Ya thats nice, thanks. I've been look every where for n-scale boats that might be used for a push boat, but they are hard to find.
Well, I'm certainly having fun with this. Here, found a bunch of high-level lock views on the Allegheny: Welcome to the Pittsburgh District Maybe you'll see something there that clicks.
I keep forgetting to mention HABS/HAER (Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record). Especially since I was on a team working on a HABS drawing in architecture school. It's an excellent resource if you're lucky and theyhave the structure you want to model (or at least something similar), most seem to have photos, some have scale drawings though, which are very useful.
Hey I finally found what I believe is the lock from where lived as a kid from that site you posted. http://www.lrp.usace.army.mil/nav/images/cwbill_aerial.jpg I don't have the room to do it as a prototype, but it still will bring back some good memories. biggrin:
Aha, carfloat! (Must learn how to read . . .) Probably any size your heart desires for those also. My nod to reality would be to base the length on time period. As you get to the 1960s and later, you'd want to be able to handle at least a couple of 50' (or longer) cars in one load. Thinking carfloat, IIRC most of them are run in open water with the tug alongside, pushing on the rear quarter (or whatever it's called). The tug could still be a end-on pusher on arrival. I would think because of the loaded weight and length of the carfloat, it would make controlling the whole mess a lot easier. So with a tug alongside, you could make the lock wider and shorter so both fit. If it takes up that much more of the river, it would be okay IMO. The lock is there to make the river navigable, not for the comfort of individual fish.
Thanks and sorry for the confusion. I only just learned about “carfloats”. I’ve seen photos, but never knew what they were called.
The lock and dam you have in mind is at Acmetonia, PA which is south of Cheswick on PA Rte 28. The dam is Lock and dam # 3 and is also known as the C.W, Bill Young lock and Dam. I have absolutely no idea who C. W. Bill Young is or was. Also I researched river barges and other locks and Dams in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District. The dams are all navigational dams designed to raise the river level to provide a minimum of 9 feet of draft at normal pool levels. The older dams are fixed crest dams where the water spills over the top. Newer dams are gated. The older locks are standardized at 56 feet wide and 360 feet long. Also the standard hopper barge used in the Pittsburgh district are sized for these lock chambers and are 24 feet wide and 175 feet long and 10' 6" high and designed to carry approx 1800 tons. Four of these could fit into a standard lock chamber at a time without the towboat.
Don't feel bad. It can get complicated. Just as I told my elderly mom not to feel bad because she couldn't understand Medicare paperwork. Takes a lawyer and an accountant butting heads. For the HABS/HAER (Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record: First type in or click: Library of Congress Home (I wrote "www-dot-loc-dot-gov" and the Trainboard site automatically replaces it with an easier-to-read site name link with a hidden hyperlink to the actual URL. It's the Medicare paperwork that takes the lawyer. The HABS/HAER just takes a computer techie or a research jockey...) The site opens to a lot of virtual exhibits and some links to "catalog" and "American Memory" etc. Click on American Memory. Just this part of the Library of Congress site has at least TENS of millions of pages. Maybe HUNDREDS of millions. "American Memory" opens up an array of 18 areas (each of which has many sub-areas within it). Choose ARCHITECTURE/LANDSCAPE. That opens 9 SETS of informations in the ARCHITECTURE/LANDSCAPE area. Choose "Architecture, Engineering and Landscale/HABS/HAER/HALS" You have now "narrowed" your search to records of about 38 thousand buildings and sites, in over half a million scale drawings, photos and data sheets. Now you can either enter a search term or phrase as as "canal lock" -OR- browse by list of topics -OR- browse by list of geographic locations. I got info on 371 canal locks. Hope this helps.
Ok, I think it got it the way it going to be and thanks to everybody for their help. I changed everything around so that the lock can be on the right side of the river facing up stream and moved the entire steel mill on the other side of the river. Then I decided to get rid of the lower bridge, because it was a pain dealing with the piers anyway and allowed me to have a wider river. I’ve decided to use the 56 ft x 360 ft lock chambers that Inkanerr found because I can make it work in my very small diorama. I can’t get the whole lock in the display so I’m going to have a cutaway version of only the upper portion. This way I can also limit the total depth of the Diorama to 2 ft. so I can get into the corners of the upper layout. I’m also going to use the 24 ft x 175 ft dimensions for the standard hopper barge and I’ll be able to have two without too much of a problem. I’m not sure how many tracks would normally be on a 24 ft wide carfloat, but I put two each, which looks a little tight in XtrkCad. Of course it’s all subject to change a little as I’m building it and I can see exactly what it looks like. Now keep in mind that it’s not going to be a prototype lock. There just isn’t room for that but as long as I have things that are familiar to me as a kid growing up along the river, I’ll be happy. Here is the latest drawing. Sorry about the colors, I was trying to show the contour lines, but for some reason XtrkCad displays different colors when switching from my Laptop to the desk top and I can’t see a way to fix it.
Wow, if you actually have a FOOT difference...down to the river level..... A couple comments... The 'abandoned' steel mill idea is sounding better and better. It doesn't look like you have active traffic to it. But wow, if you have that much vertical difference, remember this one: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/bessemerpics/fullsize/ab900bridge.jpg Even if you took ANY deck truss and painted it that light green color people would remember the Bessemer bridge over the Allegheny, because it is right next to the turnpike. Everybody in the northeast has seen that bridge...
