I was thrilled to see that Walthers decided to bring back a bunch of their Waterfront series. I have a layout with a carfloat operation and was planning on scratch building a float/apron but then proceeded to build the barge. To my surprise, I saw that they haven’t yet decided to re-run the apron itself which seems a bit puzzling to me. This is because the turnout that divides the two tracks on the carfloat is actually split between the carfloat itself and the apron (as per prototypical practice I believe) so as best I can figure I need to scratchbuild an apron and then chop up a turnout (which sounds VERY scary to me given their cost and my propensity to screw things up) to create the points needed to align the apron tracks to the respective leads on the carfloat itself.
Before I sent off a letter to Walthers I was wondering has anyone out there figured out a reasonable workaround to this and/or spoken to Walthers yet? I didn’t want to duplicate efforts if this was something someone has already looked into.
Many thanks!
~rb
I've been paying attention every time the car float topic has come up. I don't think we've heard anything from Walthers on the float bridge topic, though.
If you contact them, please keep us posted on the results. I'm planning an addition, and still trying to work a car float into it.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I spoke to a Walthers rep at TrainFest in Milwaukee last Nov. about the apron. When I asked why the apron wasn't being offered he seemed a little flustered and said I should check their web site. I had already done that. He finally admitted the apron should be offered along with the carfloat but wouldn't say anything more. It's almost like offering a new steam engine but not a tender to go with it. With way too much to do building a new layout, the carfloat option for me has been dropped.
Sadly, I received more or lless the same reply from Walthers that you did Soo. Basically they told me they don't know if it will be offered at any time in the future and that there are no plans to any time soon. They told me to email my request which sounded like I was getting blown off.
Also, I purchased the carlfoat from Dallas Model Works who followed up from their rep who basically gave them the same reply.
Needless to say I'm more than a tad frustrated. Anyone out there want a car float real cheap?
It makes more sense to scratchbuild one at this point so that I can match it to the apron. Just plain frustrating...
The Walthers site is now listing July 21 (this year) as the availability date for the Car Float Apron.
Whoopee!
Even better, I've found a place to put it on my virtual trackplan for the virtual addition I'm virtually planning for my layout.
I model in N-Scale and my layout is based on car float operations between Greenville Yard in Jersey City, NJ and the 65th Street Yard in Brooklyn, New York. Unfortunately I can't make use of either the Walther's carfloat or the apron that is designed to work with it because they are in HO Scale. Wlathers has no plans to release either of these in N-Scale either from what I was told a couple of months ago. But who knows if they'll ever change their minds.
In any case the Walther's apron is based on a California prototype that has little relationship to anything used in the Port of New York. So I would have to alter the look of the apron in any case.
Irv
I have planned in space for a rail barge on the layout I am currently building. The barge I am going to build will be modeled after one that I see in the Vancouver area. It is five tracks in width and can hold five forty foot boxcars on each track. The apron has three tracks going down it and tracks two and four on the barge itself have turnouts on them so cars can be put onto tracks one and five. The reason this barge appealed to me is because the position of the turnouts were easy to deal with. Going from memory as I don't have the stats in front of me I think it was 265' long. Sometimes I would also see trailers along with the railcars on the barge which could make the scene even better. I wonder how big a tug would be required to pull a barge like that?
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Are there any options for N scale? I want to model the Port Townsend area and want to include a car float / ferry. Anyone know of any good plans / photos? I don't mind scratchbuilding, but then I've never attempted something as complex (chopped wye) as this. Any tips?
M.C. Fujiwara
My YouTube Channel (How-to's, Layout progress videos)
Silicon Valley Free-moN
Think carefully about that very big car float. When Walthers announced they were bringing back their HO scale car float last year, I got all excited and started thinking about track plans. It quickly became apparant that if you have a 3-track float, you need a 4-track yard to support it. When the float comes in, the switcher will need to first pull one line of cars off, and stash that line somewhere. Then, it can pull a line of outgoing cars from the yard and put them on to the float. This process continues until the cars on the float and in the yard have all been swapped. You need the extra siding for the mechanics of switching.
