Grand Scale Freight Yard Aspirations

Discuss park gauge trains and large scale miniature railways having track gauges from 8" to 24" gauge and designed at scales of 2" to the foot or greater - whether modeled for personal use, or purpose built for amusement park operation or private railroading.

Moderators: Glenn Brooks, Harold_V

Forum rules
Topics may include: antique park gauge train restoration, preservation, and history; building new grand scale equipment from scratch; large scale miniature railway construction, maintenance, and safe operation; fallen flags; track, gauge, and equipment standards; grand scale vendor offerings; and, compiling an on-line motive power roster.
Glenn Brooks
Posts: 2929
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2014 1:39 pm
Location: Woodinville, Washington

Grand Scale Freight Yard Aspirations

Post by Glenn Brooks »

4782A3CB-8406-43BF-9EA5-0B13129ABE34.jpeg
Moderator - Grand Scale Forum

Motive power : 1902 A.S.Campbell 4-4-0 American - 12 5/8" gauge, 1955 Ottaway 4-4-0 American 12" gauge

Ahaha, Retirement: the good life - drifting endlessly on a Sea of projects....
User avatar
ALCOSTEAM
Posts: 761
Joined: Tue Feb 04, 2003 9:20 am
Location: illinois

Re: Grand Scale Freight Yard Aspirations

Post by ALCOSTEAM »

Any idea of this pictures location or are we supposed to figure it out.. Is that a canal on the left side? Kind of unlikely in the era of the picture to be a nice straight highway.
User avatar
Erskine Tramway
Posts: 390
Joined: Wed Sep 10, 2014 4:13 pm
Location: South Dakota
Contact:

Re: Grand Scale Freight Yard Aspirations

Post by Erskine Tramway »

ALCOSTEAM wrote: Mon Jul 11, 2022 6:22 am Any idea of this pictures location or are we supposed to figure it out.. Is that a canal on the left side? Kind of unlikely in the era of the picture to be a nice straight highway.
The picture was on Facebook. It's a yard in, I think, New Jersey. The caption said that was a street next to the yard.

Mike
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
Andrew Pugh
Posts: 204
Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2006 9:22 pm
Location: British Columbia, Canada

Re: Grand Scale Freight Yard Aspirations

Post by Andrew Pugh »

Wow that’s an extensive rail yard.

Anyone know what the rectangular box vessels with the central square protrusion are?

-AP
User avatar
rmac
Posts: 785
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2012 12:48 am
Location: Phoenix, Arizona

Re: Grand Scale Freight Yard Aspirations

Post by rmac »

The same photo appears near the bottom of this page with the caption "photography by Andre Kertesz, 1939, in Weehawken, New Jersery".

Near as I can tell from Google maps, Weehawken occupies a small area across the Hudson River from midtown Manhattan. There appears to be a big rail yard along the river a mile or two to the south in Hoboken, but it doesn't seem to match the picture from 1939. A lot could have changed, I guess, in the 83 years since then, or maybe the reference to Weehaken is just wrong.

-- Russell Mac
Glenn Brooks
Posts: 2929
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2014 1:39 pm
Location: Woodinville, Washington

Re: Grand Scale Freight Yard Aspirations

Post by Glenn Brooks »

Yep, same pic on FB “Railroad images of bygone days” page

Weehawken, New Jersey, 1939.
“André Kertész (2 July 1894 – 28 September 1985), born Andor Kertész, was a Hungarian-born photographer known for his groundbreaking contributions to photographic composition and the photo essay. In the early years of his career, his then-unorthodox camera angles and style prevented his work from gaining wider recognition. Kertész never felt that he had gained the worldwide recognition he deserved. Today he is considered one of the seminal figures of photojournalism”…
Moderator - Grand Scale Forum

Motive power : 1902 A.S.Campbell 4-4-0 American - 12 5/8" gauge, 1955 Ottaway 4-4-0 American 12" gauge

Ahaha, Retirement: the good life - drifting endlessly on a Sea of projects....
rkcarguy
Posts: 1730
Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2017 10:33 am
Location: Wa State

Re: Grand Scale Freight Yard Aspirations

Post by rkcarguy »

That’s a huge yard!
I admit to having spent too much time looking at them on google earth lol
The only caveat, is that you’ll find you’ll run out of real estate rather quickly in grand scale when building a yard, if not run out of $$$ first.
Pontiacguy1
Posts: 1565
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:15 am
Location: Tennessee, USA

Re: Grand Scale Freight Yard Aspirations

Post by Pontiacguy1 »

yeah, let's face it... we're much more likely to be modeling some weed-covered branch line than any major rail hub or yard. building just that in G scale would cost a fortune and take up a whole building. imagine how much real estate it would take in any rideable scale.
I can't imagine the work it took just to keep that yard functional. had to be hundreds that worked there.
Berkman
Posts: 679
Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2017 7:55 pm

Re: Grand Scale Freight Yard Aspirations

Post by Berkman »

The yard at train mountain is pretty big, but you better have a large budget for switches, and tons and tons of time to build + maintain.

Often yards on many RRs have some of the slightly more "rough " track, is the mainline and passing sidings get the MOW priority.
rkcarguy
Posts: 1730
Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2017 10:33 am
Location: Wa State

Re: Grand Scale Freight Yard Aspirations

Post by rkcarguy »

Berkman wrote: Tue Jul 12, 2022 2:38 pm The yard at train mountain is pretty big, but you better have a large budget for switches, and tons and tons of time to build + maintain.

Often yards on many RRs have some of the slightly more "rough " track, is the mainline and passing sidings get the MOW priority.
I built a fixture and guides for my turnouts so I’d like to think I could produce them quicker, but there is the points that are always the hard part no matter how you tackle them
KenG
Posts: 53
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 12:48 pm
Location: Aurora, Colorado

Re: Grand Scale Freight Yard Aspirations

Post by KenG »

jcbrock
Posts: 508
Joined: Tue May 22, 2012 7:50 pm
Location: Oregon

Re: Grand Scale Freight Yard Aspirations

Post by jcbrock »

I think it's Jersey City too. There is a bluff in Weehawken and so the railroads paralleled the river there.
Andrew Pugh wrote: Mon Jul 11, 2022 5:47 pm Anyone know what the rectangular box vessels with the central square protrusion are?
Those are lighters used to move freight around NY harbor. Areas without carfloat service had freight offloaded in NJ and delivered via these. I don't know why some had the funky cupolas, but they did. There were also carfloats that did not have the cars moved off via a floatbridge, but instead were delivered pier-side and the cars unloaded directly from carfloat to warehouse.
John Brock
Post Reply