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Large Portside Facility Railway

5' by 16' HO Layout


This is but another portside railway, made larger than those I have designed previously.  It includes a reversing track capability, which must be wired and insulated as any other reverse track.  The portside railway has its own engine / car facilities and an interface with a major freight hauler.  That makes it ideal for future expansion.  Railroads of this sort would have a blend of motive power.  Much of the actual work on the piers would be done by smaller shunting locomotives such as the docksider, 0-6-0 tank locomotive, Hustler, Porter, Plymouth, 44 tonner and 70 tonner.  70 tonners would also be used with the medium locomotives, such as GP 7s and GP 9s, the Alco RS series and various switchers akin to the Alco S2 and EMD SW series.  The portside railway would have a few cars of its own, such as ore cars or small hoppers for ballasting, gondolas and flat cars for MOW and a few old boxcars for various chores.  A small crane would also be in order here.

Previous portside layouts in this series have been of smaller ports and facilities.  The difference when doing a major portside operation is the problem of servicing ships with fuel, food and other necessities.  You ought to therefore factor in the arrival of fuel loads, such as coal hoppers and oil tankers. This means not only bringing in fuel, but placing empties for pickup by the mainline railroads.  Along with fuel will be carloads of food for crews of ships.  You will have to handle some refrigerated cars, though since they will be offloaded and not necessarily loaded  you won't have to worry about an icing facility.  Only if the ship's cargoes include food would you have to plan one area for icing refrigerated cars.

Use your imagination.  This layout is large and merits a thorough job of scenery.  Take the time to study portside operations, and if possible visit some of the places that have or had port railways.  

Be aware that these layouts are for you to use and adapt as you see fit.  You can omit, alter or add as you wish.

We have taken these railways and expanded them to greater size in the following section  - click here to see it.

Here is the basic layout, using standard switches (gray) and #4 switches, 15" radius curves and 30 degree crossovers. The yard in upper left can be a sort of staging area for carloads brought in via the rightmost spur.  It can also service a local portside industry. The yard at lower left and center is the interface with a main freight railroad.  Note that there is a reversing track inside the loop.  You would do best to insulate track inside the half-dogbone.  The sidings inside the left loop are engine and car facilities for the port railway.

Now we have piers on both sides.  The spurs extending to the lower left are the link-up to a main freight railroad..

A few small changes to the lines at the bottom, allowing different operations.


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