Structures for Monk Subdivision - The French Canadian Cottage

In early April, I started to build the structures that would be installed in the future farmstead scene on Monk layout.

As expected, it was a no brainer and should be a traditional French Canadian cottage. These distinctive houses dot the province along the St. Lawrence Valley and are unique in North America, making them perfect to set the layout in the right geographical area at a glance. Armagh is full of these houses, though most of them have been renovated on the cheap, losing their attractive trims, their elegant casement windows and their wood siding.

A typical farmhouse in Armagh

This specific model is based on an extremely widespread prototype that can be found in Quebec City area. It is 24' x 24' and these were built from the early 1800s up to the early 1900s. The window location on gable end is typical of  the South shore along the old NTR track and the lack of dormers is generally associated with poorer and more recently settled areas. Dormers were indeed generally a sign of prosperity and would be added later on when the attic was converted to living space.

Villa Hamel-Bruno in Quebec City(source: Trip Advisor)

The highly attractive curved eaves were inspired from a South Asian-inspired fad that was very popular with villa owners from 1790 to 1850. Regular people started to apply it to every building, including French houses, barns, sheds, churches, schools, mills, fatctories and whatever you can think of. In old 19th century contracts, it was referred as "Chinese roof" but that expression is no longer used and almost nobody is aware of the blue chinaware influence it came from.

Orientalism was, unsurprisingly, very popular in New France and endured until the late 19th century. You often find very old Asian wallpaper in farm houses with pagoda and traditional Chinese landscapes (foggy hills with trees) with many often made and imported from the Orient.

Back to the model! For the sake of making the future farm scene looks larger and deeper, I'm experimenting with a 1:100 house. The barn will probably be N scale so I can park a pickup and a tractor by it with N scale cattle. If it works well, I will build the rest of the civilian buildings at a smaller scale and keep 1:87 for trackside structures.

I started by drafting my house on Evergreen novelty styrene sheet. These houses were so much codified you can build one from the ground by only having the ground plan.

Cutting the walls from Evergreen Novelty siding sheet styrene

Siding is distressed and windows added later for ease of construction

Details such as casement windows were made by heavily modifying Tichy sash windows. Decovative trims with fronton, a very popular style in Quebec, were also added. Most of them find their origin in pattern books written by American architect Minard Lafever. His books were quite popular in Quebec and provided a lot of reference pictures and template for woodworkers. Local architect Thomas and Charles Baillargé used extensively this style, particularly Charles who had an obsession with Neo-Greek architecture. In Armagh, most household were too poor to afford elaborate versions of these trims, so they simply used planks cut with a fronton but omitting the mouldings altogether.

Making Neo-Greek casement window trims from bits of styrene

A completed gable with its two attic windows

I've developed my method of assembly structure over the years and can do it fast nowadays. Never forget your internal bracing!

In need for a roof, the house is almost complete

Gluing soffit (tongue-and-groove siding) ad fascia is key to realism

As I did with the speeder shed and Langlois station, every bit of styrene has been distressed with a razor saw to make the weathering process easier which should be quite straightforward. I repeat myself, but texturing any surface you plan to weather is one of the most crucial step in making your modelling shine.

A typical French Canadian cottage ready for paint

QSSR Mk. VI - A Preview

As a few of you probably know, I've been working again on my QSSR Mk.VI layout. This time, the goal is to finish is, get proficient with scenery techniques and make something upon which I can add up. With no surprise, this is the originator of the Monk Subdivision, so it's normal it serves as an experiment ground. 

I've gathered a lot of information while building this layout and will probably share a little bit of it here. So let's start with the station by the rural road. It's fully scratchbuilt in styrene and cardboard and based on a CPR style of stations that could be found in Southern Quebec. I really wanted that kind of scene because they set the interface between the railway and ourselves. This is the point of contact between two worlds that operate on different scale.

A rural scene in Southern Quebec

Structures for Monk Subdivision - Langlois Station - Part 1

On March 22, after taking a break from work that would last two months, I went to Armagh, QC. The goal was to gather dimensional data on a few old NTR structures preserved in a regional park, namely the Langlois Siding station and Armagh speeder shed.

Langlois station has been tastefully restored a few years ago

With temperature over 0, a bright sun in the sky and very little snow on the ground, it was the perfect day for a road trip and to survey without getting your fingers numb from the cold.

Distressing styrene adds texture for weathering

I thought I would 3D print the station a few months later, but I started to cut novelty siding and two days later, the station was finished, except for paint and shingles. It was one of these so-called "portable" designs, so the structure is very small to fit on a railway flat car.

Doors were build plank by plank following prototype

Later in life, the baggage room was enlarged due to high customer demand around Langlois which served a feed mill, a saw mill and was surrounded by a few workers' houses. The big particularity of this build is that I distressed all the styrene components to add wood grain using a razor saw.

The station ready for paint

I wouldn't do that on well kept structures, but old pictures show this station received minimal care during its last few decades of service and the wood was badly altered even in the 1950s. Another advantage of that technique is making the paint effects, washes and drybrushing much easier to apply.

