Carfloats & Transfer Bridge
Moving freight across rail freight across water was a tedious process, often requiring "breaking bulk" multiple times. Carfloating was developed as the solution, an early form of intermodal transport. A barge with tracks on its deck would be moored at a specialized dock called a transfer bridge, and rail cars would simply be rolled aboard with their cargo. After crossing the river, harbor, or other body of water, the cars could be pulled off the barge and continue their journey. In New York City specifically, carfloats formed a key link in the freight traffic of the Northeast corridor, bypassing a several hundred mile detour if the same freight traveled by rail alone. At their peak during WWII, carfloats in NYC alone were transporting over 6,000 carloads a day!
This pack includes carfloat and station float barges to pair with my railroad tugs, and a modular transfer bridge combined cargo station/harbor.
The standard carfloat allows transferring freight cars loaded with any freight from one transfer bridge to another.
Top Speed: 8 knots
Capacity: 221 (17 compartments)
Weight: 1957 tons
Cargo Types: All Freight
The station float is a specialized carfloat with a loading dock in place of the center track. It allows spotting boxcars for loading directly at any customer with a conventional pier or dock.
Top Speed: 8 knots
Capacity: 130 (10 compartments)
Weight: 1610 tons
Cargo Types: Goods, Food, Tools, Machines, Plastic, Grain
Available: 1910-1968
This mod requires all of my other 40 ft. freight car mods because they serve as the visual loads for the barges! In the most complicated custom load config you’ve ever seen, the number and type of cars on deck will change as the carfloats are loaded and unloaded.
The transfer bridge is a modular cargo station/harbor which can be found under the cargo category in the water buildings menu. It has presets for 1-4 bridges, and allows placing up to 8 in one station. There are bridge modules both with and without catenary (Bay Ridge Yard had electrified transfer bridges in reality) and each bridge can be fitted with a blank landing allowing carfloats to dock, or fixed carfloat and station float modules which serve as train stops with 3 and 2 tracks each respectively. Trains can actually roll out onto these barge modules for loading and unloading. Using the "train shunter" mod or other means of push/pull for your train working the transfer bridge is recommended for authenticity’s sake.
The pack also includes customizable static assets of the carfloat and station float barges which can be used for decoration. Each is fully configurable with randomized or selectable freight car types, loads, and skins. They can be found under the "Rail Marine" category in the assets menu.
Required items:
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Railroad Steam Tugboat & Covered Barge — Steam Workshop
USRA Single-Sheathed Boxcars — Steam Workshop
40' Composite Mill Gondola — Steam Workshop
12,500 Gallon Tank Cars — Steam Workshop
H21a 70 Ton Hopper — Steam Workshop
20th Century Custom Loads — Steam Workshop
KnucklePro Coupler — Steam Workshop
