City Belt Line (N-scale )

[Slim Rail Mike]

City Belt Line…
   
    Growing up in post war San Francisco, I have always been drawn to the rail-marine interface. So it is logical that upon re-entering this hobby, that I would want to capture the memories of my youth. SP, State Belt, ATSF, NWP all provided traffic to the many wharves and industries in the south and east parts of town. I remember the dead lines at Bayshore and along the Nimitz in Oakland, but steam power was still in active use around the Bay Area.

    Ferryboats and car floats with their tugs crisscrossed the bay. The Santa Fe had the largest rail ‘navy’. ATSF operated 9 tugs and 9 carfloats over the years. WP had 3 carfloat and several tugs until replaced by the railroad ferry Las Plumas. SP had carfloats, tugs, and at least one rail ferry before the Dumbarton Bridge was completed. The City boasted six apron locations to service the carfloats, at various point of time. Those I know of were Piers #45, #43, #431/2, #36, China Basin (later move to Mission Rock) and 25th St.  Lots of potential traffic without building miles of track.

    I no longer have the room nor the desire to build another large layout. The City Belt Line will be a series of  Free-moN style modules representing vignettes of the San Francisco water front scenes. 

WP 25th Street and Illinois Street Yard
   
    The first module will be Western Pacific’s Yard at the end of Army St. The Sanborn Maps from 1915 show a simple pair of yards that could be modeled without much compromise.  The carfloat apron and pier, the yards, and the SP and ATSF interchange tracks can fit in about 12 feet of module.
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The Sanborn Map over laided with 6” grid.

     
       You can see this, Google Earth has historic images viewable via it’s timeline slider. The 1938 image provided by San Francisco Public Library shows only a couple of more tracks as well as the fill that will be the expanded yard of WWII.


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WP Yard 1938


This should be a fun project.

[Ted Thorson]

WP’s 25th Street Yard is a great choice, there is a lot of documentation out there.  What will your era be?

[Slim Rail Mike]

Ted..
    I am not quite certain, the trackwork will be 1938. Era for the rolling stock, 1955 maybe. Before the end of steam for sure. I'm going to model the Las Plumas  built in '57, so I may have to bend time just a little! These modules can have some flexibility. Some of the infrastructure had been along the waterfront for decades, just change the detail to suit the times.

[Slim Rail Mike]

The Track Plan

I’m aiming for 16”x49.5” sections for ease of handling, good utilization of material, and convenient  storage. The planned sections are already drifting way from the target. Below is the preliminary track layout done in AnyRail6 (demo). The section frames will be build much like the plans available on the N-land Pacific website www.nlandpacific.com. Plywood frame with 2” extruded foam top. I am thinking of using  doorskin (1/8 inch plywood) as roadbed and maybe under the foam as well which should be very rigid.
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West End and Illinois st.

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East End

It seems I could do this with mostly #7 turnouts. The turnout on the east end of the throughfair track between the boat yard and the classifcation yard could be a wye. The turnouts on the apron are just close spaced not lapped, like at ATSF china basin.  Similar arrangement at Oakland and Tiburon


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Oakland

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Tiburon

[Ted Thorson]

A surprising source for SF waterfront railroad info is old episodes of ‘The Streets of San Francisco’, particularly the earlier episodes.

[jagged ben]

Very very cool.

Thinking of this
https://nscaleships.com/n-z-scale-ship-index/260-atsf-car-ferry-dock/

And this:
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=31751.0

[Slim Rail Mike]

Very very cool.

Thinking of this
https://nscaleships.com/n-z-scale-ship-index/260-atsf-car-ferry-dock/

I've admired the vessels on the site for some time. The Modeler, I believe Peter Nolan, does excellent work. I have a small drawing for Santa Fe's #8 barge. I'd like to build the carfloats. I've cut some hulls in wood and will skin with styrene. Also on the todo list is the WP ferry Las Plumas. The fleet will serve as cassettes for staging.

And this:
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=31751.0

I must have read RailNerd's engineering report a half dozen times. That is a real inspiration.

[Slim Rail Mike]

Saw Dust Time
I will try to build this as economically as I can without sacrificing functionality. I have a stash of salvaged cabinet plywood that can be put to use.  The stringers have been cut and lightened.  Most of the End Plates have been cutout and drilled for pocket screws.

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Starting to assemble module ends,

[MK]

Good use of salvaged wood!  And they look really good condition.

[wm3798]

Reduce, reuse, recycle!

[Slim Rail Mike]

I was thinking I'd build a set of 16"x49.5" modules, so they can stack and store easily. However that doesn't fit well with my track plan. My garage space won't constrain this layout, why should the section size and shape?

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The first section is that 16x49.5, that was framed today.
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The next will be a trapezoid 16" on one end and 20" on the other. The next two a skinny 8"x 49.5" for the lead track and a dog-legged section for the apron and pier with a 12" endplate. My compromises thus far lose 9" in the yard body, so there isn"t a short section with 8 tracks on each end. The other is to  shorten the smaller "thumb" pier to keep the section width down.

Purchased some 4x8x2" extruded styrene foam it was pre-scored to snap at 16", which saves some work as I'm planning 16" wide modules. When it stops raining I'll get the 1/8" doorskin that will be the roadbed.

Haven't figured out the legs for these yet.

[Slim Rail Mike]

Weekend Update:1/14/23

 Ready to finish the frame on the last segment.  Next up is to attach the 2" XPS foam to the frames.
A question to those of you who use a foam sub-roadbed. What adhesives do you prefer?

It is an odd shape so I am doing the woodwork over a 1:1 print-out. (running low on ink).
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To get a feel of the scale of the yard module, I put some cars on the hull core of the
"Las Plumas".
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 "Las Plumas"was WP's 375', four track, diesel ferry, built 1956. The only other rail ferry ,I know of, that operated on the SF bay was SP's two track "Transit". The steam side-wheeler was laid up in 1934.
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The foam is cut to size and ready to install.

[Slim Rail Mike]

I have finally glued down the foam tops. After the glue sets, the next task will be to layout the track plan on the 1/8 door skin that will be the roadbed.

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The sections stacked and weighed down

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[Slim Rail Mike]

A little more progress.

Adjusted the track plan to move turnouts away from section joints.
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Trimmed track plan to be a pattern for the road bed.
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Roughed out the road bed.
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A question to those who do Free-mo-N what are the tolerances in the standards? I ask because the foam stands 0.026" higher than the top of the end-plates. I think its either, the foam is not exactly 2" or my carpentry is off.

[Slim Rail Mike]

I am starting to cut out the roadbed. It is 1/8" luana (?SP) plywood. After it is cut then the profile will be sanded along the edges. Up coming steps paint the foam dirt color, and glue down the roadbed with loctite PL300.

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The hinges for the legs should arrive this week, so the legs can be put on. Looking forward to laying some track after the sawdust settles.