With a yard ladder and a lead track going back in the other direction, this takes up quite a bit of real estate. To me, I think it would be worth it. The scenery could be a lot of "down by the docks" warehouses, and maybe a seedy bar. Operationally, the car float would be an "industry" that could take almost any kind of car, much like an interchange but with more active switching. I would build the float as a removeable piece of scenery/track, so that I could take it away and maybe swap it with a second float, using the pair as a "casette" to introduce different sets of rolling stock on to the layout.
Thanks for the update Beasley and apologies for the slow reply, I've been out of town for a few days. Now I need to decide if I'm waiting until August to get the apron. Harrumph I'm facing a few challenges on my layout ensuring I have enough space in my yard for the carfloat exchange as well (you can get an idea of my size limitations from the link in my signature). Based on some things I've read (this is a great source of info for me) it looks like the "most" prototypical practice is to unload the entire car float before putting on the outbound cars so a yard should have twice the capacity of the car float. That's a lot of space indeed!
All of that being said, the one thing I've learned is that there never seems to be any ironclad rule on anything with these smaller, marginal railroads. The link I reference above includes pictures of their locomotives catching a ride on the barge (seomthign that "never" happens) so alternative operations could plausibly be carried out to make allowances for limited space.
A bit of a departure from the original message, but felt like sharing my thoughts.
I'm glad they brought the series back, looks like an oops for the apron in the planning. I was dissappointed it was discontinued, I found an apron at a local hobbyshop, but went ebaying for another and the carfloat and I wanted a 2nd float to do the car swapping as I plan 2 docks. The floats at last price were hitting over 100 bucks in the bidding battles, bought mine at a lucky 70ish bucks and I wasnt even present to watch the biddings... buy it nows were at over 200 bucks.
Now I had ordered the float thru my hobby shop, 36 bucks after finding they re-offered it, now I gots me floats and aprons
MisterBeasley Think carefully about that very big car float. When Walthers announced they were bringing back their HO scale car float last year, I got all excited and started thinking about track plans. It quickly became apparant that if you have a 3-track float, you need a 4-track yard to support it. When the float comes in, the switcher will need to first pull one line of cars off, and stash that line somewhere. Then, it can pull a line of outgoing cars from the yard and put them on to the float. This process continues until the cars on the float and in the yard have all been swapped. You need the extra siding for the mechanics of switching. With a yard ladder and a lead track going back in the other direction, this takes up quite a bit of real estate. To me, I think it would be worth it. The scenery could be a lot of "down by the docks" warehouses, and maybe a seedy bar. Operationally, the car float would be an "industry" that could take almost any kind of car, much like an interchange but with more active switching. I would build the float as a removeable piece of scenery/track, so that I could take it away and maybe swap it with a second float, using the pair as a "casette" to introduce different sets of rolling stock on to the layout.
Car float operations are not quite what you might think.
Below you'll find a copy of what the Bay Ridge car float aprons (there were 4) and their associated yards looked during their heyday:
You'll not that the each aproin has two tracks leading from it into two yards with several aldder tracks in each yard. This is so that cars can be unloaded from the three track car floats, trains made up from them and dispatched while other trains arrive bringing new cars to be loaded onto the car floats for dispatch to New Jersey. This arrange supported 1,000 cars a day during the period 1920 - 1950 with lower numbers of cars after 1950.
Your description of how cars were unloaded and loaded on the carfloats is also inaccurate since one needs to consider that by removing and adding cars one changes the stability of the car float quite drastically and one has to be very careful with that or you'll have a capsized carfloat and blocked apron that could seriously dislocate traffic all along the line.
So how was a loaded car float unloaded and then reloaded? The following sequence of events occured. First of all, the carfloat is secured to the apron so that the tracks on the car float line up with those on the apron. Now if you're working with a three track car float only two outer tracks are connected to the tracks on the apron. The center track and the left track converge in a turnout of which only the points are on the apron. So nothing can be romeved fromt he center track until the points are clear.
Now a swither on the left lead track usually using a flatcar or godola or two as an idler to reach onto the car float across the apron and couples with the string of cars on the left track of the car float. This string is pulled halfway off the carfloat. That means if there are 6 cars in that string 3 are off teh car float while the other 3 are still on it. The switcher then uncouples from these cars after their brakes are set. The switcher then goes onto the right track via a crossover and pushes the idler car onto the car float's right track and couples with cars on that track. Thos cars are now pulled off the car float and into the yard. Thw swuitcher then ucouples from these cars and runs around them an back across the croosover to the left track and couples onto the cars that were pulled halfway off the carfloat in the first operation. These cars are now pulled the rest of the way into the yard. The switcher uncouples from these cars and runs around them and back onto the left track. The turnout is now set to allow the switcher to back it's idlers onto the center track where these cars are now coupled to the switcher's idlers and these cars are pulled off the carfloat and into the yard.
