07/02/13 SCRATCH BUILT CAR FERRY FINISHED

Alex you are doing an amazing job.  I can not wait until it is finished and on my layout.  It will ad so much more operating possibilities.  I plan to put it on a roll away cart so I can have it "sail" away when loaded.  

 

My God, I thought I was obsessed.....  I want to see the finished pics and a video in action... 

Truly amazing!

 

Bob

Beautiful! I always like to see boats on train layouts its a very nice touch in my opinion 

Alex,

When you can work with wood the way you do, you don't need plastic.

Great job.

 

Alan Graziano

Will it be dubbed the SS Alex? Great Job!

Thanks Jim, wood, CP BOB, Liam, Alan, and Don for your interest and nice comments

 

Jim- I'm looking forward to seeing it on your layout in operation

 

Alan- Your words meant a lot to me.  Wood is messy plastic is neat. LOL LOL

 

Don- Thanks, If I named it the SS Alex, Jim would kill me. LOL LOL

 

Thanks again to all

Alex

Alex, you keep raising the bar and do it very well.  Car ferries are interesting on layouts.  Jim will have quite a neat piece for his O gauge world.  Looking good!

Wow Alex that is looking VERY NICE.

Alex.....WOW, WOW, WOW!!!!  You are doing some really interesting projects.  AND..Jim, I want to see how you are going to incorporate this great model on your layout....I may just have to copy you!

 

Alex...you are so talented.  I know that you have problems with your back and now your leg but my friend, you have found your calling!!!  In the next couple of weeks, I want to talk to you about doing a barge / ferry for my canal.. I'll give you a call.

 

Alan

Alex you are incredibly talented. I thought long and hard about having a harbor scene on my layout since I work on the waterfront. But then I decided not to do one because of space limitations. However after seeing your work and Alan's harbor scenes I am having second thoughts. Can't wait to see the finished vessel.

I really appreciate how you share your ideas freely to us all. Your posts are a true inspiration to me to move to the next level little by little. Each of your pictures offer so much information. I can look at the individual pictures for ten minutes and then the next time I look I learn more.

 

I tend to build quickly and not finish joints smoothly. You have taught me to slow down on building and know that even the pieces that are not viewable on the finished product deserve just as much attention to detail. Great stuff. Incredibly great stuff. 

 

Thanks again for sharing and teaching me. 

Once again just fantastic. I'm wondering how may hours would you have invested in a project like this?

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU

 

Keith thank you, I'm looking forward to your next creation

 

Popsrr thank you, I will see some of your structures today. I'm going to Alan's house

 

Alan thank you, Yes I have a lot of problems with my back and my right leg, I'm very limited on what I can do in a day. I can't sit for more than 30 minutes and I can't stand for more than an hour at a time. But on a good note my hands feel okay. So it take's me triple the time to get something done. But I love it,  Let me know what you need done and I will take care of it for you.

 

Captain John thank you, If you can try and incorporate a harbor scene, you can make it removable like Jim is going to it's very interesting and a lot of fun.

 

Jeff thank you for the wonderful words, I must work slow due to injuries in my back and right leg. I used to work very quick, but having this injury has made me slow down to a crawl. But I'm thrilled that I can still create these structures.

 

Spence thank you, It will take about two months, if I wasn't injured I would be able to finish something like this in two weeks. If I had to guess in hours I would say about 160 to 175 hours. But I love every minute of it.

 

Thanks again to all of you, I'm honored

 

Alex

I opened the original post thinking barge type car float but would be too easy for a person with your talent.  I should have known what to expect from you.

 

Joe

You can't sit still, can you? 

Did this fellow "float" a loan?

I think this is a ferry, ferry nice job !!

Oh, yes, Hull of a nice job !

Amazin'

   

Awesome job Alex. I love things that are different. Can't wait to see the finished product.

Alex, you sure come up with some very interesting projects, but this sure takes the cake. Very ambitious and you sure are very cable of the task at hand.

 

Please keep us posted with more photos as you go along.

You always said  When is my ship coming in  When is my ship coming in   Well here it is the Queen Mary !!

Looks great Alex  The water line was definitely a good idea.  BTW I have a granery from somebody I have to get to oyu

Alex,

 

Killin' man!  I see an ore boat in your future.

 

Nice job!

 

Dave

Alex,

 

Wonderful craftsmanship! Are you working from an actual model or from plans?

 

I wonder if Jim will have the ferry pick up the load (trains) at one location, sail the ferry away, and deliver them to a different location of the layout?

