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Ready for Hartford.

Temporary Freight House and Float Bridge added

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Its ready to go.

I managed to get a mock up model of the round freight house built. What a monument to geometric lunacy that thing is. It took a day to design, and a day to build. There is no detail on it at all, no doors or windows, just the basic shape of the building to fill in the empty space. The cars just clear the walls, just like the original. Its pretty cool to watch.

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It was well worth the effort to build it, what a difference it makes on the layout even though it has no detail on it.

Its a 30 sided oval with two ends of 14 sides each and two straight sections in the middle, plus the cut out to gain entrance into the centre. To make it more fun, the roof tapers into the centre. I had the luxury of a CAD system to help with the design, how they did this originally is a testament to the designers!

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On the weekend I built a temporary model of the float bridge. Again, this is a stripped down version of what will eventually be there. The proportions are correct, it is built to scale, but all the detail is missing. I wanted to be able to connect the carfloat to the terminal as unloading it creates a lot of visual interest.

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A shot of the model and the original. The prototype photo on the bottom is a bit distorted, it is stretched out a bit making the freight house look shorter than it actually was. The model I built was measured from the original builders drawings and I believe it to be accurate.

Well, that’s enough fun for one month. Now, I just have to cram it all into the van and drive it 500 miles east.

I will try to get some video of it running posted before I take it apart.

Really this time….

-T.

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About the Author:

I'm your host, Tim Warris, a product developer in Port Dover, Ontario. Since March of 2007 I have been documenting the construction of the former CNJ Bronx Terminal in HO scale. For my day job, I design track building tools for Fast Tracks, a small company I own and operate. Fast Tracks makes it fast and easy to hand lay your own trackwork. Stop by our website to learn more!

Posted by: Tim | 07-02-2009 | 10:07 PM
Posted in: Benchwork Construction | Latest Posts | Track Construction | wiring | Comments (7)

First Video of the CNJ Bronx Terminal Operating

HD Video of Bronx Terminal

I cleaned up the layout and got out all the rolling stock so I could take it for a spin. It runs well and is a lot less difficult to operate than I thought it would be. I numbered all the routes in a logical order. Routes 1 through 17 select each of the yard tracks. The 20 series routes reset the yard tracks, or set the loops to closed. 30 series select the crossovers individually. 40 series are for unloading the car floats. In total there are 31 routes.

The locomotive shown on the video is my brass boxcab model of GE/IR 300 HP CNJ 1000. Its not yet painted, and needs work. It now has a QSI sound decoder installed, which you hear on the video. I am hoping to tweak it a bit before the show so it runs well.

This short video is the debut of it running.

Enjoy!

😉

-T.

On to Next Section…

About the Author:

I'm your host, Tim Warris, a product developer in Port Dover, Ontario. Since March of 2007 I have been documenting the construction of the former CNJ Bronx Terminal in HO scale. For my day job, I design track building tools for Fast Tracks, a small company I own and operate. Fast Tracks makes it fast and easy to hand lay your own trackwork. Stop by our website to learn more!

Posted by: warrisr | 06-17-2009 | 07:06 PM
Posted in: Benchwork Construction | Track Construction | Video | wiring | Comments (8)

Fixing a Design Oversight….

3 Video Series

In the videos above I document the process of fixing a design flaw that goes back about 10 years to when I made the initial CAD files for the terminal. At the time I had no idea what the size of a carfloat was and didn’t spend much time considering it, and as a result, the edge of the waterfront was too far forward and would not allow the carfloat to line up with the track properly. Not wanting to leave it the way it was, I decided to break out the power tools and hack it back to where it should have been.

I videoed the process, and the entire job is documented above.

Enjoy!

-T.

On to Next Section…

About the Author:

I'm your host, Tim Warris, a product developer in Port Dover, Ontario. Since March of 2007 I have been documenting the construction of the former CNJ Bronx Terminal in HO scale. For my day job, I design track building tools for Fast Tracks, a small company I own and operate. Fast Tracks makes it fast and easy to hand lay your own trackwork. Stop by our website to learn more!

Posted by: Tim | 05-21-2009 | 08:05 PM
Posted in: Benchwork Construction | Latest Posts | Video | Comments (5)

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