City Belt Line (N-scale )

[Slim Rail Mike]

     We are starting a heat wave here, so the rigging will wait until morning.
 Today a couple of gantries were made. They will maximize the volume above the lift platform.   





Another group of pulleys redirect the lines, from the corners, to be parallel with the line towards the winch. 



 Finial a yoke was formed from aluminum angle to even the strain on each line.

[Slim Rail Mike]

      Almost done with the lift.  I’ve put safety chains on the lift. Tomorrow I’ll add loc-tite to the double nuts. I’ve used a center punch to deform the last thread on the eye bolts, to prevent the nuts from vibrating off. Any suggestions for making this more safe.



All my works in progress modules.



Going up.



Up and secured.

[Slim Rail Mike]

  A little progress was made this week. Some space was cleared in the garage. The lift for module storage works. Rebuilt my modeling bench to be more compact. I started putting down some track, all be it temporary, and finial pulled a sting of cars behind an engine. Which has always been the point.
The new bench.


Module on the bench


Trains on module.

[Slim Rail Mike]

    W. R. Grace owned a steam ship line, among other ventures. The ships were freighter/passenger vessels. I don’t have much info about the company. I’m assuming they imported product into San Francisco. They had a vegetable oil facility on 2nd St. and Berry St along the Embarcadero , about a block from the SP 3rd and Townsend Depot.  It was very compact and was crossed with tracks. This is the inspiration for the W. R. Grace/ Berry St module.

   

Sanborn Map


1938 Ariel photo


Historic Photo looking towards China Basin from a pier. The viaduct leads to the second story on the China Basin building.


Historic Photo looking toward the bay.


The module.




Working out ideas with a mock up.  I’m trying to visualize the space. There will a sky board on the back and on the right side. A viaduct will hide the track passing through the skyboard. The paint can is a stand in for an HO gasometer model.

[Slim Rail Mike]

      The proposed streets are laid out in painters tape. A site plan was started by taping down some copy paper and a rubbing of the tracks was made. The street edges were marked, then allowances for side walks were drawn. Finial using an NMRA guage clearance for the tracks was marked.  The now smaller remaining space is W. R. Grace’s building lot.
 
      Now to see what will fit and still give an impression of the prototype. From the Sanborn map all the tank diameters were measured. Tank #9 was about 95’ across, too big to use. Tanks #10, #4, and #1 were 50’ in diameter, still to big. The remaining tanks are from 10’ to 40’ and are candidates for inclusion. Each cluster of tanks is surrounded by concrete walls.

   Not on the map but can be seen on the ariel photo  is a tank car loading rack on Berry St. This should fit in the narrow strip between the outside curves.

  The tanks appear squat to me so the paper mock-ups are about 5 scale feet shorter than the diameter. The containment walls I’m sure contribute to the short appearance.

[Slim Rail Mike]

I installed the missing ties in the track work, and gave the rails a shot of camo brown.  After painting I used a #17 blade to scrape the rail tops. Then the rails were polished with some 600 grit on a sanding stick. A train with all metal wheels and two center line cars was run to test and clean the track. One center line car with mineral spirits on the rolled the other car dry to mop up.

One set of points is sticking. So that and connecting the last two switch machines is what is being done this afternoon. One big plus for modules is how east it is to work on the underside.

   Picked up some balsa wood to try to use for the streets. So figuring out streets is next on the agenda.

[Slim Rail Mike]

OK! I have a new hobby. Whittling.

[Slim Rail Mike]

      Work has started on paving the module.  I’ve started on a back alley with track down the middle. It’s about 25 feet wide and will have a 3’ wide sidewalk along one side. I’m considering using styrene  or balsa. I don’t think plaster like stuff would hold up to a lot of handling and bumps a module will take. I’m open to input.

    My thinking was balsa will be easier to shape. As has been said, the pavement must be at or below he railhead. The Kato F units roll right through. The legacy equipment with pizza cutters and mile wide treads find even the slightest high spots. So a lot of touch-up work.

After this first one, I’m trying styrene, to see if I get better results.

Boomer Diorama has several videos on burying track work.
 

 

 
This pales in comparison.

[Slim Rail Mike]

Another turnout paved over. This time with styrene between the rails.  Still clearing the flange ways, using a dental tool ground to fit and a saw blade in an exacto handle. Then the paving crew will move to the street on the front of the module.

[Slim Rail Mike]

  The street along the back is working just ok, further testing and tuning is needed. The 0-6-0 stalls in a couple of spots. The Kato F-3 with its fly wheel rolls right though. Still bits of paint on the rails, no doubt.

   The front street is roughed in outside the rails with balsa. The between the rail components are being formed, from 0.040” styrene. A bunch of styrene was cut 7mm wide. A heat gun has been used to gently heat and bend the plastic to the curves. The between the rail pieces are just loose right now. Once they are all formed I’ll set them aside, and get the tracks working reliably again. Then the plastic will be added back in, one at a time.

[Slim Rail Mike]

   I do have a plan, though it may be hard to tell by the way I jump from one thing to another.  A more focused person perhaps would do one section after another. Now that there is some space in the garage, I am getting back to the plan.
   On the list is protection for the modules. The first to get done are the two free-mo-n modules at the core of the yard. I need to finish the eight track joint where they meet. More track is ordered to get the west module done. They will stack together. The extensions that protrude into the bay will each get a ‘shell’. The T-trak-ish modules will stack together in pairs, using the sky-boards as the sides.
 
    Another project is the staging. The cassettes are the vessels which are mostly done. I’m working on the fiddle yard today. The track for which is salvaged code 80 flex from a prior layout. Cross-barers are added to the yard module legs. The fiddle yard and a deck for the cassettes rest on them. Thus the staging is convenient, and out of the way.  In terms of 40’ cars the fiddle yard holds 94 cars, and the ferry and floats combined have a capacity of 47 cars.

[Philip H]

Both your module protection ideas and your street running are very exciting.

[pdx1955]

  The street along the back is working just ok, further testing and tuning is needed. The 0-6-0 stalls in a couple of spots. The Kato F-3 with its fly wheel rolls right though. Still bits of paint on the rails, no doubt.

   The front street is roughed in outside the rails with balsa. The between the rail components are being formed, from 0.040” styrene. A bunch of styrene was cut 7mm wide. A heat gun has been used to gently heat and bend the plastic to the curves. The between the rail pieces are just loose right now. Once they are all formed I’ll set them aside, and get the tracks working reliably again. Then the plastic will be added back in, one at a time.

I used styrene to fill in between the rails on my past layout and it worked well especially on curves and other tight places. Longer pieces did have a tendency to come loose or warp over time so you may need to watch that. I like the idea of balsa on the outsides as I had used styrene sheet mounted on strip to allow for a roadway crown and for curb bases.

[Slim Rail Mike]

Peter pdx1955, what did you use to secure the styrene to the ties? I've tried pva and not happy with pieces coming loose.

[Slim Rail Mike]

  I’m using salvaged track in the fiddle yard. It had been secured to the old layout with Alene’s Tacky Glue. The glue is a PVA, so soaking in water loosens it up. The track got a bath and the little bits of cork roadbed came off easily.

   To hopefully help aline the rails on the carfloats with staging tracks, I’ve attached wire ‘whiskers’ to the outside of the rails.