Contents Chapter 1 Rail-marine operations ................................. 4 Chapter 2 Break bulk piers and terminals .......................... 14 Chapter 3 Grain terminals ...................................... 22 Chapter 4 Mineral terminals .................................... 32 Chapter 5 Railroad ferries and car float terminals.................... 44 Chapter 6 Barge terminals...................................... 54 Chapter 7 Container terminals .................................. 58 Chapter 8 Project layout: Port of Los Angeles ...................... 70 Chapter 9 Project cargo: windmills . .80 Chapter 10 Building ships ....................................... 86 Chapter 11 Modeling wharves and water ........................... 92 About the author and Acknowledgments ....................... 95 14 Cundy’s Harbor is the terminus of a short branch on Bob Hayden’s previous Carrabasset & Dead River HOn30 layout. Dave Frary 15 Dave Frary and Hal Reynolds built this On30 scale scene as part of a display for the Nantucket Whaling Museum. The layout depicts the Nantucket Central Railroad Company, a three-foot narrow gauge railroad on the island of Nantucket. That railroad linked the villages of Nantucket and Siasconset. Hal Reynolds track to top Canada’s total trade value portion of this. The U.S. Department of The widespread adoption of with the United States. Container Transportation reported that in 2010 containerization has had a major vessels carry the majority of China’s ocean vessels carried 53 percent of U.S. effect on the nature of world trade. trade value, whereas container trade imports and 38 percent of exports by Prior to containerization, loading or accounts for only a fraction of the value value, the largest share of any mode, unloading a ship was a very expensive of U.S.-Canada trade. although land exports accounted for and time-consuming task, and a cargo In 2010, the United States imported 33 percent. More than 62,000 vessels— ship typically spent more time docked about 12 percent of world merchandise about 172 a day—called at U.S. than at sea. (Chapter 7 has more about trade and exported about 8 percent, seaports in 2010. Tankers and container container shipping.) according to the World Trade ships accounted for about two-thirds of In addition to foreign trade, North Organization. Ships carried a large the vessel calls. American ports used to conduct 12 considerable maritime trade with each other. This is called short sea, coastwise, or intracoastal shipping. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, North American ports shipped coal, lumber, grain, and general cargo to each other. Now, North American short sea shipping competes with railroads for long distances, and trucking for short distances. With present railroads and trucks being so efficient, short sea shipping now only serves niche markets and provides feeder service to the East and to Gulf Coast ports from Caribbean transshipment hubs such as Kingston, Freeport, Cartagena, and Panama. Narrow gauge railroad waterfronts Narrow gauge railroads and their waterfront terminals present an interesting and colorful footnote to the rail-marine model railroad genre. Many model railroaders think of spindly trestles spanning mountain chasms when narrow gauge railroads are mentioned. They may not be aware of the extensive use of narrow gauge railroads to link harbors with land-side industries. Narrow gauge railroads terminated at harbors in many of North America’s coastal regions. Perhaps the best known were the harbors that served the Maine two- foot railroads such as the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington harbor at 16 its namesake city, Wiscasset. Modelers have been inspired to create waterfront Forney engine no. 2 shifts a flatcar on the deck of Cranberry Wharf on Troels Kirk’s layouts featuring Maine two-footers On30 narrow gauge model railroad. Troels Kirk in a variety of gauges including the correct-to-scale HOn2 and On2 as long route passed through spectacular was probably built in 1833 on Little well as the more popular HOn30 and coastal mountain scenery. Versailles Plantation in St. James On30, 12, 14, and 16. The White Pass and Yukon Railway Parish. At its peak in 1925, southern Aside from Maine, there were was a three-foot gauge railway that Louisiana had more than 150 many other locations where narrow still has some portions active in tourist plantation railroads, 3,000 miles of gauge railroads maintained waterfront service. In its prime years, it had track, 500 locomotives, and more than terminals including Alaska, California, waterfronts at both ends: Skagway on 15,000 pieces of rolling stock. Louisiana, Hawaii, Massachusetts, the Pacific and Whitehorse on the Hauling cane was the chief business, and Virginia in the United States, Yukon River. but they also had other uses. A spur and Yukon and British Columbia in Nantucket had a tiny three-foot usually went down to the bayou Canada. gauge railroad, the Nantucket Central from the mill to haul processed sugar One of the more interesting was Railroad Company, that primarily and molasses to the landing, where the Dolly Varden Mine Railway on the served tourists to the island, 15. a steamboat would pick them up. coast of Alice Arm, British Columbia, Louisiana once had an extensive Supplies brought to the plantation by 13. This pint-sized railroad served a array of narrow gauge railroads that the steamboat were also hauled from small but rich silver mine. The 18-mile- served sugar plantations. The first the water’s edge aboard the trains. 