Car Float in Action

The first crew to switch the car float

Eight operators showed up today to run trains on the Aquia Line and PoLA. We had two first timers, Wes Morgenstern and Ed Kapuscinski, Sr.  Wes has an WM based O scale layout that has some articulated engines that are as long as a whole train onto Aquia line. Ed K. Sr. and I first met over 20 years ago when doing NTRAK. I hadn't seen him in many years.

Returning for duty were John Drye, Eric Payne, Jeff Peck, Ed Kapuscinski Jr., John King, and special surprise operator Phillip Hoffman, who was visiting from Louisiana.

John King and Phillip volunteered for PoLA. John decided to make a second switchlist based on his observations of the cars on the layout. I'm not sure why or what he did, but he seems to be  happy in using it. Switching PoLA can be challenging, especially when you forget half your cars in the staging yard. Oh well, they got 'er done without mishap.

We decided to run two 3-man crews on Aquia. John Drye conducted  Train 7 out of Aquia with Jeff Peck as brakeman and Wes Morgenstern as engineer. Eric Payne was conductor on Train 8 out of Falmouth, with the Ed K's, junior and senior, as brakeman and engineer.  Three man crews work well when we are only running two trains. Things ran very smoothly overall.  There is a lot of assimilate when you first try the layout, so we expect operations to go even better as time goes on and the crews gain experience. The more experienced crews really can get the layout running smoothly.   Here is a video summary of the day.

At one point, a crew realized they misread the time table and went too far. Luckily there was no cornfield meet. So they flagged the on-coming train and waited it out in a siding. It was a simpler time then.

This was the first session where we switched cars off the car float. There were four cars to pull. Train 7 and train 9 each got to pull two cars. We did not reload the car float during the session. With the car float in operation, we discussed the possibility of having an Aquia Landing wharf switcher that would just handle that job. It will be something we consider as we do more ops sessions.

New shelf at Falmouth

I installed a small shelf in Falmouth for conductors to use based on a recommendation by Eric Payne. Hence, it is now the Eric Payne Memorial Shelf. Alas, the crews seemed to not use it as the aisle to it is blocked when other crew men are standing there.  Perhaps with two-man crews the shelf will prove more useful. It is a great place to place a drink.

Phillip got to run the General's special right at the end of the session.

One of the pleasant surprises is how interesting and challenging the operations on the Aquia Line have been, despite the relatively simple track plan and low train density. It was a factor that concerned me as I was building. I am so relieved to see my operators are enjoying it. I love watching the crews interact as they discuss what they will do. The operations really brings the layout alive.

After the op session about a dozen or so visitors showed up for a layout open house. They included Adam, Alexander and Estevan Talaber, Ed Keating, David, Emily, and Moly Mosher, and Emily's boyfriend, Bill, Tom Pierpoint, Mark Andersen, his girlfriend Betty, Doug Gurin, and Paul Dolkos.  The children got to run trains on PoLA and Aquia Line, whereupon they did quite well and with enthusiasm.

We can't forget that Alicia made some good snacks for everyone to enjoy. All in all a very fun day.

Here is a short video taken by Phil, for a different take on the day..

Down to the Waterline

The newly cut waterline hull alongside the wharf at Aquia Landing. It's hard to photograph as it is so big. 

Tonight, I glued in the plywood deck to the styrene hull. I used a combination of CAA and Wellbond. Before I did that, I reinforced the area of the hull where the deck meets the hull sides with a strip on 1/8th by ¼ inch basswood. The area near the paddlewheel in particular needed some stiffening.

Marking the waterline. 

Once the CAA glue had a few minutes to set, I marked the waterline using various thickness boards to get the hull at the right attitude with respect to the nearly flat bottom keel. The deck at the bow is about 1/8th inch higher than the stern.  Before cutting, I double checked the dimensions along the hull with my calipers. I needed to re-mark one side. It was easy to wipe off the incorrect line with an alcohol soaked rag and then carefully redraw it.

With both waterlines the same,  I then  used a utility knife to cut the styrene hull  along   the marked line.  I made multiple light passes with the blade and eventually the styrene snapped open.  I actually had to change blades as the knife edge quickly wore away.

With the bottom cut off, I had access to the interior.  I ran a thick bead of Wellbond along the deck hull joint.

Tomorrow I'll add some lateral stiffeners inside the hull, but I was pleasantly surprised at how sturdy the hull was even now without them. Then I 'll sand the cut edges and get it all squared up.

This was the toughest part of building this model. The rest of the ship is not much  different than building a land structure.   Using the styrene hull saved a lot of time. So far I've worked on this hull about 4 hours and it is nearly done. If I had cut my own bulkheads and planked them, it probably would have taken me about 30-40 hours of work.

It really looks cool sitting alongside the wharf as it dwarfs the trains near it.

The Crown Jewel?

Several steamers at Aquia Landing

So it begins. After sitting for seven years in a box under the benchwork at Aquia Landing, I finally started building the Mt Washington. I purchased this kit from Dumas Models in the fall of 2010, see this blog post. This is a large paddle wheel steamer that may well be the crown jewel at Aquia Landing.  It is craftsman style kit intended for radio control (R/C) use on ponds.  Internet reviews of the kit from R/C oriented modelers say that it is not a great pond boat as it is top heavy and unstable. Many of the folks that run the model on water use detachable keels with ballast.  Most of them opine that it is better suited as a display model.  To further scare off modelers, the instructions say to devote 9 months to constructing it.


