Moving Forward

I put the project on the ice for the last weeks while waiting for my PECO turnouts from England. For the time being, I went back to the club layout to build up a switchlist system and do some operation. Man! Were have I been all these years. Lots of fun switching a 10-car freight train on a shelf layout. I don't see any needs for an extension. The average operation session last 1h30. I expect similar complexity from the Harlem Terminal. If your interested in our club layout, just take a look at my new blog dedicated to Hedley Junction. I've already written a few articles documenting the building process. I will post them from time to time.

Then last week, I've been hospitalized for the third time this year. An other week of work went down the drain just before Christmas, hitting hard on the hobby funds again. Anyway, I received my PECO turnouts so I'm ready to move on with Harlem Station.

Finally, I decided to keep my original benchwork. I don't have the funds to buy cabinet grade plywood and fancy things as I wished initially. The 5' x 6' layout is too large for my needs, so the compressed setting will fit the bill nicely. Nothing's lost however since I hope my design work will inspire someone to do it full-size. Sometimes, the first idea is still the best.

Next will be to build the water-level benchwork and cut the homasote sub roadbed. I'll also try to snatch the club's Walthers carfloat that is currently gathering dust in the storage room.

Layout Planning : A Never Ending Process

I’ve gone through several attempts before the final layout plan. Design process is mainly a succession of iterations, almost like resolving an integral calculus in mathematics.

In August of 2010, I dismantled the St. Achillée Branchline layout. Though it’s been an

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interesting way to experiment, it was going nowhere and was laying unused in my friend’s cramped garage. At the same time, I found out about Jack Trollope’s 149th Street Harlem Station layout on Carl Arendt’s Micro/Small Layouts #97 Scrapbook.

The following week, I made a quick mock up on the old 4 feet x 5 feet layout benchwork, which proportions were similar to the real Harlem terminal when scaled down to 1/87. However, using normal #4 turnouts was not a space effective solution. Clearly, PECO Setrack curved turnouts would have to be used to achieve a prototypical and enjoyable layout. Also, at that time, my understanding of this terminal was marginal and I was still confused about the 1928 freighthouse and its subsequent expansion in the 1950’s.

In October of 2010, I followed Jack Trollope’s building process on RMweb. I was surprised that he could manage a lot of operation out of his heavily compressed interpretation. A short discussion with him encouraged me to try to build it with more realistic proportions.

The first draft was on a parallelogram benchwork. Trackwork was looking awkward and I didn’t like the carfloat position.

The second draft was better because I tried to reinterpret the real property polygonal nature. Things were starting to look like the prototype and the slight angle helped to get most of the sidings in place. I could also fit a full-size version of the 1928 freight house, an important condition to get a “sense of the place”. This version was shown on Micro/Small Layoutst's mid-November #103a Scrapbook.

From this draft, I generated a CAD drawing that I plotted full-size on paper.

I dismantled the remains of the old benchwork, sawn the 2”x3” lumbers in halves and built the new benchwork accordingly.

Working with a CAD drawing was a blessing, each lumber fitting exactly the odd angles.

But quickly, I found out I was too quick to move from design to construction. I overlooked the fact that the protruding carfloat would be a real nuisance while operating the layout.

I stopped the building process there and came back to design after a short discussion with other modellers on MRR’s forum. Looks like my compressed version raised pertinent questions. However, I still believe it is an excellent alternative to the prototype.

Following this discussion, I decided to go full-size and incorporate the carfloat and tugboat into the layout. The previous compression was so little it was meaningless. I could afford to expand the layout a little bit. Also, I decided to design the layout in two parts as I already pointed out to Jack in a previous email. This will make it easier to move and install in the layout room. The benchwork is going to be largely inspired by Tim Warris’ CNJ Bronx Terminal.

I imported the 1928 G. W. Bromley map in AutoCAD and I redrawn the entire layout full-size. By chance, most of the trackage could be reproduced realistically with PECO Setrack components. The slight difference isn't worth, even for a rivet-counter. The smallest radius is around 14” (100 feet), which seems to be an average for all the Bronx rail-marine terminals (there was 87 feet radius curves in Harlem Transfer). And don't mind, most HO scale rolling stocks under 50' should run freely through these curves. Here you can see the final layout plan.

While drawing it, I found out many discrepancies between the map and historical pictures. For example, the left-most siding wasn’t curved but straight. The oldest pictures never show two sidings right to the carfloat, which is normal since the left one near the pier wouldn’t be accessible. It seems 3 sidings were always under the gantry crane at all epoch, at least since the gantry crane was built (which date isn’t specified). The following map show you the discrepancies: in blue are the real trackage, in red are errors.

Habitually, fire insurances maps can be trusted for buildings, but they can be a little bit interpretative when reproducing railway trackage. With some reservations, I tried to reproduce the terminal as it looked circa 1928-1952.

I also started to redraw the 1928 freight house. The main dimensions were taken from the G. W. Bromley map and comparative estimation from pictures. I used boxcar standard dimensions to estimate many components on the building. As a junior architect, I often have to interpret pictures into building plans, from iron-clad shed to rural Catholic church. The following drawing is only a draft and will still need interpretation and adjustment, mainly for the dark side of the freight house on 150th Street, which is never pictured on historical photographs.

Prototypically small

Small real estate property, simple yet entertaining trackage, realistic operation and opportunities to scractchbuild and superdetail structures and rolling stocks are the most interesting features Erie Harlem Station can offer to the model railroader. No wonder this fascinating rail-marine freight terminal in the Bronx, NY, caught my eye.

Since my childhood, space availability have been the major obstacle to my model railroading ambitions. I've always been living in cottages with steeped roof and damp basements, keeping my dreams thightly contained on a 4'x4' plywood sheet. Large railroad empires quicky bore me to death. Furthermore, I'm quite the bipolar type modeller you encounter frequently in this hobby. I mean, I can deploy extravagant amounts of energy in a short lap of time, then fell absorbed quickly by another endeavour the following week, day or hour... With a small layout, there's more chance I'll complete things accordingly.

Roughly 487 feet by 350 feet, the entire property can be reproduced at full-size in HO scale on a 6 feet by 5 feet layout with track radius around 14 inches. For this reason, Harlem Station is the perfect deal for me, small enough to fit my available space but full of personality. This small freight terminal operated from 1927 to 1969 on the shore of Harlem River. It was the most spartan rail terminal built in the Bronx, far less glamour than the CNJ Bronx Terminal. You can find plenty of informations about it at http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/indloco/errhs.html. This interesting website is my main reference for this project.