Center Peninsula Track Planning, …..Container Terminal & Port Facility


As for you Mijack crane, they don't drive back and forth moving containers around by driving all the way to the end of the train. They're far too slow for that. They drive from one container to the next, lift it up, shift it sideways and set it on a chassis. As the truck drives away, the crane rolls to the next container (only a short distance) and then picks it up and set it onto the truck.

View attachment 113492

See the room on both sides of the track for trucks to pull in?

OK, so what about your layout? Well, I'd suggest this. Put a wider gap in the center of the four tracks. Have you crane straddle two and have the other two for storage of containers waiting to be unloaded. The gap wouldn't have to be wide enough for a truck, just enough room for the crane runway. The area on the right would be your truck loading lane.

View attachment 113494

BTW, both my upper 'west coast' container yard and my lower 'east coast' yard now have only 2 tracks under the m-jacks, and one lane for the truck/trailers.
https://modelrailroadforums.com/for...er-port-ideas-images.31671/page-2#post-464042
ie,
DSCF4566.JPG


DSCF4596.JPG
 
Thanks for not taking offense.

I'd consider eliminating the right hand track. Then you could have a truck lane and you'd still have plenty of activity in the container yard.

BTW, the cranes are Mi-Jack, they make several varieties of rolling gantry cranes, including ones that run on crane rail.

 
I liked the looks of these,...
Container Crane

I was looking thru the internet for container cranes and found this rather interesting one. Its described as a Bachmann (European one I believe), 44-0009 Container Terminal Crane by Bachmann in OO scale. Pretty neat.





I like this one !

How about doubled up !!

I first found a pic on google images....


But they were going to be a little too large for my small yard.
 
@bob,
There was a time in my past that I became interested in the subject of ship container ports, combined with monorail movements of the containers.
https://www.yachtforums.com/threads...-ports-container-shipping-technologies.20710/

Monorail, it's the train of the future! Always has been. Always will be!

As a kid, I was fascinated with them and spent many hours drawing them. As a kid in the 70's, I asked if we could ride in the cockpit of the monorail at Walt Disney World. That was decades before the tragic accident that ended the practice, so we were able to ride up front. That, and of course the steam trains are what I remember most! I even got to ride though the Contemporary Hotel, where the tracks go right inside the building. I was on cloud nine, and I was sure I was seeing the future of transportation.

When I moved to Seattle, at that time it was the only city in the United States that what I consider a true monorail that provided public transportation. (Those airport people mover things don't count, they have more than one rail, same for the Detroit and Miami systems)
The Seattle Monorail is a classic Alweg Straddle Beam monorail, what you think of when you hear the term. The ones in Vegas are too ,but they hadn't been built yet.

So I finally get to Seattle and buy my ticket. It's everything I'd hoped for. Sleek, futuristic, streamlined, straight of the Jetsons with a giant glass windshield and an amazing view.

We depart the station and travel less than a mile. The ride takes under two minutes. The train stops and the motorman walks through the train. He said "Sir, you'll need to get off the train now." I replied "But I want to ride all the way to the end of the line!" He laughed and said "You just did!".

Three times, Seattle voted to expand the monorail, and threes times the city shot it down. Too expensive. Then a decade or so later they built a two mile long tunnel for $3.3 Billion Dollars. Somehow that wasn't too expensive.

 
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I think it might have been in Calif? I liked the perspective angle, the stack of containers in the foreground, and the ship's cranes off in the distance. I was going to use something like that on my upper deck, ...the Calif port.

Need to find another for that lower deck. May have to resort to have this lady I know draw something up,...or find someone who really knows how to source photos on the internet find one/some?
 
Switching Operations on my Center Peninsula
(I'm asking to confirm if I've 'covered my bases', or if there is something else I need to put in,....I've had very little experience with switching operations, and its not a really big priority of mine)


I have basically two tracks from the mainlines that feed the peninsula. They meet at that double-slip turnout up near the rear of the roundhouse. The trains can basically select to go to one side or the other of the peninsula.

DSCF5443.JPG

(highlited: double-slip turnout, 2 container incoming tracks, 2 outward curving tracks, 2 container cars)

1) One side (the left one here) is the container loading/unloading yard. The mainline engines might disconnect there at the double-slip and proceed to shutdown/repair/storage by way of escape trackage at the head of the yard, .....OR by the tailing track/runaround at the far end of the container yard. These tracks are also available for switcher engines to perform the shuffling of the cars around on that side of the peninsula.


