Slight changes

29 August 2013

A slight change, but noteworthy. I have moved the center peninsula about a foot to the left in order to get more room in the vital area of the layout at the HBS yard. I should end up with ample aisle width in that area to make operators more comfortable. This also reflects the removal of the full-blown Erie yard and RO-RO in favor of just the interchange tracks and more comfortable HBS Yard. This was inspired by Lance Mindheim's observations of operating at Holt's and Barrow's layouts earlier this month.

I will probably reduce the size of the Holland America docks as well, but I'm not worrying about that aisle for a while.That is where the guest bed will be placed as well (may end up being a blow-up king size mattress.)

If you navigate to the Layout Plan page, it is fun to flip through the plans like a flip book which will "animate" the evolution of the plan, especially the last two to see the subtle changes.

HBS Yard Change

Plan showing areas of reconsideration

Proposed changes in track arrangement

Sometimes you have to kill ideas that you hold near and dear. When I started this project, the Erie Railroad held a large portion of the focus with Croxton Yard's being the generator of all the traffic on the layout. The latest plan called for only the Weehawken Yard to provide traffic to the HBS, and in a previous version, I was thinking about replacing Croxton with Jersey City (maybe an expansion over the desk area later?). I've been researching the Erie for several years now, and it still garners a lot of my research efforts, but it may be time for it to go from the main part of my layout. (I still will have Erie and other pocket yards.)

Operating areas

While looking at the space dedicated to each operating job, I noticed that there was going to be an overlap in space if two people were to try to operate the HBS yard. While the Erie Weehawken Yard would have enough space, I am eliminating it in this iteration to concentrate the layout on the HBS. This will allow me to keep the closet, which I can't decide is appealing because I am lazy or because it seems like a good idea to have a closet. Losing the Erie operation is a difficult decision, but the difficulty actually indicates it is the right choice. I will still have an Erie switcher at the interchange.

At this point, I can have 5 operating spots on the layout that are pretty well out of the way of the others. There are two in the yard and three out on the main line. These jobs can be handled by 4-6 operators (two yard and two main line trains of 1 or 2 man crews). I also plan to have one pocket yard just outside the main room with 1-2 operators there. Max 8 spots, but optimal number is 5 operators. From recent experience, finding 5-6 operators is really the most that can be comfortably found on any given night in Austin.

The job duties:

Yard Master - In charge of the railroad. Dispatches industry jobs and assigns duties to Yard Switcher. Handles interchange with Erie, makes up inbound and outbound traffic on east side of the yard.

Yard Switcher - Helps Yard Master as needed, switches 14th Street industries and piers.

Industry Switchers - Load and unload Lackawanna car float as well as serve Bethlehem Steel, Maxwell House and the Docks as needed. I am thinking there will probably be two trips to each area during each session by different people.

Pocket terminal - Operates car float to and from yard. Possibly two trips per session. Pocket terminal will rotate from session to session.

So, with Erie dreams scaled back (at best postponed), I've got some odds and ends to do on the bench work before I can start laying track on the HBS "soon."

Railcars

 Erie 300

Erie 370

I don't know anything about these at this point, but the Erie had some of these railcars at some point. They would make a good 3d printing project. 

Erie in New York Harbor 1929

Maxwell House Coffee & American Can Company

Buildings and streets and water...

... Oh, my!

Latest plan with details starting to flesh out the scenery.

click for enlarged view

Of particular note is the center peninsula with 14th Street running almost the entire length terminating in the viaduct that climbs the hillside to West Hoboken. Instead of having a backdrop that divides the scene, I am opting for a scene that divides the scene. (Buildings are only placeholders at the moment, more specific prototype footprints to come.) This will provide some good urban density to the layout which will give context to the bustle of the industrial railroading. The goal is to capture how the railroad is sandwiched between the Hudson River and a dense urban fabric. The track has been pulled toward the aisles on both sides to accommodate a wider street (Faller car system?!).

Some minor evolution at the end of the peninsula with the domino at the Bethlehem piers shrinking to 18 inch depth. This has already been implemented and provides better reach to tracks as well as more room in the aisle. The minimum aisle width is now 4'-2". What isn't showing is a closet in the Erie pier area (bottom right) that leaves about an 18 inch clearance between it and the peninsula at the moment. I've tricked myself into thinking the closet is going away, but doubts are creeping into the picture...

At the moment there is some spatial distortion taking place with the street grid - we'll see if it remains. The streets above the HBS yard are the same streets that cross the peninsula at 14th Street as 14th actually runs above the yard in real life. The industries above the yard are in the alley in the block between 14th and 15th Streets. A modeling compromise that seems OK at the moment.

A couple of strong personal ties to the history of Hoboken will be a part of the layout. I've added a baseball field to represent Elysian Field and the birth of The Game, and Hamilton and Burr (an ancestor of mine) will be dueling somewhere around there as well.

I've also got some room for big ship models.

Next steps on the plan will be to tighten up the streets (it's a little hard to manipulate shapes in Rail Modeler), check buildings and track more closely against maps and images, and make out a shopping list for track.

Next bit of constructing will be on the 149th to complete its transformation to a lightweight layout so the room can become a guest room again. I've only got a couple of more weeks of concerted work time before I get crazy busy again for the next nine months.

1955 HBS Track Plan

From the HBS Real Estate Report, 1955 in collection of author.

Enlarged view of HBS Yard

This track plan is kind of buried in the HBS Report, so I thought I would post here for Bruce, Mark and all the folks following their Hoboken Shore layout construction at Railroad Line Forums. The enlarged view shows the location of the double slip switches in the conversation. There is a nice post on page three of that thread which has images of a brochure probably from the 60s.