New York Harbor Model Railroading

[CAR_FLOATER]

Good afternoon, all......In the spirit of both Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse District layout, Tetters' CP Scarborough Branch Line layout, and cnw1961's NW58th St Miami layout, I though I'd grace these pages by sharing my HO-scale Lehigh Valley Harbor Terminal Railway layout, set in 1951 on the banks of the Hudson River in Jersey City, NJ.

I'm not sure how many if any of you are familiar with the locale or the railroad in question, so I will be brief in the "backstory", unless some of you guys wanna know more (so in other words, just ask!).
The railroad (actually railroads) I am modeling are the end terminals and industrial trackage of the Lehigh Valley (LVRR) and Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ). Now, without even knowing the "lay of the land" or the railroads in question, you are probably thinking that I must have a giant space in order to model a terminal operation, let alone one set in the New York City area. Well, as luck would have it, I chose a yard that was very skinny (only about 500 yards wide) and only two miles long, and I am only modeling about a mile of that total length. Before I go any further, let me share one particular map of the area in question. this is a Port Series Map of the area from the 1950's, and I have tried to circle the area I am focusing on on the layout -

I appologize for the sloppy circle around the map, but I want to show you that, no, I am not tyring to fill all the track in my basement! yes, it is still a lot of track, but as you read on, you hopefully get a better idea of how I have made it all fit.

My layout is different in the regards that it consists of only yard and industrial trackage, much like the more famous Kansas City Terminal RR layout of Jim Senese, and the Argentine Terminal layout of Chuck Hitchcock. There is no "main line running" like most of us are accustomed to in the traditional sense. My layout is approx 11 feet wide and about 26 feet long. I do not have a formal track plan (I prefer to let the photos do the talking), but I do have two basic line diagrams of it to share -




As for the layout itself, I am using NCE DCC, and I use a mix of Peco and Atlas turnouts (codes 100, 75 and 83), and Atlas and Micro Engineering track (code 83). I am into operation, so things are "scripted" to run like the real thing did. The cars arrive/depart at one end of the layout via carfloats, and the other end is a 4 track, double decked fiddle yard. I plan to have a max of 13 guys to run it (as of this writing, it is 85% finished enough to begin operating sessions). Well, I have teased you long enough, let me share a few pictures!

Here is the east, or Hudson River end of the layout. Four float bridges will be placed here (there were 6 in the real world). You can see a mock up of one in the lower righthand corner -


This yard was not a classification yard, but rather a holding/marshalling yard, so I do not need to model the pre-requisite roundhouse/engine service facilities (the real RR didn't really have much of anything like that here anyway) -


I like crossing diamonds, and this railroad has a lot of them (13) - Here's a few that really did exist at one time, crammed into a very small area -

This happens to be where the CNJ industrial branch crossed the LVRR mainline, and two legs of a wye.

Now before, I sign off for a while, I'll leave you with a couple more photos. Here's a small tram track yard that I actually salvaged from a friend's layout that had to be torn down -


And here's one of the LVRR industrial Edgewater Branch -


And one of the CNJ Henderson St. branch -


Plenty more to come later!

RAH, aka Car Floater