DSCF5444.JPG

(resting spot/spur for switcher engine(s), steam or diesel)





2) The other side of the peninsula serves the carfloat, the crane loading pier, the municipal pier building (when in use as a guest appearance), several other small manufacturers, and the allied rail rebuilder.
I have changed things around at the end of the peninsula. The carfloat and the pier crane have switched sides. The carfloat NO LONGER sits behind the pier terminal builder, but rather sits at the end of 2 tracks that run down the center of the peninsula,...
DSCF5437%281%29.JPG

Notice also that the entire carfloat is now included on the peninsula. (it will be sunken down to water level).


One of my dilemmas is, how does the switcher engine that pulls cars from the line-up at the dbl-slip down to the carfloat, then escape??
Is it simply a matter of providing a cross-over between those 2 feed tracks,...like this? Or should that order be reversed??
DSCF5439.JPG



I have made the prevision to have that Municipal Pier Terminal Building play a 'visiting role', it may appear at times, or it might be replaced by several other structures. When it is in place it will have at least one track running thru it to access the crane on the pier out back.
DSCF5441.JPG



Brian
 
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OK... Deep breath...

Let me preface this with the following. It's your railroad, do whatever you want to do. You can choose to install something just because it's cool, you like it, or just because you want to.

That said, I can tell you that I have 30 years experience building container yards. Mine are in 12" to the foot scale. Port of Tacoma, Port of Seattle, Port of Tacoma. I've been project engineer on container terminals at all of them.

That said, a couple of comments.
1) A lot of container terminals, (but not all) simply don't have escape tracks. They take up valuable space and turnouts are expensive, as in $50,000 each and up. So they just use stub tracks and shove the cars in. Problem solved, and you have more room for cars.

2) Even when a container terminal has an escape track, they don't have double slip switches. Double slip switches on the prototype are extremely rare. They're normally only used in passenger stations and other areas with limited space and lots of traffic. They ridiculously expensive and challenging to maintain. I have never installed a real one. I've never even bid on a project that had one. In fact, I have rarely ever even seen one of them. There's some in Chicago at Union Station, maybe LA on the passenger lines, and possibly other big city terminals that I'm overlooking. They were more (slightly) common on the east coast. But outside of busy passenger terminals, they're rare indeed.

That said, IF the civil engineer who designed this project actually called for that, I would go to the owner with a Value Engineering Change Proposal (you save them money and get a small percentage of the savings as reward) and I'd say "How about I save you a 1/2 million dollars and years of maintenance headaches, whaddya think?" Two of them in one terminal? Sorry, but that's never been done. In fact, I’m almost sure one has never been done. Maybe, but really doubt it. I rarely say "never" as it seems you can find dang near anything. But I'll make an exception in this case. The cost simply couldn't be justified.

The same for that crossover 2 car lengths from the switch. That costs about $100K and it serves no real purpose. It simply wouldn't be there.
I think you would be much more likely to find double slips on the east coast than the west . Rail densities would be much higher there prior to 1970 . Today I doubt you would find any now since rail density has dropped in the last 50 years ,

There is a disease that aflicts model railroaders , "trackitis" . Symptoms include an uncontrollable urge to nail a piece of track over every square inch of available surface area. Sometimes you have to let the disease run its course .

As far as the "Bieland Peninsula " goes I would single end everything and service it all from either the left or the right , but not both which ever would give me the widest radius turn into the facility . One other comment , Industries locate themselves at ports to get access to the water /sea transport , they can get access to rail transport just about anyplace else and the real estate would be cheaper . Here its all about crude oil, LNG , cruise and cars . Rail service at the ports is primarly for petro/chem back away from the water ....having said that you might find a double slip in here somewhere https://www.ptra.com/index.php/about-us/ptra-rail-network-map.html . Yard photos are also on the site.
 
GeeTee, regrettably I don't have room on my MODEL railroad layout to duplicate the prototypes,...many of us are in that same boat. And yes I suffer from trackitis,...but I am actually finding it to be a real CHALLENGE to arrange all this track and industry into a relatively small layout,..its even more of a challenge to get it this compressed while still maintaining decent radius curves, and somewhat complicated turnout arrangements. Here is latest thoughts on the central peninsula track plan,...


