Interesting layout concept

[Erik W]

I was flipping through Kalmbach's 48 Top-Notch Track Plans and liked the track plan for the switching layout on page 34, Russell D. Shoof's Grand Bay & Northern.  It's a small switching layout that features a small yard, a handfull of industries, several piers (including a bulk loading pier) and a detachable car float (holds 8 cars) used for staging.  It has a tangle of urban track which actually appears realistic for the type of setting it's in.  In essence, it appears to be a good "generic" fit for a New York/New Jersey harbor switching layout in the '40s or so.  I also stumbled upon a photo of some Lakawanna steam tugs in the '50s in a recent Classic Trains issue.  I know some of the RRs in that area also had tug fleets.  My question is, what railroads would be a good fit for this type of operation, one that operated in that area and also had car floats and tugs, etc?

Thanks,
Erik

[asciibaron]

what railroads would be a good fit for this type of operation, one that operated in that area and also had car floats and tugs, etc?

http://sbiii.com/mappix/nyharbpi.jpg

LV, D&LW, CNJ, PRR, NYC, Erie, Reading

and more modern:

http://www.trainweb.org/AbandonedLIRR/NYCH.htm

[Bob Bufkin]

Stever covered the east coast fairly well.  New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore are good locals for this type of operation.  On the west coast SP had this type of operations in Oakland and San Francisco.  Also Seattle some with car floats to Bremerton and other places, either NP or GN, forget which.

[Chris333]

You can read about all the NYC harbor RR's here:
http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/IndustrialLocos.html

[wazzou]

Stever covered the east coast fairly well.  New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore are good locals for this type of operation.  On the west coast SP had this type of operations in Oakland and San Francisco.  Also Seattle some with car floats to Bremerton and other places, either NP or GN, forget which.

The WP had car floats in the bay area.
The Milwaukee and UP had car floats in Seattle area, not NP or GN although they did some switching on the pier. 

[Andrew Hutchinson]

GN also had the Delta Alaska Terminal (DAT) on the Surrey/Delta BC border, or near Brownsville on the railroad. It was a huge car ferry with a lot of trackwork inside. I just saw a picture of the light blue switcher not long ago. A friend of mine had scribbled "sun" through the dust on the cab side after the D A T lettering. One of the local photogs picked up on it. There was also some company literature about the ferry on Ebay until this evening.

All of the railroads in town (Vancouver) had barge access of one kind or another.

Andrew Hutchinson

[wm3798]

I did a small design for a harbor scene/urban warehouse district thing.  It's definitely a rough draft, but it's a good start.


There's some grade/clearance issues that could be worked out with a few more feet of run on one side of the L or the other.

Lee

[Blazeman]

If you are in or near SE PA, Steve Salotti has an HO layout depicting the NYSW in 1948. He has an area of pier operation under construction.