New York Harbor Model Railroading

[CAR_FLOATER]

Well, still no ballast "tests", but rather I have been busy getting ready for my first "shakedown" session in February. I would suggest that anybody who plans to have full blown operating sessions do this first, because you could be in for a world of aggravation and embarassment if you don't! (trust me, I have seen it happen firsthand on a certain layout that a few of you have referenced in your posts to me here). Anyway, I digress......I have been bust completing the extension to upper staging, so let me share some photos with y'all........

First, here is the elevated extension. This represents the (mostly) elevated National Docks Branch (NDB)of the LVRR. Yes, those are Lionel tressle bents! To be more prototypically correct, I should have used Micro Engineering tressle bents, but I didn't because I did not have the room for them, I didn't have the money to spend on al lthat I'd need, and I REALLY didn't have the patience to build them all in the time I wanted to complete the project! I plan to come back and weather and detail them eventually. This now has track on it and I have run a train out onto it, but I still have to wire it to the bus.


Here we see the ramp from the West Yard up to the elevated NDB. As you can see in this and the following two photos, it is very steep. In fact, a P2K SW-9 is rated at only 3 cars! Even my super heavy Atlas S-2 that weighs at least twice as much as the P2K engine (and as we all know, weight usually translates to "tractive effort") can only haul 3 cars before it spins its wheels half way up the grade. I say oh well, it makes the job a little more involved. trains going up the grade will only be maybe 9 cars at most anyway, so it'll be OK.






If you look real close in this prototype photo, you can make out the ramp in the weeds as it climbs out of the yard.


Here's what happens when a too steep grade meets a too long car - My 65ft gon doesn't bottom out on the rails, but the trucks do against the floor of the car! I guess there will have to be an equipment restriction!


Next, one more slight grade to get over the bridge(s) that cross the wye and the mainline. This actually bothers me a little, but because this way built long after the original elevated section went in, I didn't match up the hight correctly, so I had to make an "adjustment". At least it runs smooth!


OK, and onto the "island" that spans the area between the two bridges. The small "deck girder" didn't really exist in real life, but tmy space constraints made it necessary.


Due to the tight radius, I had to use a two track Walthers truss bridge to carry the tracks over the mainline, so I wouldn't sideswipe cars at either end. This bridge originally did carry two tracks, so I don't feel like I cheated. Much.




This section is elevated over top the CNJ branch underneath. I used a piece of Gatorboard cut to fit instead of an open elevated section, because the CNJ was actually located on the other side of a fill here (see map in the next photo)




As you can see, I originally wanted to use these foam wall sections that can be gotten from Scenic Express, but they are rather crude, and rather thick, so for a few other reasons, I abandoned the idea. But you get the idea of how I want to hide the CNJ track here. (you can see the CNJ branch sneaking out in the bottom of the photo)


The bridge in the last two photos represents the Communipaw Ave bridge, which crossed OVER the mainline, but over the NDB at grade. There was also tower here that I will build eventually. As you can see in the this photo, the track curving across the bottom of the photo is the wye track that joins the main just to the right of the photo and on the other side of the bridge. I thought the bridge would provide a good scene break, but it may just get in the way of hands and errant elbows during operating, we'll have to see.


So, after I abnadoned the "foam wall" idea, I instead cut a piece of my bacdrop material in one big piece to form a long continuous curved wall (I had to curve it, since I had cut the "upper deck" too close to bottom track curvature to have the walls meet at straight angles) But that is OK, (not like I have a choice).....I then took phot-realistic files of walls that I Photoshopped, and I will paste it to the vynyl "wall".




That's all for now...More soon later this week!

RAH