Improvements, Wiring and Operation

Motivation came back and work has resumed on Harlem Station. The first major modification was changing the bluish gray color of the concrete pad by a more prototypical light tan color. It was easier to do than anticipated but required a lot of masking tape!!!

It was also time to glue the steel girder on the wood supports over the pontoon. Some details and weathering are still lacking.

 Then it was time to do the wiring. With Jérôme's help, we did a minimal job here. Cleaning the rails, turnouts and connections was a real pain and there's still a lot of work to do. Later, I want to improve the wiring a little bit. But let's just say we can run train with not too much hiccups to be bothering.

The third thing to do was to add weight to the freight cars à la Confalone. Why? Because with radii as sharp as 13", normal freight cars have a tendency to derail at an alarming rate. Now, the cars all weight around 8 to 9 oz and they performed flawlessly during our first mock up operation session. Must I stress the layout is an "exact" replica of Harlem Station and that 50ft cars did find their way without problem - albeit at low speed - on this intricate set of tracks. Forget the fancy Bronx Terminal, Erie built a spartan affair without using a single curved turnout.

And finally, we enjoyed the first ever operation session on Harlem Station since the late Carl Arendt wrote about my project back in the days. I'm pretty sure he would have loved to hear about our impressions. Let's just say it is a very strange experience to be facing a model railroad devoid of any selective compression. What we saw and the miles we travelled were the real thing. That's quite impressive.

Some action during the operation session

Our improvised operation session took an hour at a leasure pace. We spotted 12 cars and pulled out the same number. The carfloat wasn't at full capacity, so I guess 90 minutes would be required if it was the case.

We had to improvised a little bit how to handle the cars, but it looks like you are almost forced to use the carfloat as a yard because there is no place to store all the cars on the property. It may sounds inefficient, but in fact it isn't. After a few moves, we got a good grasp of the pattern.

What is strange with such a small layout standing in the middle of the room is tthat you feel you are playing at some king of board game. Quite weird. We were sitting during the entire session with the layout at eye level. The weirdest thing of all was to be standing where famous pictures of Harlem Station were shoot 60 years ago. Since the layout is accurate, the panorama is exactly the same.

Return to Harlem Station

It's been a while since I had the chance and desire to work on this project. But summer is back and my interest in it too.

Most general aspect of the project are done. But a lot of structures and scenery are left to be done.

As a matter of fact, the big let down for me is the concrete pads color. Their bluish gay hue doesn't look very convincing to me. The contrast with the dirty soil around them is far too stark to be credible.

According to old pictures, the concrete pads were quite light in color, but no bluish at all. Much more a light tan. Before moving on with scenery, I'm seriously thinking about repainting the whole thing with a more natural tone. It means a LOT of masking in perspective. When done, it should be similar to the concrete retaining walls on the perimeter.

On a positive note, we will soon implement DCC on the layout. Since I started the project last summer, no train ever ran on it!

A Wood Deck for the Bridge

I finally tackled the time-consuming task of adding a wood deck on the float bridge today.

I don't know what took the most time, but cutting, staining and gluing all the individual planks took 6 hours non-stop. At least, it was quite relaxing and enjoyable, far beyond my expectation.

Before gluing the planks, I was required to glue a 0.5 mm thick styrene sheet over my original deck to get a flat top flush with the rail spikes.

Wood planks, made of balsa, were stained with a mix of India ink and alcohol. Color pictures of the 50s show that the bridge planking was relatively new and not totally greyish. Using alcohol was a safe bet to get that look.

The next step will be to further weather the planking according to prototype. Oil spills from locomotives were quite impressive!

Bridging the Gap

Sometimes, solutions are easier than first envisionned.

Last week, we tackled the problem of electrifying the carfloat and the float bridge. The answer was to run feeders from beneath to every stock rail.

The carfloat required I drill small holes against the rail to insert the feeders. Once putty and paint completed, it should be barely noticeable.

The wires were then connected together under the carfloat sloping hull. This part is invisible when the float is on the layout, so we didn't bother making it fancier than required. A male connector will make it possible to plug the carfloat on the layout bus wires. More about that later.

Feeding the float bridge required a little bit more ingenuity. My main concern was that the bridge could be removed anytime and wouldn't be directly connected with the main layout trackage. Using rail joiners wasn't an option to me. We thus decided to feed the rails with small copper wires soldered on each rail ends. Near the turnout, it meant the wire made a loop connected to insulated wire.

Once again, a male connector was also soldered to the bridge wires to make it plug-and-play. Since we don't plan to use the layout without the carfloat, all wires are visually hidden under normal circumstances. A little paint will make them disappear.

As you can see, when seen from top, you can hardly think all this wiring is running under the structures. You can also notice I  added Frenchman River Models float bridge mechanism. Quite easy to put together and bring a lot of life to the model.

Finally, we soldered a pair of female connector on feeder wires. A hole will be drilled behind the pontoon and feeders will be soldered to bus wire in a traditional way. The carfloat and float bridge will then be plugged on it.

Some progress? Yes!

It's always crazy to discover how much interest this project is gathering. New York City rail-marine terminals are truly a dear child of this hobby.

I didn't update the blog over the last months because my energies were focussed on my other project: Hedley-Junction.

However, I did some work on the layout, including some painting and wiring. The layout was initially designed to be battery-operated. But financial and technical constrains put a end to that adventure. It will be DC powered with a possibility to be converted easily to DCC.

We actually have wired the carfloat and float bridge in such a way a locomotive will be able to travel EVERYWHERE. You read me well, everywhere. Old pictures of Harlem Station show no idle cars were used and the locomotives ventured onto the carfloat. We will reproduce that while operating the layout.

I don't know if I'll be able to push detailing and scenery work as far I first hoped, but the layout will be soon delivered to Jérôme, the final end user. So far, he's been extremely satisfied with what he have seen and no wonder why. He's an operation fan and I feel this layout will fit his needs perfectly.