 

Thanks for sharing.

Alex

That would be a cool idea but for now it will sail to now where.  My layout is actually a medium size, 13.5' x 8'.  and this will make it a bit bigger, but the wife has set her foot down and said it is big enough.  

That's going to be awesome when its finished.  Thanks for sharing the pics. 

 

Scratchbuilding is cool...

This is the type of thread I both love and hate. 

 

Love it when I stumble upon them when they are months old and I can catch up on the start to finish process in a minute. 

 

Hate it when I catch them fresh like this one and have to wait to see the finished product.  The horror!

Alex hope you and Alan have had a good day of talking model's.

 

"This originally was The Ann Arbor Railroad Co.'s "Ann Arbor No. 7," carrying RR cars, passengers and a limited number of automobiles on several routes out of Elberta, MI. Boat 7 was repowered with diesel engines and had other modifications in 1965, and renamed "Viking." She last sailed in 1982. There was a proposal to have her ferry trucks across Lake Erie in the late '90s, and she might have been refurbished & made operable again at that point, but the plan fell through."

 

This was on Flickr.  The ferry was used to connect the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to the rest of the world.  Its lines are similar to Alex's model.  I don't know of any ferries that crossed the Great Lakes that didn't have similar lines because of the fierce winds and waves that they could experience.

 

Jan

Here's some prototype car ferries carrying passenger trains, some shot from the deck, others from trains being loaded/unloaded:

China:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGP-M5PpUtE

Italy: (depicts a passenger+auto-carrier train being uloaded)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM8OMtUtI0A

Puttgarden, Germany: a diesel ICE boarding and departing a carferry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQWEk2r3ovE (boarding)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmEVXg88xuk (departing, as seen from onboard the ferry)

Same ferry link, different equipment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xl_zX9UE2w (front-end view while the train rolls onboard amidst cars and trucks already on board--check out the complex switch as the train rolls onboard the ferry deck)

 

---PCJ

Very neat idea.  Quite ingenious.  You could probably fit my entire layout on that thing and take it for a ride!  Can't wait to see the end result.

Ron

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU

 

Coach Joe-  thank you for the beautiful words

 

Eliot-  Great words and thanks for the nice comment, see you soon

 

NJCJOE- Thank you for the nice words

 

Brian- thank you and I hope to get back on your project soon!!!!

 

Ben- thank you for the nice words,I also painted a thick white line on the very top of the hull. Let me know when we can meet so I can pick up the grain building.

 

Dave- thanks for the kind words.

 

Alex- thank you, I'm actually looking at a few different ferries and Jim and I came up with this idea.

 

Martin H- Thank you for the kind words.

 

MichMikeM- I'll keep the thread updated every few days, this is a really fun project

 

Popsrr- Alan and I had a great time swapping our model stories.

 

Jan and RailRide - thanks for posting the photo of the ferry

 

FrankfordJunction- Thanks for the nice words.

 

Here's two more photo's of some progress, I added a white thick line at the top of the hull and I was able to paint the interior of the ferry.

 

Thanks again to all.

Alex

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow!  Looks great!

You are a true craftsman. Unreal work

Thanks Charlie and Brian for the kind words

 

 

Alex

Outstanding Work Alex!

Looking amazing Alex

 

Guess I need to get my butt going on building the expansion where this car ferry will go!

This picture answers some of the question I had in my head about how they loaded the cars on the ship.  It's pretty much what I had assumed, but it still doesn't answer my biggest questions. 

1) How do they align the track height with the ship deck? (hydraulic adjusting deck I assume?)

2) How do they get the side to side so precise to make the tracks align?  Is the ship slip so tight that there's no margin of error?

I'm surprised you didn't make a Staten Island ferry 

Just fantastic work Alex! While there are a lot of folks that do some very good modelling, there are just a few like you that are in a league of their own. Can't wait to see her launching! Will she withstand a bottle of bubbly? Lol!

Pretty sure the Aprons have a latch to the boat  The aprons float along with the height of the boat

Thanks Rich for the kind words

 

Jim I'm moving fast so you better get busy. LOL LOL

 

Wyhog Thanks for posting some nice photos,and great info

 

Eddie G, If the ferry was for me I would have build the Staten Island version,

but it's for fellow forum member Jim.

 

Paul (Va golfer 1950) Thank you very much for the wonderful words

 

Here's two more photo's of the upper deck area and bridge

 

Again thanks to all, Alex