Yes, I was looking for that bridge, but all I could find were photos of automotive bridges. I need to save that photo, thanks. Man I wish I would have seen that before I ordered my bridges, because I ordered gray. I just bought 2 Kato Double Truss Bridges that I’m putting together as one truss and I also bought 6 Kato Deck Plate Girder Bridges that I going to double up so that 2 pair will be on one end to make a double track while the other pair is on the other side. Since I just widened the river today, I’m going to need another Double Truss bridge and unfortunately they were shipped today so I’m going to have to make another order. I was looking for bridge ideas a couple of weeks ago when someone gave me the idea with the Kato bridges. Almost all the bridges I looked at were single track. Anyway I have Unitrack on one side and Code 55 on the other side so I just sounded logical to use the Unitrack. I may change it someday further down the line, but it’s just going to have to do for now. I just got to figure out how to paint the Kato bridges green. biggrin:
You know I am just blown away by the fact that I was looking for the Bessemer Bridge all this time and it was ¼ mile away from the lock. I just could not remember the name of it. I might have to rotate my diorama 180 degrees so that my bridge will be in the correct location, which would put the Steel Mill in New Ken. This is such a coincidence that I can’t believe it and to top it off my bridge on my actual layout is also on the west side of the lock. And what’s really crazy was that I was just looking at a house to buy for my retirement home just a little ways away from here. I changed my mind on the house, but maybe this is some kind of omen. baffled:
This will be an outstanding scene when completed. Keep us posted on your progress, Johnny. :thumbs_up:
Thanks. I just realized that this bridge is realy 160’ above the river and if my math is right that would put it at 12” above my river in N-Scale. This is just too weird because I just decided on 12” for absolutely no reason.. Maybe I should skip the steel mill and go prototypical cool:
If you think that is wierd consider this. If you look at aerial photographs you will see a couple of factory buildings just downstream of the dam on the side away from the lock. Those buildings are corrugated metal buildings of the same design as those used in steel mills but smaller in size. These buildings house steel fabricating businesses. Something else I noticed on Google maps satellite photos is that there is a partially submerged barge below the dam on the side of the river away from the lock. This was a barge that about 25 years ago somehow broke free of its moorings upstream and went over the dam.
Here's a couple thoughts..... First, if you didn't already have some really first-rate steel-type buildings I'd probably think that trees would look better than plastic kits. But not in this case. Those are nice. If you build it and decide you don't like it, it's pretty easy to remove the buildings and turn it into forest. It's much, much harder to go the other way. I'd leave it in. Having a steel business alongside barges with a high railroad bridge.... you're really flagging it as Pittsburgh. And even if you dump the steel business there should still be a railroad track down there running beside the river. Now, on the bridge.... I think the real key here is to figure out an evolution. Look at how you're going to evolve your supports and piers. A deck truss piers usually don't go up to track height, a through truss does. So you may want to design your piers in two pieces so you can change it down the road. If you take a typical through-truss model bridge and flip it upside down.... and graft it back together so that the end-angles are cut off...and mount the new track on top (Micro-Engineering bridge track maybe?)....you're at least getting close. I just don't see any typical deck trusses in N like that so you're kinda on your own. You may scratchbuild it someday, but don't let that stop you now. This is a highway bridge up by me but this is the kind of design I mean. Take your typical railroad through-truss, flip it and cut it... and think about it. http://www.bridgemapper.com/photos/pa/warren/PAWR_PA59KinzuaCrCornplanterBr.jpg Note how the piers stop under the bottom chord. That's why the Atlas deck truss looks absurd. It's a continuous truss, not a chopped-up one. The only difference between the Atlas through truss and the deck truss is they glue the truss sides on upside down. I really think that what people remember about the Bessemer bridge is the height and the color. Most people won't quibble on the deck truss vs. the cantilever design (note that there different truss sizes), they'll remember the color though. And that's one of those cases where if you've never tried a cheap airbrush and mixing some polyscale acrylic paints up, this would be worth it. Because I model a specific prototype I'm always fascinated on watching peoples reaction when they RECOGNIZE a scene, or when something REMINDS them of a real place and they say....hey, that looks just like..... What they trigger on usually isn't where you spent the most work to get there. Just fact. And in this case, as soon as you drew the locks and the high railroad bridge above it I though of Bessemer. If I walked in a layout room, saw a lock, a high green bridge, and a river.... you'd get a big wide smile and I'd say...wow, the Bessemer bridge over the Allegheny! And most people could NEVER tell you what's under there. You can't see it from the turnpike. But you can see the river and the locks. It is one of the remarkable and scenic views of Pennsylvania that has a railroad component.
Wow that is amazing. This just might be a calling to do this. My grandfather loved this part of the river and spent a lot of time there. I think I did hear something about that barge. I’m always going online to read the local news. I also remember reading about a tugboat going over a dam.
I think the other thing you might try is to cast in a 'pocket' in the water in the river, and make it so that a standard-sized barge model would fit into it. You could swap out different barges .... have a carfloat, a coal barge, empties, certainly would make it more interesting and less stale scene over time. Basically make a thin box that a barge fits into, and pour your water around that. Cut it off at the waterline, then put the 'real' model tightly fitted into the box. That gets around the difficulty of the waterline-type model that you can just always spot the crack under the boat and on top of the water, particularly in model photos. Certainly would work better for a squarish barge than a complex-shaped boat. I think there's almost always somebody getting hung up on those dams, not just barges. Depending on your sense of modeling and drama.... http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_685598.html
