The Long Island Rail Road had two car float yards. One was in Bay Ridge in the Borough of Brooklyn, and the other was in Long Island City in the Borough of Queens. There were no railroad bridges from the mainland onto Long Island. Before the car float yards, freight traffic from the mainland had to travel up the west side of the Hudson River, cross the river around Albany, and then travel down to Long Island along the east side of he Hudson River. The distance was about 340 miles, and with an average speed of 40 mph, the trip was over 8 hours long, and necessitated a crew change. Thus, transporting freight cars across lower New York harbor to car float docks on Long Island along the East River became quicker and less expensive.

I wrote an article that discusses the car float barges, float bridges, and gantry cranes used in the transfer process, as well as the car removal and loading sequence needed so the barges would remain level. The article then describes how I modeled the LIRR car float bridges, gantry cranes, and yard in Long Island City in the Borough of Queens. View Article

The car float yard in Bay Ridge had overhead catenary wires, which I did not want to model, so I chose to model the Long Island City Yard. The bridge cranes at kitbashed from two Walthers kits.