Santa Fe in China Basin

[railnerd]

With some professional deadlines met, I had some time to get back to the China Basin project. My challenge was to create a set of modules which would actually fit into my rather compact car. This meant breaking up the design into sections no wider than 36", and 2'x3' would be best:



As soon as I had a design that I liked, it was time to print out a full-scale version to check things out:



One of the best things that doing a full size printout gets you is that you can "play test" check to see if things actually fit together properly. Part of the learning process was understanding how the CAD package representation of a switch played out with the actual FastTracks turnout templates I was planning on using— the photo below shows pretty clearly that I'm best sticking with very tightly trimmed #6 switches (I had hoped to "goose" #7 turnouts instead):



Another discovery was that the fouling point of each yard track needed to be about 1" in from where the track became parallel:



Finally, after really printing the plan full size, I'm coming to grips with the need to construct 40+ #6 turnouts. I'm telling myself I GET to build them.

[GaryHinshaw]

Finally, after really printing the plan full size, I'm coming to grips with the need to construct 40+ #6 turnouts. I'm telling myself I GET to build them.

  I know what you mean.  The only thing I enjoy about hand-laying turnouts is looking at them when they're done.  But that's enough for me.  Cool looking yard.

[bdennis]

Hand building turnouts can / is quite therapeutic..

[railnerd]

Hand building turnouts can / is quite therapeutic..

I totally agree; I just finished a bunch of #10s and #12s for a friend.

-Dave

[railnerd]

Finally had some time this weekend to get back to working on China Basin.

I have been dabbling with "war game" paints on the advice of a friend, so I took a stab at painting the superstructure of the nscaleships.com ATSF float kit. First step was to prime the entire hulk with a rattle can of Citadel "Chaos Black" primer.



I followed that up with a light overspray of Tamiya "Dull Red" paint (http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/item.php?product-id=85033), followed by some Citadel paints:



The Citadel paint have all sorts of wacky names, as it is designed to be used to paint aliens, zombies, and other action figures from Warhammer.

For this project, I used "Seraphim Sepia," a brownish wash, and a grey opaque paint called "Skavenblight Dinge" which I diluted with tap water.



Working from the reference photos, I kept layering additional washes, applied some Bragdon "rust" weathering powders, and covered it all with another wash of "Seraphim Sepia." Some details (cleats and vents) needed some metallic treatment, so I used Vallejo "Silver" acrylic paint and a small brush.

Here are some shots I took before packing things in for the night:

[jagged ben]

Lookin' good... 

[Spades]

New book from Morning Sun

http://morningsunbooks.com/collections/frontpage/products/trackside-around-san-francisco-1956-76

G

[railnerd]

New book from Morning Sun

http://morningsunbooks.com/collections/frontpage/products/trackside-around-san-francisco-1956-76

G

Picked it up last week.  A few pages on the Santa Fe, WP, and State Belt.  A LOT of SP shots from the late 50s though 1976.

-Dave

[wazzou]

Picked it up last week.  A few pages on the Santa Fe, WP, and State Belt.  A LOT of SP shots from the late 50s though 1976.

-Dave

Good book?  Or typical Morning Sun book with widely seen photos and erroneous captions?

[railnerd]

Good book?  Or typical Morning Sun book with widely seen photos and erroneous captions?

The photos here are from a single guy— so I hadn't seen the pictures before.  Once again, since this was basically cherry picking a guy's color photograph collection over a 20 year span, I'm not sure there are a ton of errors, but not too much on the ATSF.

The state belt shots are comparable to some of the photos which have appeared on Train Orders.

One of my favorite shots is of the WP Las Plumas ferry carrying one of the bicentennial locos to Fisherman's wharf. Shows a very nice 3/4 view of the vessel.  Hope to scratch build it someday.

Also finally discovered that the "dangling pipes" on the Pier 52 ATSF slip were once painted bright red and were clearly part of a fire suppression system— and they were tucked in nicely.  Ironically, the pictures of the China Basin engine facility are from nearly the EXACT same angle as the "post abandonment" images found in the Warbonnet article.

The "surprise" of the book has been coverage of the North Bay  There is a neat photo of an abandoned barge in Petaluma (looks exactly like the ATSF barges, but it is lettered for SP— even though the caption didn't note that).  Thera are also some pics of the NWP and another short line up there.

-Dave

[railnerd]

Found some new pictures on Train Orders…  now I get to figure out how to capture those details.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3451030

-Dave

[CVSNE]

From what I understand, they switched from two track floats to three tracks floats early on.  As MC posted (and Pete Nolan could also confirm) once on the barge, they space out the tracks to handle about 12-16 cars.

Here is an early 2-track float:



The slips could either handle 2 or tightly space 3-track floats.

In the early 60s, the WP had a FOUR track ferry, the Las Plumas, which used a 2-track loading system with two turnouts on the ship itself.



Here is a shot from Bill Kaufmann's page of the Las Plumas at Fisherman's wharf:




My pictures was of the apron at Pier 52 in SF, whereas MC has posted some pics from Ferry Point in Richmond, CA.  There were also car float aprons in Alameda and Oakland.

There was also a slip at Tiberon, too.



-Dave

Just ran across this thread.
Two things strike me about the barge pictured - (1) It's short and (2) There's a lot of freeboard (both comments are relative to the East Coast floats which I'm far more familiar with).
Curious if it sits as high out of the water as the Chesapeake Bay floats which operated for all intents and purposes in open water.

Cool thread, enjoying it.
Marty McGuirk

[Spades]

Just ran across this thread.
Two things strike me about the barge pictured - (1) It's short and (2) There's a lot of freeboard (both comments are relative to the East Coast floats which I'm far more familiar with).
Curious if it sits as high out of the water as the Chesapeake Bay floats which operated for all intents and purposes in open water.

Cool thread, enjoying it.
Marty McGuirk
[/quote]

From all photographic evidence, floats sit high and a lot of exposed freeboard. http://wplives.com/operations/marine.html  and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_Railroad_Tugboats  Open water as in on the ocean with all its physical conditions?  SF Bay is open water in that sense, but gobs of nav aids.

Greg

[CVSNE]

From all photographic evidence, floats sit high and a lot of exposed freeboard. http://wplives.com/operations/marine.html  and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_Railroad_Tugboats  Open water as in on the ocean with all its physical conditions?  SF Bay is open water in that sense, but gobs of nav aids.

Greg

Greg,
I see that. I meant this floats appear to have much more freeboard than those that operate in NYC.
Knowing the transit distances possible in the SF Bay area that doesn't surprise me. I was drawing a comparison to the open water requirements on the Cape Charles - Little Creek Va float operation - which is 30 miles or so of open water.
Number of nav aids doesn't really matter with regards to whether something is open water or not.
Marty

[railnerd]

Had a chance to work on paper mock-ups for the "business end" of the ATSF slip.  Initial paper models were a bit too small, and didn't have enough clearance, but after working with the "full scale" drawings and my NMRA gauge, I think I have the right "look":



Spent some time learning how to vaporize laser board at the TechShop— it is going to take a few more hours to learn what I can get away with.  Here is a look at what happens when you try and cut things that are a bit too small:



Planning on going back for more learning/punishment next weekend to dial in the settings and tweak the CAD a bit.