Whew, that is scary. Fortunately, I do not intend to make it a pond model. In fact. I will cut it at the waterline like I did to the Deans Marine Danica Marie R/C conversion I did for the PoLA layout.  Having built a Dumas kit in the past, I know that the construction techniques they recommend are overly complicated with the aim of providing ample room in the hull for R/C electronics. They also have to design the kit to allow the topsides to be removable and watertight to allow access to the mechanisms.  The kit instructions come in three booklets, with text in one, drawings in another, and photos in a third. There is a lot of head scratching as you read textual descriptions of parts without a drawing nearby to look at.  You end up flipping between the booklets as you read through them. To further confuse the instructions, the drawings are not numbered in the sequence they are called out in the instructions.  So I plan to essentially ignore the kit instructions and treat the top side as a scratch build project.

Another time consuming aspect of the kit is the cutting of the windows on the main deck and the vents on the waterwheel housing from the supplied vacuum formed parts. I will use my laser cutter to make these parts more accurately and faster than by hand.

The kit comes with a lot of  die cut frames for the decks. I don't plan to use any of them. I will laser cut the superstructure using the plans as a guide. In effect, I treat the kit as a vacuum formed hull that came with a set of detail parts and lots of strip wood and styrene. I find that when trying to build ships that are correct for my era and locale, it is more cost effective to buy a kit that is close to the desired model, and then use it as a consoldiated source of raw materials. When you go to buy individual detail parts the cost adds up very quickly. The savings can be enhanced if you get the base model on sale, like I did with this kit.

The first step was to trim the excess plastic lip around the vacuum formed hull. This model has a styrene hull and it is easy to cut with a hobby knife. Once the lip was mostly removed, I was relieved to find that the beam  is about 4 inches less. The narrower hull fits in my harbor scene much better and  it looks much more streamlined too.

Next, I used the drawing in the kit to cut a single piece of plywood to make the main deck. Here again, if you follow the instructions, you will be gluing dozens of pieces together to make a two-piece removable deck and super structure. I plan to use the deck like I would a foundation on a ground structure and add the superstructure to it. Only a small portion of this deck is visible near the bow and the stern. I will plank those with a layer of laser cut basswood.

Tomorrow I'll add braces to the interior and glue the deck. Then I cut it at the waterline, and add any necessary braces from the inside. Stay tuned as I hope this will be fun.

The Transfer Bridge at Aquia Landing

Barges and rail cars on wharf at Aquia Landing

I was unable to find any prototype photos of the transfer bridge at Aquia Landing.  The photo at the left the shows the end of the wharf where the transfer bridge should be, but the transfer bridge  is not visible.  It may be obscured by the railcars, or it may not be present. The photos do show clearly that there are two tracks on the wharf.

With no prototype photo of the actual transfer bridge to guide me, I made a two-track transfer bridge using the photos from similar facilities at Alexandria and City Point as a guide. There was also a transfer bridge at Manchester, VA at the end of the war, but that one was much different from the other two and was used to load cars to ships as cargo and not on rails.

Transfer bridge at City Poin

Triple transfer bridge at Alexandria, but only the center
ramp has rails. perhaps it is still under construction when the
photo was taken,

Overall, I based my transfer bridge on the structure at Alexandria, but with 2 vice 3 tracks. But I used the block and tackles from the City Point transfer bridge instead of the lever arms of the Alexandria facility.

The model blocks and tackle are home made and they actually work, though the blocks will break if you tug the lines too hard. I broke three in the construction process.

The sloping access deck was based on the Alexandria
transfer bridge

The biggest difficulty with this project was the track spacing. I set it 2.63 inches to allow 8 cars on the float track.  But that made for a very tight clearance for the central post of the transfer bridge gallows. It took some careful work to provide clearance for the post and lifting ropes. In retrospect, I should have made the tracks about 2.75 or 2.8 inches apart.

I can shift the  barge to load each track. I am not sure I will do that in op session. But I can do it for photos.

It's a tight squeeze

A few more details on the barges and this project will be wrapped up.

Barges? We don't need no steenkin' barges!

What, he said, "badges?" Oh, OK, never mind.

The individual barges are named after my
mother and mother-in-law. Rudder and tiller
construction is in progress.

I have been working on the barges for the car ferry this week. I have the basic hulls done, including the frame work to support the rails. I'm in the process of adding the final details. Once the barges are done, I'll build the transfer bridge.









The USMRR had several sets of rail transfer barges. Most appear to have numbers instead of names, but in photos names on several barges can be seen. So I named mine after my mother and mother-in-law.

The transfer bridge will be about 4 inches long.

I still need to add some detail parts to the bow area.

The rails on the barges ride a little taller than the rails on the wharf. So there will be a slight incline up to the barge from the wharf. This is not un-prototypical. The tide at Aquia Landing is about 1 foot under normal non-flood conditions.  The transfer bridge is designed to move up and down to accommodate the tides.

The slight up ramp might help prevent cars from running off the floats. We'll see.