Car Floats

[chuck geiger]

Mark Dance, Railnerd and other fine modeler's who are spotlighting car float operations, what are the best kits for float, apron and tug? Anything other than Slyvan?

https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/22042287_1524466957633807_8528947493350528020_o.jpg?oh=f4591382d8844e94be3cdb50cff3471f&oe=5A414D93

[railnerd]

nscaleships.com (@pnolan48) happens to make models of my prototype floats, so I went with that.

I think @mark dance scratch-built his Slocan Lake float.

MC Fujiwara also did an article as well:  http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/magazine/mrh-2012-01-jan/railcar-barge

-Dave

[chuck geiger]

Dave this is great, thank you. I love the ATSF China Basin you are doing.

[mark dance]

nscaleships.com (@pnolan48) happens to make models of my prototype floats, so I went with that.

I think @mark dance scratch-built his Slocan Lake float.

MC Fujiwara also did an article as well:  http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/magazine/mrh-2012-01-jan/railcar-barge

-Dave

yep, Dave is correct.  The barges are built on 1/2" hardwood planks wrapped in styrene and the slips are scratch built from brass and styrene.







md

[Cajonpassfan]

Gorgeous.
Otto K.

[chuck geiger]

Mark thank you.

[chuck geiger]

This could be turned into Alaska Marine Lines rail barge and add upper structure for containers, which is somewhat
prototypical of the barges leaving and coming to Whittier, AK from Seattle.

https://nscaleships.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/5608bargenewdock.jpg

[paggs]

If you're interested in car float modeling, You might want to pick up the next issue of the N scale Railroading Magazine. It's about a new way to add a model a working rail barge to any layout. The article is called Building a Rail Marine Interface Mechanism or RMIM (rim) module. Nov/Dec starts the series and it's well worth the reading. The project is innovative and the results provide a new way to enjoy the hobby.

[newt749]

Mark,

I'm sure that I've seen that car float before but I can't find any reference for its build. Do you have plans or a post outlining your construction method? It is a great model of a unique form of car transportation that I'd like to add to my layout.

Rob

[mark dance]

Mark,

I'm sure that I've seen that car float before but I can't find any reference for its build. Do you have plans or a post outlining your construction method? It is a great model of a unique form of car transportation that I'd like to add to my layout.

Rob

Hi Rob...I am presuming this is addressed to me.

It has been a long time since these were built (10 years?). Are you looking for info on the barges or slips?  Plans for both  -  all of which were modified to fit my space and conditions - could be found in a variety of sources including books on the area by Patrick Lawson and Gerry & Corwin Doeksen and articles which I think appeared in Mainline Modeller and I think were written by Bob Hole.  Searches in the MR article database under these authors might be fruitful.

Construction-wise I have pictures I could dig through but I never spent the time to document the builds.  If you could be specific about what you are interested in I may be able to provide (brief) bullet points and dig up a photo or two.

I hope I have addressed your interest correctly.

md

[sirenwerks]

With regards to the NScaleSHips barge, what sort of pre-slip trackwork is required to get those close tolerances the slip has? I'd love to see the prototype. slip. And would need to find a master tracklayer to use it, but the idea of a barge op is a romantic thought of mine. Did the BN or its predecessors have any out of Seattle or Bellingham or anywhere?

[newt749]

Hi Rob...I am presuming this is addressed to me.

It has been a long time since these were built (10 years?). Are you looking for info on the barges or slips?  Plans for both  -  all of which were modified to fit my space and conditions - could be found in a variety of sources including books on the area by Patrick Lawson and Gerry & Corwin Doeksen and articles which I think appeared in Mainline Modeller and I think were written by Bob Hole.  Searches in the MR article database under these authors might be fruitful.

Construction-wise I have pictures I could dig through but I never spent the time to document the builds.  If you could be specific about what you are interested in I may be able to provide (brief) bullet points and dig up a photo or two.

I hope I have addressed your interest correctly.

md

Thanks for the info Mark. I have looked at some other builds that I've found, notably from M.C. Fujiwara in Model Railroad Hobbyist. I also found Keith Thompson's article on the Kooteney Lake Navigation Co. in the December 1995 Model Railroader. He has a small diagram of his float and apron.

