Stanstead Branch - A Versatile Small Layout

Digging up old designs of mine is a yearly trend. Recycling baseboards and concepts is normal things as much of us have a few pet subjects we like to gravitate toward. In my case, it’s well known I’ve always been a big fan of rural branchline terminals and 1900s-1920s railways (before and right after nationalization). Connors was cool, but it’s a long stretch of straight tracks, however, another design of mine was inspired by Boston & Maine’s Stanstead station, a small terminal built in 1896 to connect Stanstead, QC to the Massawippi Valley Railway (MVR) that was, at that time, operated by B&M.

This is even more appealing that I've been looking for a neat small design to build a layout for my living room. Something that is both a conversation piece, a playground, a display shelf and an invitation to operate when a friend visit.

Stanstead layout as designed many years ago and never built.

To make a long story short, Stanstead was supposed to be a major rail hub in the mid-1850s, but several political and corporate shenanigans left it out of the game with several railways passing by but none ever serving it. At some point in the 1870s, the MVR built a small industrial spur from Beebe Junction to nearby Rock Island, a small town about 1 mile from Stanstead. However, the larger town was still left alone in its corner, devoid of any direct service. Fortunately, B&M would rectify that 26 years later by providing 3 trains in each direction each day to connect with corresponding trains on the mainline at Beebe Junction according to a June 22th, 1903 public timetable.

Stanstead Branch 1903 timetable (published in Stanstead Journal)

Postcards and pictures of the era show that trains were short. About one combine and a coach, this was more than sufficient. Stanstead was a small location, with only a standard B&M depot, a runaround track, a team track with a freight shed, an enclosed water tank and a small turntable. Not that it needed anything else. I have no idea about the freight traffic that ran over the spur line, but it was probably the usual suspects such as dry goods, lumber, farm equipment, grain and coal. To that should be added granite, which is a specialty of the area. Also, starting in 1896, B&M ran a milk car in conjunction with Canadian Pacific that ran from Stanstead to Lennoxville to Montreal.

 

A typical passenger train (credit: Matthew D. Cosgro)

As a matter of fact, Stanstead, as I imagine it, is nothing more than the perfect design element you can dream of. It’s the epitome of a rural station without any gimmick. It’s bare bone railroading at its best. For this reason, while it’s based on a prototype, it has universal appeal and I wouldn’t make it absolutely a B&M layout, but rather a generic one that can be used for various railway companies, depending on my mood.

I could easily imagine a converted  IHC 2-6-0 as a starting point

The template being relatively small and the layout self-contained, I had to do some calculations to make sure everything would fit like a puzzle. The basic unit was a train composed of a small steam locomotive (4-4-0, 2-6-0 or 4-6-0) pulling three 40ft freight cars and one combine. It should be possible for the operator to do all the switching moves without using a cassette or any other means. The winning formula was to have a 3-car long track at the end of the line and a 3-car + 1 locomotive long switching lead at the other end. The runaround would be long enough to accommodate 3 cars and a wooden combine.

A mockup to determine the perfect track length

While the plan was easy to determine, making it attractive required something else. Chris Mears often confess his love of sweeping curved tracks on layouts. I agree with him, they are aesthetically interesting and also provide excellent vantage point to railfan a train. With the recent passing of Iain Rice, I looked at a few of his beautiful layout drawings and decided I would add that British touch to the layout by twisting the tracks. Add some topography and it should make it an attractive sight!

A small revision to jazz things up a bit

As for rolling stock and motive power, I already have several small steamers to kitbash and an extensive collection of old time equipment. The nice thing is that many cars in the 1900s-1910s were still very short, including 30-32ft reefers and boxcars, short flatcars and small gondolas. That means that while the layout was designed with 40ft cars in mind, it will look even better with the old rolling stock.

Welcome to Stanstead!