Makes an interesting impression. Now only the space for a prototypical layout is missing. Pacific coast to Fraser River......
Pete's models are probably ranked at or near the top for quality and detail. But you had better have a good sized harbor to fit some into. Even my 6 foot and by 30 inch deep harbor would have to undergo some serious revision to accommodate some of them.
I wanted to have a coal loading facility wherein coal would be unloaded from river barges to hopper cars or vice versa. But the sheer size of river barges and such a facility made it untenable even with compressing the scene. So, it never came to be.
Still doable with barges that are 25 N scale feet wide by 60 N scale feet long and going with a small tug.
I met Pete Nolan at the NSE convention when it was in Milwaukee years ago. I had a nice chat with him about his ship models. He's a very friendly fellow. His models are impressive.
The dimensions are impressive. Note that it is N scale! Since I'm currently designing my train room, it's still worth considering. There are quite a few scenes with a barge. But do it with a Laker ..... it will probably be difficult. For my West Canada layout, British Columbia, grain, sulfur and wood chips are ideal.
I have built most of my own barges with a few exceptions of purchased ones. A long time ago I cast some resin hulls. Some others were built on small thin plastic cases and then had decks and things applied. Here are two that are 26 feet wide by 60 feet long. 000_0547-2 by John Moore posted Dec 16, 2018 at 3:13 PM A container barge with two Tomytec tugs. 000_1340-1 by John Moore posted Dec 23, 2019 at 7:08 PM Two work barges on resin cast hulls. Barge mounted pile driver. by John Moore posted Nov 27, 2014 at 2:50 PM Plus I just recently purchased two 40 foot barges off the internet. There are endless possibilities to go with much smaller scaled down maritime equipment.
I really wanted to invest in one of these when I was figuring out how to do a container yard, his models are expensive but just look at them!! so decided would be totally worth it. Then, like others have noted, the space thing came into it. Turns out you need an absurd amount of real estate for a scale container ship that doesn't look awkwardly small. Have never seen anyone building anything to this level, though. Incredible models for sure.
This type of scenery requires a lot of space to appear authentic. This is certainly not the case for the average model railroader. My available space of approx. 35 square meters would also be too small.
I've wished that Pete's stuff was available back when I was planning my layout. I could have included a dock scene with a Hulett or two and a freighter to go with the rest of my coal ops.
Just to the point of satisfying the needs of my transportation on the Island layout, NUMA and the USCG. I have several that I repurposed my RR M of W into some ACME marine salvage and construction company. Pictured are a heavy lift crane and a pile driver and dredge. I originally built a container feeder ship which is a lot smaller than a container ship. Even though I have a large harbor the small ship still did not fit in, still too large. Came up with the idea of a container feeder barge that with a tug could service the smaller and shallow draft Island harbors. Tug/barge delivers containers to the Islands where they are transferred to trucks or short container flats. A crane on rails at the dock handles the load and unloading. Truck and railcar loading are handled by a big fork lift. Kato's big container loader was to big. The Japanese use big fork lifts to handle the smaller containers which they use so I went that way. My containers are 12,14, and 20 foot containers, the container flats are Bandai shorties that can hold two containers each or one longer container. Trouble is that folks are thinking a big operation when they need to do some serious downsizing and actually get more. Big container ships cannot operate on the Great Lakes but some smaller feeder types are because they can clear the bridges and get through the lock systems.
That's Pete Nolan. He used to post here regularly a long time ago. He had an amazing layout with several scratch built ships and large bridges. I did a search but it looks like his posts and photo gallery have been removed. He had a model of an US Navy LPH (Landing Platform Helicopter) that was one of the sister ships I served on. Too bad, he did some unique work.