I was going to use a 12"x 3.5" piece of pine to make my float. When I look at the 2.5" wide float others have done, it just looks a bit too narrow. It may be just an illusion so I am willing to cut my board down a bit. I was going to just sand it as smooth as I can and then apply paint to make it look more realistic. For track, I was going to lay some code 55 down for two tracks on the float. The apron was going to follow some of MC's design in that I was going to split an Atlas bridge into a wider apron with scribed styrene representing a lumber deck. I do like the look of your apron and counterweights and would be interested in how you constructed that.

Any advice or pictures would be very much appreciated.

My apologies to Chuck for hijacking his post but I think that this is a very interesting part of model railroading that is not very often modeled. Others may also be interested in more details.

Rob

[mark dance]

I couldn't find any photos of the barge build unfortunately. 

I built 2 barges from hardwood wrapped in very thin styrene.  The dimensions for them were taken from the sources I provided. 

I started with 4 hardwood (maple i think) planks and had two barges which worked when I was done...because of the constraints of the prototype slip design, which ran up and down rails laid into the lake to provide macro height adjustment, the design and construction of the models was very sensitive to height and angle.  Normal deep water slips would not face this problem and would be much easier to build.

Also, the C&W barge service - just like the prototype - actually forms part of the mainline run (well, the branchline run) with whole trains, locos, cabooses and all being transferred on to the barge.  To this end it was extremely important that the slips and barges be highly stable, robust and reliable as they were integral to successful operations, they weren't just spurs to slough off cars to.  If you don't have the same requirement you can cut corners in design and construction that I didn't dare cut.  To this end the structural elements of the slips are soldered from square brass tubing and bolted down to the benchwork (each by two with threaded rods that ran right through the bolsters of the arch bar trucks the slips ran on) so they could survive errant hits by operators hands. 

Additionally the hardwood barges were slotted lengthwise to receive the bottom code 80 flange of Peco code 55 rails.  These slots were cut using a very narrow kerf rotary saw blade mounted to an indexing grinder table.  The barges just fit the grinder bed when clamped down and I had to move the clamps during the cutting.  I referenced the saw blade to the backside of each barge "blank" and then indexed the saw over and ripped the four slots into the barge plank lengthwise.  This allowed me to hold the rail-to-rail and rail-to-barge dimensions very accurately but I did scrap one blank due to a cutting error. 

The pilings around the barge slips are largely wood dowels save for two at each slip location. one fore and one aft, which are made from brass tubes.  These brass piles feed power to brass wipers on the backside of each barge which then power the barge rails and also provide the mechanical alignment of the barge and its rails to the slips. Longitudinal alignment of the barges to the slips comes from pushing the barges up against the slips ... hence why the slips and their mounting needed to be so robust.

Having the barges work interchangeably with the two different slips, and the complexity of their fabrication, is why I only had a yield of 50% in the barge planks I started with!  As I said, if you don't need this interchangeability because you only have a a single slip and/or barge, and if you model deep water service and so don't have the sloping height adjustment issue, the fabrication could be a couple of orders of magnitude simpler!

hope that helps...some photos I did find

barges built first...


Slocan City slip, the first one I built









...and then the more lightly built Rosebery slip for the North end of the lake service







Again hope that helps...that is about all I got though your interest has made me think I may volunteer a clinic on the rail barge service at next May's RMMBC meet!

md

[newt749]

I couldn't find any photos of the barge build unfortunately. 

I built 2 barges from hardwood wrapped in very thin styrene.  The dimensions for them were taken from the sources I provided. 

I started with 4 hardwood (maple i think) planks and had two barges which worked when I was done...because of the constraints of the prototype slip design, which ran up and down rails laid into the lake to provide macro height adjustment, the design and construction of the models was very sensitive to height and angle.  Normal deep water slips would not face this problem and would be much easier to build.


Additionally the hardwood barges were slotted lengthwise to receive the bottom code 80 flange of Peco code 55 rails.  These slots were cut using a very narrow kerf rotary saw blade mounted to an indexing grinder table.  The barges just fit the grinder bed when clamped down and I had to move the clamps during the cutting.  I referenced the saw blade to the backside of each barge "blank" and then indexed the saw over and ripped the four slots into the barge plank lengthwise.  This allowed me to hold the rail-to-rail and rail-to-barge dimensions very accurately but I did scrap one blank due to a cutting error. 