Switching Operations on my Center Peninsula
(I'm asking to confirm if I've 'covered my bases', or if there is something else I need to put in,....I've had very little experience with switching operations, and its not a really big priority of mine)


I have basically two tracks from the mainlines that feed the peninsula. They meet at that double-slip turnout up near the rear of the roundhouse. The trains can basically select to go to one side or the other of the peninsula.
1) One side is the container loading/unloading yard. The mainline engines might disconnect there and proceed to shutdown/repair/storage by way of escape trackage at the head of the yard, or by tailing track/runaround at the far end of the container yard. These tracks are also available for switcher engines to perform the shuffling of the cars around on that side of the peninsula.
DSCF5443.JPG

(highlited: double-slip turnout, 2 container incoming tracks, 2 outward curving tracks, 2 container cars)


DSCF5444.JPG

(resting spot for switcher engine(s), steam or diesel)





2) The other side of the peninsula serves the carfloat, the crane loading pier, the municipal pier building (when in use as a guest appearance), several other small manufacturers, and the allied rail rebuilder.
I have changed things around at the end of the peninsula. The carfloat and the pier crane have switched sides. The carfloat NO LONGER sits behind the pier terminal builder, but rather sits at the end of 2 tracks that run down the center of the peninsula,...
DSCF5437%281%29.JPG

Notice also that the entire carfloat is now included on the peninsula. (it will be sunken down to water level).


One of my dilemmas is, how does the switcher engine that pulls cars from the line-up at the dbl-slip down to the carfloat, then escape??
Is it simply a matter of providing a cross-over between those 2 feed tracks,...like this? Or should that order be reversed??
DSCF5439.JPG



I have made the prevision to have that Municipal Pier Terminal Building play a 'visiting role', it may appear at times, or it might be replaced by several other structures. When it is in place it will have at least one track running thru it to access the crane on the pier out back.
DSCF5441.JPG



Brian
 
Fictional History

As I see it, you have three separate Elements in the peninsula:
  1. the container terminal
  2. the carfloat (carfloats are cool!)
  3. the dock warehouse/whatever-else
It seems to me that having the three scenes parallel to each other (and the three access tracks also) creates some visual feeling of "being forced into the space"...
Looking at how this may have developed in a fictional history, I'd assume the warehouse would have been the oldest structure. Later on the carfloat might have been added and finally the container scene.
dark2star
I believe you got this correct, and you made me try to conger up a fictional history of how my peninsula scene came about. Being of the same era I believe the terminal building and the carfloat developed somewhat at the same time. And as DaveB pointed out above,
your scene would likely be the mainline connection end of the float path so float traffic would arrive and be sorted somewhere before the round house then brought down to to the car float ready for loading

Lets assume my container yard had yet to be built. Rather there was another yard there that stocked both incoming and outgoing carfloat destined cars,..lots of storage in those early days. But then along came the modern container port and the carfloat operation had to give up some of its land. Now that carfloat operation was going to have to be much more 'thrifty' in the way it handled its traffic. It certainly wasn't going to be able to accomplish both loading and unloading cars on the same day,....and likely it was not going to be able to do operations on those days that mainline traffic was coming into the 'new' container yard.


So now the carfloat operation is left with 2 'stub tracks' servicing the barge. I figure there are several ways the cars can be loaded on the carfloat. If the engine is pulling the cars down to the carfloat it needs an escape route, and way to get back around to the other end of those cars, so it can push them onto either track of the float bridge. That escape route could be the crossover turnouts I've now included on the track plan? Another option is that the mainline train bringing those cars in for loading could back a group of those cars down the one track, uncouple them, and pull back out pass the dbl-slip. Then the switcher engine comes out of its little 'storage track' and pushes those cars selectively to the tracks on the carfloat?
 
GeeTee, regrettably I don't have room on my MODEL railroad layout to duplicate the prototypes,...many of us are in that same boat. And yes I suffer from trackitis,...but I am actually finding it to be a real CHALLENGE to arrange all this track and industry into a relatively small layout,..its even more of a challenge to get it this compressed while still maintaining decent radius curves, and somewhat complicated turnout arrangements. Here is latest thoughts on the central peninsula track plan,...


Switching Operations on my Center Peninsula
(I'm asking to confirm if I've 'covered my bases', or if there is something else I need to put in,....I've had very little experience with switching operations, and its not a really big priority of mine)




One of my dilemmas is, how does the switcher engine that pulls cars from the line-up at the dbl-slip down to the carfloat, then escape??
Is it simply a matter of providing a cross-over between those 2 feed tracks,...like this? Or should that order be reversed??



Brian


Let me try to give you a typical work/traffic flow and see if that helps , Keep in mind that this is a generalization of what goes on . Someone who has more direct knowledge can correct this .

7:00 am at Classification Yard A the LCL engineer picks up his manifest and his assigned locomotive ,
7:30 am couples up to the Westbound LCL train and heads out on the mainline toward Classification Yard B.
8:45 arrives at the first siding , cuts the empties off the back of the train , runs around the train couples to the empties and SHOVES into the industry . Any Loads that are headed WEST get PULLED out and he inserts them into the train . EAST bound get left behind (theres another crew comming east from CYB.)

