Nothing quite as impressive. That's quite a nice model. This is a Frenchman River kit of a small lobster boat: The kit is unpainted resin. It comes with the lobster traps. The figures are Preiser. I made my own decals and named the boat after the one that went down in The Perfect Storm.
Shrimpboat kitbashed from a Lindberg tuna seiner kit at the Conn Brown Harbor, Aransas Pass, Texas (as a corner module for a club project, ca. 1988) Heller seagoing trawler as a generic ship for a 1x4 foot Corpus Christi harbor scene as part of a layout that totaled 2x4 feet for Christmas present for two kids, 1975. Present ship project-- just background paintings for my Island Seaport layout.
A medium-sized container/tanker ship doesn't take all that much space--about 36 inches by 5 inches. The facility, especially for a container ship, could take more space.
I hope to get 5 or 6 medium-sized ships in my spare-bedroom island seaport layout. I figure those ships will take up about 150 inches by 1/32 inch. Because they will all be 2-dimensional pictures printed on cardstock glued to the background. The cargo facilities will take up a lot of room, but most of them will be enclosed, hiding the staging tracks near the bachground.
Maybe when I move. My layout space is a HCD with a 2x4ft L extension My scratch building skills just aren't up to doing anything like that yet, and no one really sells kits.
Fantastic work everyone. Just love to see the Marine/Rail connection. Does anyone have a container ship on their layout? The intercoastal/feeder vessels can be pretty small. The ones I deal with (5300 TEU) vessels would be 5.5 feet in N scale - serious real estate and a lot of effort. Keep up the great work!
Hi Pete, No plans for the barge. I just free handed it from pictures off the internet and memories from my childhood. It's 11" by 4 1/2" and noooowhere to scale. I built it to fit in the corner of my grain port. Was a fun project and darnd near free as I built it out of a styrene "for sale" sign and some scavenged parts from busted up grain cars. Theres a couple other pics in my railimages page. Brian
I echo what Milw156 says re. container ships. I need to build one but like my grain barge it'll be highly modified with "artistic liberty". My available space for said ship is 6"x47". I'd like to see what others have come up with. The ones I've seen for sale are either too expensive or look kinda' hokey imho. Brian
I 47" N scale ship is a big one at 626 scale feet long. They are plenty of them at about 454 scale feet long, which are still big in N scale. Of course, I don't know what scale you're in! My bad. Smaller ships can be impressive, depending on the scene. This is one of my favorites, a 237-foot Diver-class cutter (the Achusnet, recently retired after 60+ years in service) with a 140-foot McLane-class cutter. These smaller ships are much easier to build!
These show up on eBay off and on They are listed as being around 320' (27" in N) Maybe later when I get enough room to get one or two.
Hi Jnevis, Yup, those are the exact ships I've seen on E-bay that I was refering to as "too expensive". And while the size is perfect, the super structure just doesn't do it for me. Probably way too picky on my part. Whatever I end up building it'll no doubt bring a few laughs from my webboard peers but I know I can come up with something that'll be cheaper and suit my needs. Brian ps, Pete if you aren't tired of hearing it, I must say you are a true artist when it comes to ship building. Wished I had the skill and patience to create something like you've done.
These ships probably don't cut it any longer. I bought one when they first came out, and heavily modified everything above the deck. The hull shape is pretty good. But even so, I wasn't impressed enough to take photos that I can find easily. Thanks for the compliment, Brian. I should say that when I started in 2002, I wasn't very good. Now I'm better, but not anywhere near as good as the real ship modelers. I have taken a shine to smaller boats, like this 180-foot, 450-ton coastal freighter.
I'm working on a WWII light cruiser right now. It will be the longest ship I've built. Two of the four Atlanta-class cruisers were sunk.
Plans for this Admirable-class minesweeper are available from a site that designs paper models--digitalnavy.com, I think. I made it from styrene, as I had styrene and no paper. The plans taught me a lot about how to lay out the complex curves of a ship.