To load the carfloat one reverses the procees with the center track loaded first.
Actually, the procedures described here are not exactly correct for many (if not most) car float operations with three-track floats. It seems to be true that the crews typically removed cars first half from one outside track, then all from the other outside track, then the balance from the first outside track, then finally all from the center track. But they didn't stash each pull of cars individually on separate yard tracks.
Because the yard tracks were often the same length of the total car float, the switcher used the cars already pulled as a "handle" and pulled all the cars into a single track. With the gargantuan floats Irv is contemplating, this may not be possible, but if you look at the real-life layouts for the Bush Terminal and other east coast operations, you'll often see diamond-laddered tracks ... set up this way so that all the tracks could be the same length. And that length was ... Bingo! The total capacity of the car float.
Some car float terminals made do with as few as two yard tracks, one for the outbounds, one empty for the inbounds (and maybe a third short track for the idler flats). Modelers sometimes make these things more complicated than did the real railroads. Once a real switch crew had ahold of a car, they would rather hang on to it if possible, rather than breaking the job into several smaller cuts and then gathering those all up again.
Byron
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
cuyama Actually, the procedures described here are not exactly correct for many (if not most) car float operations with three-track floats. It seems to be true that the crews typically removed cars first half from one outside track, then all from the other outside track, then the balance fromt he first outside track, then all from the center track. But they didn't stash each pull of cars individually on separate yard tracks. Because the yard tracks were often the same legnth of the total car float, so the switcher used the cars already pulled as a "handle" and pulled all the cars into a single track. With the gargantuan floats Irv is contemplating, this may not be possible, but if you look at the real-life layouts for the Bush terminal and other east coast operations, you'll often see diamond-laddered tracks ... set up this way so that all the tracks could be the same length. And that length was ... Bingo! The total capacity of the car float. Some car float terminals made do with as few as two yard tracks, one for the outbounds, one empty for the inbounds (and maybe a third short track for the idler flats). Modelers sometimes make these things more complicated than did the real railroads. Once a real switch crew had ahold of a car, they would rather hang on to it if possible, rather than breaking the job into several smaller cuts, then gathering those all up again. ByronModel RR Blog
Actually, the procedures described here are not exactly correct for many (if not most) car float operations with three-track floats. It seems to be true that the crews typically removed cars first half from one outside track, then all from the other outside track, then the balance fromt he first outside track, then all from the center track. But they didn't stash each pull of cars individually on separate yard tracks.
Because the yard tracks were often the same legnth of the total car float, so the switcher used the cars already pulled as a "handle" and pulled all the cars into a single track. With the gargantuan floats Irv is contemplating, this may not be possible, but if you look at the real-life layouts for the Bush terminal and other east coast operations, you'll often see diamond-laddered tracks ... set up this way so that all the tracks could be the same length. And that length was ... Bingo! The total capacity of the car float.
Some car float terminals made do with as few as two yard tracks, one for the outbounds, one empty for the inbounds (and maybe a third short track for the idler flats). Modelers sometimes make these things more complicated than did the real railroads. Once a real switch crew had ahold of a car, they would rather hang on to it if possible, rather than breaking the job into several smaller cuts, then gathering those all up again.
ByronModel RR Blog
Byron,
If you look at the 4 carfloat aprons you'll note that each of tracks leads into a 3 track yard which may or may not hold all of the cars pulled from the carfloat. You'll also note that a total of 6 tracks is thus available to hold all of the cars pulled from any particular carfloat. Now you need to understand that I am working with actual sized car floats that exist today. There are two sizes one 260 feet long and the about 350 feet long.
You should also know that many of the car floats active in New York Harbor held 17 cars even in the days before 1950. So it wasn't unusual to deal with car floats as large as I am talking about. If you need to corroborate what I have said it can easily be done looking up the New York Cross Harbor Railroad which took over from where the BEDT left off in the 1980s.