He repeats this process all the way to Classification Yard B taking any Loads or Empties headed West with him and drops them at the Yard

5.00pm he goes to his assigned hotel room .

7:00 am back to Yard B picks up the motive power and any east bound LCL freight and does the whole thing in reverse .

24hrs behind him is another crew doing exactly the same thing , Its a conveyor belt.

If they were dropping at a large industrial complex , There would be an Interchange Yard . And the LCL terminal road would take it and do the same thing .

You shove into the industry and pull out , never any need to "escape". The original plan the "pennisula" is and imaginary end of main or end of track not an industry so the runaround is used when the train thats serving the town has to swap ends with the locomotive .

For most of us , We would pull the train to Faust Junction , Cut the empties at Faust , run around at Faust and shove the customers (empties) cars into the appropriate facility. Likewise we would pull the loads out. put them into our west bound LCL and head off to the next town.

Your world may be different . The only car ferry/float we had around The engineer "escaped" by using a life jacket ,they dumped the train in the ship channel (failed to set the brakes and it hit a wave or a wake ) .
 
Yesterday I was working on the tip of the peninsula. I have some water that needs to support the carfloat, and some water under the pier structure that is supported by many pilings. Had to do quiet a bit of thinking how exactly I would like to do this, and the dimensions involved.


Originally my metal benchwork had a support beam running all the way to the tip under the 3/4 plywood.


DSCF5435.JPG

(yellow box above denoted the end of the carfloat sitting on that upper deck, and the other arrows point out the 2" square metal tubes)


I've got to cut off that excess length tube sticking out the front as my water depth there is greater than the top surface of that tube that is only 3/4" under the plywood deck it is supporting. In fact my water's top surface is 1+1/4" below the surface of the top.
DSCF5458.JPG






Here you can see my float apron and the pier surface set in place while contemplating the situation,...
DSCF5457.JPG






Here you can see where I took my cutout piece and temporarily attached it to the underside of that metal beam.
DSCF5459.JPG



I will be using this cutout piece as the 'water level deck', but it will only be about 1+1/4" deep verses 2 +3/4" of that beam plus top plywood thickness.
 
Back here I was describing my need to remove a portion of my steel tube framing,...

I wasn't looking forward to cutting that steel tube with a hack saw, particularly when it was rather difficult to get too. Why not just remove that portion of the plywood deck to get at the steel beam, particularly when I would soon need to do that to place the staging tracks in below it.

So I took that portion of the plywood deck off, then unbolted that portion of the beam, took it outside and cut it off with my metal chop saw.
DSCF5461.JPG






DSCF5462.JPG






Then I set everything back in place and set up a mock-up of my water support plate.
DSCF5464.JPG



Brian
 
Finishing Up the Tip Plate

I'm referring to it now as my 'tip plate'. It is the the water area at the end of my peninsula. I sought to make it a self contained tray that could be screwed attached to the tip area of my peninsula deck, and thus undone when I sought to finish off its surface area with a 'water' scenic.

Here is the plate/tray itself with glued on edging and cleat plates for attaching it up under the maindeck plywood.
DSCF5465.JPG



DSCF5466.JPG






Then here it is installed,...
DSCF5469.JPG



DSCF5472.JPG



Notice that the crane's pier surface concrete sets on a narrow plywood strip centered under it. That is to give it greater strength/rigidity rather than depending on just the pilings of the original kit. That plywood strip is recessed under the center where it will not interfere with the image of the pier being solely supported via pilings.


That thin piece of white plastic is there just indicate the thickness of 'water' that will eventually be applied,...a little over 1/8" thick.


I had consider just gluing this tray onto the bottom of the deck, but thought for now I would just screw it on in case there were any other changes I might make in the water application.


The plan to construct this as a rigid tray was also to provide a rigidity to the cantilevered peninsula tip as a whole.
 
OK .. You lost me somewhat?
So ... If you have now cut the supporting beam (looks to be 2' plus) and are attaching the car float back- how is the replacement section attached? What keeps it from sagging or someone bumping or leaning on it?
I see a vertical (looks like) underneath there - Is that it? Still, won't it sway and tip?
 
OK .. You lost me somewhat?
So ... If you have now cut the supporting beam (looks to be 2' plus) and are attaching the car float back- how is the replacement section attached? What keeps it from sagging or someone bumping or leaning on it?
I see a vertical (looks like) underneath there - Is that it? Still, won't it sway and tip?
Oh! C'mon. You should know Brian's methods by now. I'll bet that there is a horizontal side-to-side angle bar underneath.
 



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