13 13 Beaumont stevedores unload an Army MRAP vehicle from the hold of a break bulk ship. U.S. Army ocean vessels passage into the interior could not compete with the newer Portland. Trains can continue north of North America through the Great and more efficient elevators on the to Washington via trackage rights Lakes, completely cutting Buffalo out Mississippi River and Great Lakes, 9. on BNSF or head east along the of the shipping chain. The Pacific Northwest still has a Columbia River. It is a busy spot as Other cities on the Great Lakes vibrant grain export business with they switch power there, and yard lead developed major marine grain nine grain shipping terminals, two switch jobs break down inbound trains terminals including Toledo, Duluth, on Puget Sound and seven at ports and assemble outbound ones. and Milwaukee, 7. In Duluth, ore along the Columbia River. More than The FREMO module utilizes three docks rivaled grain elevators in terms a quarter of all U.S. grain exports and sections to capture the facility without of physical scale, but the grain elevators nearly half of U.S. wheat exports move compression. FREMO is a module had greater economic impact than through the Columbia River and Puget standard that allows a lot of flexibility the famous ore piers. Duluth’s first Sound grain terminals. The Northwest’s in model design. steam-powered grain elevator was proximity to Asian markets drives grain The loop track has a radius of about constructed in 1869. It held 350,000 exports from the region. Vancouver also 16". The facility uses a small Trackmobile bushels—just 20 percent the capacity has a half dozen grain export terminals. to switch the cars from the storage tracks of its modern counterparts. Since to the unloading shed, but larger engines then, dozens of grain elevators were Louis Dreyfus grain terminal drop off cars at the shed lead track. built, destroyed, or abandoned on the It is not often that a modeler gets to Each of three pieces of the module city’s waterfront, enhanced by the design a balloon loop layout based on set are rather large. To make the construction of a ship canal across the a prototype that is fully to scale with sections smaller, the riverfront and narrow spit of Minnesota Point. One no selective compression, 10. But such ship could be omitted or built as a of the more famous grain companies is the case with the FREMO module removable section. If transporting such was the Peavey Company, which built design based on the Louis Dreyfus big sections is an issue, the module the first circular concrete grain silo in grain terminal in downtown Portland, could be built with room to spare 1900. Several grain elevators are still in Oregon. (See track plan on page 31.) on two smaller 3 x 4-foot modules operation, and in 2010, they shipped First built in 1914, this grain in N scale. The module could also be more than 2.7 million tons of grain. elevator just north of the steel bridge in incorporated into a home layout as During much of the 20th century, Portland is one of the nation’s longest Layout Design Elements. ports along the East Coast had grain serving grain terminals. It was recently The model grain elevator silos are elevators that were rail served. Just about upgraded by Louis Dreyfus and tricky to make using the standard PVC every major railroad owned a grain remains very busy. tube technique because the prototype elevator situated for ocean shipping. The elevator is adjacent to Union silos tubes overlap. You could simplify Some were quite large, like the former Pacific’s north-south main line from the model construction by omitting PRR elevator in Canton, Maryland, 8. California, 11. Lying just to the north that feature and simply place the silo But in the 21st century, most of these of the elevator is Albina Yard, Union tubes side-by-side, but that would grain elevators closed. Their older designs Pacific’s main classification yard in result in a fewer number of silos. 28 4 5 In this detailed photo, a McMyler-type car dumper unloads Modelers at the Severna Park Model Railroad Club in Severna lump coal from a PRR two-bay hopper into a lake boat’s fuel Park, Maryland, built an operating rotary dumper for their HO bunker at Sandusky, Ohio, in May 1943.