Building a layout that's along the waterfront

[railBuilderDhd]

As I research what I want to build and the more I look at rails from on-line mapping I realize I would like to incorporate waterfront docks where I can have trucks and ships loading and unloading containers from the rail. I’ve got some ideas from what I see from the on-line mapping but wanted to know if anyone has anything to help me with creating a waterfront layout. I still want to model in HO and I would like to have the era be 1980’s till now. Any layouts someone may have or articles they can point me to for research would be great. I need to know what size the slips will be for ships at HO scale or would like to see how others have modeled the waterfront.
Thanks,
dhd

 

[GAPPLEG]

It just so happens that Kalmbach just put up this on their site: gotta buy it though.

http://kalmbachcatalog.stores.yahoo.net/mrpdf044.html

 

[chimmike]

your best bet is to research the prototypes. See how long the typical container ship is, and decrease that to scale size. What is it, 1/87?

Chances are, you can fit one ship alongside a dock, use a gantry crane of sorts to offload containers onto both rail cars and trucks. I don't know how big your typical container ship is, but I'm guessing close to 200' or so. Given that estimate, you're going to have a ship approximately 2.29' long in order to be close to real. And I'm thinking my estimate of 200' is short......by a couple hundred feet......

Remember it doesn't have to be a 'slip' of sorts, but just a docking.

I think you'd get the best research by looking at prototypes, like Long Beach, on google earth or google satellite maps.

Good luck! Should be a fun layout (though expensive, intermodal cars are friggin expensive! I've found this to be true on N-scale. HO is easily double N scale with intermodal stuff, unfortunately.)

 

[railBuilderDhd]

JERRY -
I did see the article and not ready to pay for that since it looks like the model is an older era then I'm looking for.

chimmike -
I was looking at the google earth well the Microsoft live site that has 3d view of areas. Long beach was one that made me really want to do docks with the rail there running all the way in the city. That would be fun but a lot of space is needed.