Conformity
Wikipedia en français talks about this pontoon :
In 2010, the Southern Railway of British Columbia is completing work on a rail-sea terminal south of Annacis Island. This system for loading railcars and road trailers onto barges is set to handle 6,000 railcars a year, serving Vancouver Island and coastal industries.
For the documentation, I was extremely lucky: in Vancouver, the Annacis Rail Marine Terminal was a railway location with a small reputation; that reputation has risen to the top thanks to Boomer Diorama. And Boomer built part of his layout based on the same prototype as mine. And he documented his work at about the same time as my progress1. It gave me other views than the more general (but superb) ones of Matthew Robson and Chris Medland or the (blurry) vision from Google Maps :
This structure is composed of five elements (from right to left):
- the crew shelter, which also houses the pontoon’s maintenance equipment
- the fixed part of the pontoon, on concrete pillars
- the mobile part of the pontoon (which moves up and down to settle on the barge), it also includes a triple stub-switch.
- Two towers carrying the jacks for raising and lowering the pontoon.
- The five cushioning pillars (painted rust-red), two different models.
Due to the size of my layout, the pontoon was slightly compressed, while retaining the overall spirit. It has been reduced in width, to allow only one track to pass instead of three; the fixed part of the pontoon has been reduced in length by two pillars. Originally, this pontoon was even narrower, but as this was very ugly, I gave it a bit of freedom when I switched from a cardboard-framed to a wooden-frames layout.
Construction
Pontoons
The triple stub-switch is functional, but temperamental: you have to watch every wheel that passes through it. It was complicated to build: I made two versions of the pontoon, each with its own stub, and then worked the stub from the second version twice. It’s made up of Atlas code 55 nickel silver rails, soldered to a printed circuit board, with plastic elements to fill the gaps. I’ve had to readjust and repaint some elements since the build.
An ON-OFF-ON inverter is placed under the stub to power the central switch core. Each rail is powered; technically, it’s possible to run a machine on each track, but for the moment, the barge is not powered2. I select the direction by pushing on the moving blades with a lever (often a screwdriver or small spatula). The moving part is fixed to the layout by removable screws.
On the fixed part of the pontoon, the concrete pillars are made of 10x10 chestnut wood sections, covered with plastic; the plastic is sanded to represent the bevel like on the prototype. They are then drilled to accommodate the Evergreen plastic tubes representing the feet. These tubes are used to pass the screws and wires that hold the pontoon to the layout’s structure and supply it with electricity.
Everything else is made of Evergreen plastic. The railings were assembled using a homemade template. The plank deck was grooved following a pattern, with each plank marked.
Towers
The two four-pillar structures were built using an assembly jig. Each tower is made up of four round plastic sections, plastic-coated at the top. The spacers are made of 2mm square profiles. Adjusting them involved a lot of trial and error, and a bit of waste. I taped a piece of emery cloth to a scrap piece of tubing to make the spacers fit just right. A little bit putty did the rest of the adjusting.
The base of each tower is drilled, fitted with a screw from the inside, and glued with two-component epoxy adhesive. This allows me to remove these elements from the layout when I need to. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work, and I’ve recently destroyed a tower when unscrewing it
The inspection ladders are photoetched. Cylinder piston rods are made of stainless steel. Power cables are made of 1mm steel wire. Railings are often a source of questions, but they are made of 0.5mm round plastic profiles.
Cushioning pillars
There are two near the pontoon, and three further out, for securing the ships. They are made of Evergreen plastic, a tube whose ends are covered with plastic, then detailed with various profiles. The base of each pillar is drilled, fitted with a screw from the inside, and glued with two-component epoxy adhesive. This allows me to remove these elements from the layout when I need them.
The shock absorber panels are made from a plate with two profiles; the locations of the nuts that hold the rubber strips have been shown. Due to lack of space, I haven’t reproduced the inspection ladders and railings.
Crew shelter
The small building housing the yard office is unusual in that it is to scale. It is also made of plastic card, with the exception of the railings, which are photoetched. The whole is designed in three blocks: shelter base, shelter and terrace. The latter features the right number of rows of breeze-block and steps. The interior (right-hand side) is fitted out (see “details” section).
Details
On the pontoon, the fire extinguishers are protected by tarpaulins, reproduced with a paper handkerchief. The same tissue was used to make the windsock.
All the ropes and slings are made of sewing thread, some attached to winches. The lifebuoy is a piece of 1mm brass wire, shaped on a brush handle and painted.
Some of the mooring pillars have chains, while others are equipped with rigging wire.
The cameras refused to stay on the layout, and I lost a few of them. It was the camera wires, made of painted 0.1mm copper wire, that made me swear the most.
The lamp posts are a rectangular section of plastic card, glued to the top of a 1mm Evergreen profile. This choice was made in favor of finesse and flexibility (I never broke one!), to the detriment of a functional lamp post, which would surely have detracted from the scene by being far too large.
Inside, the shelter features a metal cupboard and a desk (with a microwave, no longer visible). The lighting is functional. The only character glued to the layout is at work: a Merten worker who fell off my workbench and was stepped on by me3: having lost an arm, I offered them a job in the shelter.
I chose to ignore all the fences around the protoype. I gave it a try, and it “packed ” the entire scene, making it less visible.
Finishing and lettering
The different parts are primed and then painted with Vallejo paints mostly, using conventional methods.
As both elements of the pontoon are covered with planks, each plank is painted individually. Weathering with acrylic washes “melt” them together.
On the side of the mobile pontoon is the company logo. I recreated the logo in SVG format, then printed it on a sheet of transparent decals. The same logo was used on the shelter. And one sheet of decals went to Boomer...
The weathering is done with everything I had at hand: washes, watercolor pencils, airbrush and brush application. One challenge was to achieve a consistent tide line throughout the structure (and the rest of the layout). It was the decor, created before the rest, that guided the height left by the mud on the structure. The movable part of the pontoon has several “silt lines”, as it sometimes changes angle.
Evaluation
To be done! The gallery is full of photos for evaluators.
- construction : /40
- details : /20
- conformity : /25
- finish and lettering : /25
- scratchbuilding : /15