Compared to a normal station, it looks tiny!

I joined a comparison picture of my kitbashed Atlas station just to show how small this one is.

Silence, work and more...

I’ve been quite quiet over the last few months. Health issues and exhaustion at work pushed me to take a break. Surprisingly, it translated into an extremely efficient period for my modelling work. I built several structures for Monk, experimenting new techniques, but also weathering several freight cars and even restarted my scenery work on the QSSR module. We also have greatly progressed with  All in all, a fantastic output, but for some reasons, I was not motivated to write about it. It was not a question of not sharing, which I will do in due time, but to immerse myself into a positive activity without any obligation. It was also an occasion to experiment with points of view and photography. As expected, my attention shifts constantly from Monk to QSSR but both are the same subject at the end of the day.

I’m also documenting my work with the goal of eventually publishing some article in the hobby press. The QSSR is also an occasion to re-explore the infamous Montreal Maine and Atlantic Railway which is always a fantastic source of inspiration. When we think of granger lines, we generally think about the Prairies and the Midwest, but truth to be told the MMA lines in Southern Quebec were exactly the same, including the fantastic diversity of covered hoppers serving the dozens of feed mills and elevators of the area.

So in expectation of future publications, let’s look at some of the work done recently.

The feed mill concrete foundation and other details

Railfanning the old school way

The GE 45-tonner struggles to pull 3 loaded cars...

Hoppers as palimpsest showing their true color

Utter clutter!

Fiat Lux - Illuminating Monk Subdivision

I simply hate working in a dark room on an artistic project and it's why installing the correct lighting right at the beginning it one of my top priority, well before laying tracks. It seems to me that getting the correct lighting is an invitation to work on the layout and make progress.

Who wants to work in a dark corner?

However, adding lighting to a layout can be a very frustrating exercise and Internet is full of stories about this peculiar aspect of our hobby which is harder to control than we could think of. Finding the right amount of light, the correct color temperature, longevity and a reasonable price point are sometimes mutually exclusive or hard to get in one package. No wonder many use off the shelf solutions like LED "fluorescent" tubes, LED fixtures and many older systems that have been tried and tested for years. LED strips may be interesting, but choosing the right ones is sometimes quite difficult. A lot of stuff is on the market from reliable to unreliable sellers. I did several tests with under cabinet fixtures and wasn't impressed. The output was good and some had selectable color temperature, but the CRI (Color Rendition Index) was generally poor, making the old CN green paint looking drab...

With only one strip of Neutral White LED

For this reason, I started to look online at what type of LED strips professional photographers used for their DIY lighting rigs. Since the goal was to test, I purchased two LED strips from a Chinese vendor called DIY LED which had good reputation from varioys DIYers. Their LED cost more than the competition but they have much better characteristics as they cater to customers that require high CRI for photography and similar uses. Here are the specs of what I bought:

DIY LED U-HOME High CRI Ra 95+ LED Strip Lights SMD5630 Neutral White Nonwaterproof for DIY Video Light Studio Light

DIY LED U-Home High CRI Ra 97+ Daylight White 5600K SMD5630 DC12V Flexible LED Strip Light 5M 300LEDs 60LEDs/M 10mm Width for DIY Movie & Television Photography Lighting

When I tested them, I was surprised by their output, but also by the quality of their light. No longer my CN Green locomotives looked weird or reds look washed out. But that comes with more heat since the output is almost twice what you generally get.

My preference goes tot the Neutral White LED because it's a softer white. The Daylight White is much cooler yet still good. Don't forget Daylight White is not direct sunlight, but indirect (diffuse) sunlight you would get from a window facing north. Thus, it's why we often it's too blue because sunlight is yellower when you are exposed directly to it. In all honesty, I feel the perfect spot was blending both stripes together, but for my purpose, I stuck my Neutral White while keeping the door open to add another strip later.

I would say one strip is enough when your layout is about 16"-18" deep and the lighting is about 12"-14" over the surface. Over that, you will need two strips.

I also have space constraints. Indeed, the idea to build a layout between base and wall cabinets was nice but it was also very dark. Since vertical height was very small, I didn't really think through my design, but I knew a valence was out of the window. I thought lighting would be installed later on but decided to start with it before committing to anything. The LED strips were glued on aluminium channels which have a 45 degrees bevel. They are about 1/2" high, which saves a lot of space. They are made for LED strips and act as heat sink and yes, with the kind of LED I'm using, I can guarantee you it works and is required.

Aluminium channels used as a valence and heat sink

The aluminium channels also come with polycarbonate diffusers. If you add them, your lighting output drop a little bit, maybe 15%-25% and at that point, you really need two strips. The diffusers is handy if your light source is close to the subject because each individual LED cast it's own shadows, creating weird patterns on the backdrop. It may not be an issue on your layout, so test accordingly before committing.

With the polycarbonate diffuser installed

At the end of the day, I'm satisfied with the current lighting installation. It works well, the CRI is high and the work surface and backdrop are well lighted, which is perfect to do miniature work.