Santa Fe in China Basin

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Something you might want to think about ahead of time:



The iso cuts (yellow lines) leave those little greaterthan/lessthan-shape chunks of rail (red lines) hanging by only one PC board tie.
When I Dremeled the iso cut the heat from the disc popped them off and it was a PITA to work them back in.
I think Chriss333 recommended cutting the iso's from underneath (turn the fixture over).

Or maybe just add another PC board tie (green lines)

Anyway.
Careful of the pop!

[railnerd]

MC & Chris: thanks for the pointers, too.  Will be adding more PCB ties, as the guard rails need something to hold onto as well.  On the bright side, I'm happy to have a few bags of Clover House PCB tie strips handy.

Made some decent progress this evening. Ended up replacing some of the ties for the reversing sections and getting the first rails down:



Quite happy with the results so far, as I've had a chance to test the "left" turnout above with a few bits of rolling stock. Even old school pizza cutters glide right through soldered code 40 track.  Might just hand lay the whole yard using Jim Lincoln's flex monorail trick (e.g., single rail with pre-attached PCB ties, adding the second rail with the track gauges).

-Dave

[railnerd]

BTW: Finishing this crossing will be good practice for the next part of the project:

[Chris333]

Why is the float bridge like that, 3 tracks but you can't put cars on the center track?

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Why is the float bridge like that, 3 tracks but you can't put cars on the center track?

Californians are slimmer than most American rolling stock 

As soon as the rails entered the barge the side tracks spread wider, so you could fit 4-3-4 cars to fill the barge.

Here's a photo of the barge take on the deck:



Here's the loading end, empty:



And how they could pack 'em in:

[Chris333]

Ahh OK so they are screwed if they circle the globe and end up in NYC 

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Ahh OK so they are screwed if they circle the globe and end up in NYC 

Aren't we all? 

[Bsklarski]

BTW: Finishing this crossing will be good practice for the next part of the project:

Not a barge expert, but that is a SMALL barge.. either you would use the 2 outter tracks of the 1 center track. I cant see all 3 of those tracks used at once, moveable rails or not.

[M.C. Fujiwara]

I cant see all 3 of those tracks used at once, moveable rails or not.

Barge was 260' long, 38' wide (at widest), 12' deep.
Not sure how that compares to the NYC ones.

Many, many photos show the barges being shoved with full 11-car loads all over the Bay Area.

Famous story: during a storm a bunch of boxcars full of newsprint and a tanker full of Seagrams 7 fell into the Bay.
Trucks fell off and sank, but all three boxcars and the tanker floated (alcohol "lighter" than water  ), were lashed together and hauled all the way over to Richmond and fished out.
While none of the Seagrams was spilled, the boxcars, set on a track to dry out, soon became stuck full of swelling, sweltering newsprint that soon stank.

The First Quarter 2011 issue of The Warbonnet--The Official Magazine of the Sante Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society--is almost entirely devoted to Marine Operations in San Francisco Bay.
With barge schematics, track maps, & lots o' photos.
Well worth money.

[wcfn100]

Not a barge expert, but that is a SMALL barge.. either you would use the 2 outter tracks of the 1 center track. I cant see all 3 of those tracks used at once, moveable rails or not.

That's not the barge in that picture.

Jason

[Bsklarski]

That's not the barge in that picture.

Jason

OH. UM. I need to go remove the foot from my mouth. Thought something was off with that steel incline. But was not sure with the frog set up lol

[railnerd]

The First Quarter 2011 issue of The Warbonnet--The Official Magazine of the Sante Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society--is almost entirely devoted to Marine Operations in San Francisco Bay.
With barge schematics, track maps, & lots o' photos.
Well worth money.

BTW: Probably worth even more money, because the back issues are no longer available!

-Dave

[railnerd]

Why is the float bridge like that, 3 tracks but you can't put cars on the center track?

From what I understand, they switched from two track floats to three tracks floats early on.  As MC posted (and Pete Nolan could also confirm) once on the barge, they space out the tracks to handle about 12-16 cars.

Here is an early 2-track float:



The slips could either handle 2 or tightly space 3-track floats.

In the early 60s, the WP had a FOUR track ferry, the Las Plumas, which used a 2-track loading system with two turnouts on the ship itself.



Here is a shot from Bill Kaufmann's page of the Las Plumas at Fisherman's wharf:




My pictures was of the apron at Pier 52 in SF, whereas MC has posted some pics from Ferry Point in Richmond, CA.  There were also car float aprons in Alameda and Oakland.

There was also a slip at Tiberon, too.



-Dave

[railnerd]

4 rail-fragments to go...

[garethashenden]

That looks fantastic!! I really need to start building my own track...