B&O RR 26th St. Terminal

[Jeremiaha Austin]

I would appreciate your comments and suggestions for improvements to this layout. Operation is a primary concern.
Brent

[montanan]

Love switching. The only change tha you may want to make is one or two of the tracks continue off of the layout for possible further expansion. Looks really good to me. It could easily keep you busy for hours.

[Doughless]

Brent,

Since the warehouse is long, and its tracks are long, it implies that it requires the longest cut of cars on the layout. If so, how will a locomotive be able to back a long cut of cars far enough to clear the switch if cars are already sitting on the ferry? Not enough distance between the warehouse switches and the ferry, IMO.

I'm no harbor operations expert, but I would think that the railroad would be greatly discouraged from even being able to back a heavy locomotive onto the ferry at all, even if there were no cars occupying it.

[Jeremiaha Austin]

Switching into the warehouse is a concern, the car ferry is off limits to the locomotive, an 0-6-0 or boxcab. I should have looked at the Sandbourne Map http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/ind....html#Overview before adding in the harbor (Hudson River). I guess I was trying to fit it onto a 13'14' foot space. I' can see that I'll need 16'-17' now.
Brent

[Doughless]

Golly, that's almost an exact replica you have designed.

I think the two tracks at the far SE of the layout can be consolidated into one, to serve as both an engine escape for the runaround and as a tail track for the switchback. I also think the need for two crossovers next to each other in the NW part of the layout could be consolidated into one crossover, but I haven't accounted for all operating possibilities to know if there may be a need for two.

[Jeremiaha Austin]

The plan is redrawn to allow more switching room for a train to be pulled from the warehouse. The extra track at the lower right is a engine track from what I've learned from the original drawings. The main layout is designed for two 3'x7' modules and the ferry slip is now on it's own 3' section.

Brent

[Doughless]

Your layout looks like an exact replica of the real area. Of course, the 1:1 version is much bigger, so each spur is probably much longer and able to hold more cars than your version. On the model layout plan, the spurs are rather short, which limits them to holding only a few cars each, at most. Just something to think about.

[Jeremiaha Austin]

I could add around 9" to the inbound and outbound tracks by shifting the track plan left. I found this photo of the car float and aerial view of the site. The aerial view is after the 1930's southward expansion. You can see how things have changed as far as track layout. But what strikes me is the overall compactness of the terminal even after the expansion south. Cars are in the 40' range.

The other question about the use of 4 turnouts in the upper right of the plan are for the switching crew to access the tracks coming off the car float. The 3 track car float only holds a total of 16 cars of the 40' length and this is in a 6-4-6 configuration. This would make the car float about 6 car lengths or 240' long. The sets of inbound and outbound tracks would need to be around 320' scale feet long to hold 8 cars each coming off the float.

Photos from the INDUSTRIAL & OFFLINE TERMINAL RAILROADS OF BROOKLYN, QUEENS, STATEN ISLAND, BRONX & MANHATTAN web site http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/ind....html#Overview.

Thank you for the questions, it helps to do the math.
Brent

[Jeremiaha Austin]

Here is the final form of the 26th Street terminal.