The pilings around the barge slips are largely wood dowels save for two at each slip location. one fore and one aft, which are made from brass tubes.  These brass piles feed power to brass wipers on the backside of each barge which then power the barge rails and also provide the mechanical alignment of the barge and its rails to the slips. Longitudinal alignment of the barges to the slips comes from pushing the barges up against the slips ... hence why the slips and their mounting needed to be so robust.

Having the barges work interchangeably with the two different slips, and the complexity of their fabrication, is why I only had a yield of 50% in the barge planks I started with!  As I said, if you don't need this interchangeability because you only have a a single slip and/or barge, and if you model deep water service and so don't have the sloping height adjustment issue, the fabrication could be a couple of orders of magnitude simpler!

hope that helps...some photos I did find

barges built first...



Again hope that helps...that is about all I got though your interest has made me think I may volunteer a clinic on the rail barge service at next May's RMMBC meet!

md

Very interesting Mark. Do you recall what the dimensions of the barge hardwood that you used were? I like the idea of just cutting a slot for the rail but I think that I'll stick with laying down some Atlas code 55 as a start. If this works I plan to make another one for the Club modular layout. I'll try and look up the other references you gave me. And yes, I think that you should do a clinic on the rail barge service. If I lived closer, I would attend.

Rob

[mark dance]

If you're interested in car float modeling, You might want to pick up the next issue of the N scale Railroading Magazine. It's about a new way to add a model a working rail barge to any layout. The article is called Building a Rail Marine Interface Mechanism or RMIM (rim) module. Nov/Dec starts the series and it's well worth the reading. The project is innovative and the results provide a new way to enjoy the hobby.

Just picked it up today.  An interesting idea...

If innovative layouts for car float operations are of interest to anyone on this thread I highly encourage you to also research Riley Triggs' layout designs.  Riley was briefly (unfortunately for us) editor of the LDSIG Journal.  The three editions that came out under his watch were probably the zenith of the Journal in my opinion.  I consider Riley to be one of the most innovative thinkers in layout design though not everything he does is my cup of tea (the "perpetual mainline" dominos layouts come to mind...).  Anyway I think he is a great thinker... http://ponyrr.blogspot.ca/

Riley is interested in the float traffic and yards around Manhattan.  http://www.macrodyn.com/ldsig/wiki/index.php?title=Erie_NY_Division_%28and_Hoboken_Shore_Railroad%29_-_HO_-_Riley_Triggs His "dial-a-yard" concepts are particularly intriguing as it maximizes available floor space by stacking a variety of physically disconnected yards vertically on top of each other.  These yards are indexed up and down where the one selected for operations is at a standard operating level served by a fleet of roll around car floats (the others are stacked above and below this level when not in use).  This is a very elegant though admittedly complex solution for those isolated New York yards (like Bronx Terminal).

Riley was designing for HO with his dial-a-yard concept and lifting and moving a full barge of a dozen or more HO cars is a risky proposition.  Thus his barges are on trolleys to roll around on the floor at a standard height (this isn't novel to Riley).  However there isn't the same level of risk with N scale and I find a 10 car barge easy to lift and move between levels including re-orienting the barge to suit different track arrangements.  This allows lots of flexibility in design and you can  minimize floor space while matching the prototype.  You could envision several ports of call stacked on top of each other.  For a barge service like those on the Interior lakes of BC where barges made many stops in a run this would be great and really optimize the space available. 

Sometimes the cars on the interior lakes didn't even leave the barges as was the case at Riondel on Kootenay Lake


Sometimes there was only short track "stubs" just big enough to winch the cars off the barges like at Kaslo on Kootenay lake, New Denver and Silverton on Slocan Lake (where the tracks were fed by overhead tramways bringing ore down from the mountains to lake level), and I believe Naramata on Lake Okanagon where fruit reefers were spotted right up against the warehouses. 

All very interesting operations for sure and lifting lightweight barges of cars between levels or across otherwise disconnected benchwork can accommodate this. 

For those who worry about dropping cars, I made up a simple cover from foamboard which fits over each barge while it is docked and restrains the rolling stock o it doesn't slip off into the abyss.  In practice with the shot vertical lift between slips on my layout I very rarely need this...but it is there if I am feeling nervous.

Anyway feels like I am working on my clinic already!

md