Jay Street Connecting Railroad

[timwatson]

So I've been really intrigued lately to get to know the Jay Street Connecting Railroad. This is a contract carrier so the ability to model lots of roads on one layout is appealing to me. It is also has a TON of street running in Brooklyn New York between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan bridge. That right there is almost reason enough to model this prototype. One of the coolest things about this experiment has been that most of the buildings that were there in 1939 are still there today so I got the wild a$$hat idear to try to use a map I found on the Phil Goldstein site along side Google Street view.

The results are way cool I think.



I'm seriously considering modeling this little urban railroad because of all the cool stuff it's got involved in it but I had to share this with the technically minded model railroader folks.

The map images are of the current Dumbo Brooklyn area with Google street view and I oriented the map so north was down because I believe that will be the orientation I will use when modeling this. So right now this is a trackplan/concept. The street view options use the new-ish 45 degree angle imagery which I screen shotted and placed on the 1944 Port Authority map. The port Authority map was really quite a bit off on the width so I fixed that in Photoshop while placing the images of the screenshotted buildings on it as well.

The full size version one is really a better version since you can do a virtual walkthrough of the area "on paper". It's here http://www.flickr.com/photos/nscalerail/9245252525/sizes/o/in/photostream/ but all in all an interesting way to model a track plan?

I'd love some feedback on making an actual model railroad out of this now. I'd love to get as much as I can into it but I think foreshortening is a must. Thoughts?

[Philip H]

I think there's a lot of cool railroading stuffed in there. In N scale you'd probably still need to cut th numbe of tracks to get something reasonable size wise.

[timwatson]

I forgot to mention a really good base measurement is provided via the Brooklyn Bridge. It is 85' wide (and pretty much has been since the victorian era). Just an FYI.

Also all belgian block streets and no sidewalks -- whaaa??
Yep only place in the whole city (NYC) where the tracks ran where sidewalks would be (and the sidewalks were just more street).
Crazy cool stuff right there. On the uniqueness scale of this RR is an 11.

Oh yeh one more thing - It would be N scale.

[S Class]

OH GOD YES.

Seriously I love that site and your concept, I cannot wait for the planets to allow something similar for me.
I look forward to seeing this progress.

[Lemosteam]

Super COOL! How big would the layout be in N scale?

[Lemosteam]

Super COOL! How big would the layout be in N scale?  I see an RP Brooklyn Bridge in your future!

[timwatson]

How Funny John I was thinking the exact same thing. RP 3d Brooklyn bridge. Sheez fun stuff what an age we live in huh?

No idea on size yet I'll take and post some pics of my modular benchwork concept in a bit.

If scaling the map to 1:1 in n scale the size of the map would be 230" x 100" (~19'x8' - I don't have room for that). If modeling the Jay street yard solely at full size you would need to put it on a 4x8" piece of plywood. Please see the pic.

So I hope that helps some more.

[timwatson]

Here are the examples of the type of benchwork I have in mind. I call it the "C" style benchwork (based loosely off an English or Australian modular concept). It's a 2'x2' piece of ply cut into a square c shape and then splined. The fascias and skyboard give it rigidity and it attaches to the wall on a cleat. It's fairly light and is very portable. It's sectional but the benchwork is modular (there has been much adieux about the difference between the 2 lately).

[timgill]

I'm really intrigued by the 'C' benchwork idea. How do you attach the c-forms to the cleats?

[timwatson]

Hey Tim, I attach the backer boards and cleats to the "C" shapes by gluing and punching in small finish nails with my finish nailer. There isn't much weight in the bench work overall. You could also screw the cleat and backer board to the frame. The plywood used is 1/2" or maybe even 3/8". There is enough meat in the end of the board to make a solid connection. The front fascia/valance are glued and finish nailed as well. The cleat is what you square against. this way you know that your C's will always be perpendicular to the wall (which is what we want). I like this system alot because its flexible. If you need a wide modeling spot scab onto the C and then extend the top and the bottom fascia/valance boards out. Wanna do spline roadbed leave the foam off and attach the risers to lower portion of the C's.

I love the shadow box look and that's where this is going to end up. Lighting and fascias are built in and it's all built in 4' sections. So not modular but sectional. Take it with you and leave minimal holes in your walls to patch later. Reusability was what I was after with this.

I posted some more examples http://www.flickr.com/photos/nscalerail/sets/72157634574668227/. I've been working on a small version of this "C" idea in a ttrak module format.

Here is an illustration of how it's put together.

[Philip H]

Nice drawing.  Cleats are becoming more popular for installing cabinets, so why not here?

Do you have any longitudinal stringers on the bottom of the C's, or is the Fascia and cleat enough to keep the C's square and stable?

[timwatson]

Phillip that's a great reminder yes there are offset bridging blocks in the top. But no longitudinal braces on the bottom. I will update my drawing to show those on the top.

Yeh a woodworking magazine is where I got the cleat idea from. It's how they were mounting workbench cabinets.

[wazzou]

I like this idea.  It looks like you could do a second deck with an "E" instead of a "C".

[timwatson]

Yup you definitely could. If it gets too tall the cleat may have issues holding the extra weight but I'll let someone else test that idea. In theory though its very doable.

Look ma, my shelf, she floats!

[wazzou]

A guy could just use two cleats, I would think.