army base, but as a teenager I wouldn't have been looking for it.
Brooklyn Navy Yard is close to Brooklyn Bridge, right ?
NYCH RR 1st Avenue Yard (and the car floats) is at 1st Avenue and 47th Street: http://tinyurl.com/2s39qb
Bird's eye view: http://tinyurl.com/2vlmt6
Brooklyn Army Terminal is two big buildings at 2nd Avenue and 60th Street: http://tinyurl.com/3aoco6
Bird's eye view of BAT and tracks south of BAT: http://tinyurl.com/2q3dq9
Smile,Stein
tomikawaTT wrote: I don't recall an Army base, but as a teenager I wouldn't have been looking for it.
I don't recall an Army base, but as a teenager I wouldn't have been looking for it.
See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Army_Terminal
-G-
Chuck (native New Yorker modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Looks good!
I'm afraid I can't offer critique because i have none! My strengths are not layout planning!
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot Visit my blog! http://becomingawarriorpoet.blogspot.com
Hi --
SpaceMouse is arranging a new layout design contest. I am not going to enter the contest this time. But since there seemed to be quite a bit of discussion on how the contest rules should be interpreted, I decided to try to do a quick design of a layout that I believe conform to the rules and just post the proposal here to perhaps generate some discussion and possibly inspire more people to join the contest.
I would love to get some feedback on this plan - problems, things that could be improved etc.
As always - click on pictures to see larger version, right click and chose "open in new window" (or whatever your web browser calls it) to pop up a link without losing this web page.
The layout is a J shaped industrial switching layout in H0 scale. I have named the layout Brooklyn Terminal Railroad.
The design is inspired by the New York Cross Harbor Railroad (NYCH RR)'s Bush Terminal in Brooklyn, NYC, as described by Bernard Kempinsky in Model Railroad Planning 2003, but it is not strictly based on the prototype.
The design of the yard tracks for first Avenue Yard is based on a cut down and modified version of Bernie's N scale design in MRP 2003.
I have chosen to not model the car floats which were such a distinct part of the Bush Terminal, and instead use the space along the left wall for a freelanced pier area.
The "peninsula" with pier 32 (labelled industry B in the layout plan) was inspired in concept by a far better executed peninsula on Chuck Hitchcock's awe inspiring Argentine Industrial District Railway. The AIDRY was probably as good as it gets when it comes to industrial switching layouts.
Here are some closeups of the two wings of the layout:
First Avenue Yard:
Pier Area:
Any comments or suggestions for improvements ?