Monk Subdivision - A Fresh Restart

Work has resumed on the Monk Subdivision while I put the Quebec and Gosford idea on the back boiler until trains can run on that old project of mine. I like my old time Canadian stuff and you can rest assured that the exploration started with Stanstead a few years ago will continue, but the show must go on and here we go again with Monk.

Removing the second staging level and the grade really put back the project into the achievable realm which is a good thing. Monk was never intended to be a basement filling empire and I'm glad I've corrected course before it was too late. So, over the weekend, I started to both test my ideas and rebuild the layout.

The final and simplified staging plan

Why test my ideas? Because track geometry is what will make that layout work. If it doesn't run smoothly, it all goes down the drain. To make the plan work as intended, I have a tricky crossover to create a returning loop. While it doesn't suffer from nasty S-curves, this arrangement is made of Peco, Atlas and Walthers track components, each with their own rail profiles that are nominally compatible in code 83. Atlas track is clunky and Walthers is that much better. Their curved turnout have extremely sharp diverging routes, something that is endemic of all products descended from Shinohara. In won't start to rant about commercial tracks, but suffice to know that Shinohara track geometry may be based on prototype about diverging route, but that doesn't work very well with model trains. Long prototypical passenger cars hate it, particularly when riding on 3-axle trucks. Thus, the importance of experimenting a little bit.

Working out the geometry... and cars

The first tests were done with Rapido first release Supercontinental coaches. These cars are faulty right out of the box and can be considered the most capricious piece of rolling stock I own. As expected, the car derailed on the crossing then ran poorly over the Walthers curved turnout. I then tried with a Walthers stainless Budd car which has similar proportions and trucks. Unsurprisingly, it ran very smoothly over the track. A quick inspection shown that Rapido wheels were grossly out of gauge, some piping was blocking the wheels from swiveling and the shell was poorly snapped over the chassis. Back to the benchwork, I discovered the pipe had been glued with its locator pin not inserted in the mounting hole. Two wheelsets had to be regauged and finally, poorly trimmed sprues on the interior prevented the shell to snap on the chassis. Once everything was put together as it should be, the car ran as well as the newer releases. It wasn't a matter of poor design, but extremely poor implementation and execution. At least, I'm glad the remedy was rather straightforward. It's just sad to witness how bad quality control was when that business started. 

The second round of test was done with WalthersProto and Atlas heavyweight coaches and sleepers. They both ran over the trackwork nicely, but I could feel some slight binding in the truck when navigating the turnout points when running over the diverging route. The issue was the wheel backs touching the flanges of the fishbelly underframe. It was a matter of cutting a small portion of that flange on each side to make the trucks swivel more freely.

All in all, I consider this experiment a success and I feel like I can go forward with the new staging plan. I already know that my locomotives will run over the curved turnout flawlessly. For this reason, this morning I dismantled the old staging, removed the fiber board to make a few changes to the benchwork and cut a new hole in the wall to provide the second access to the yard.

I've also almost completed the Monk locomotive roster. On Saturday, I visited the Vermont & Essex Railway model club located in Montreal. This is probably the most famous club layout in Quebec, being both based closely on a prototype and being almost complete.

The Vermont & Essex kitchen and dining lounge

It depicts the Central Vermont/Canadian National mainline from Windsor Station in Montreal to Bellow Falls, VT running through places such as St. Albans. The layout space is also wonderfully finished, with an elegant kitchen area reminescent of old time dining cars and a neat lounge. Well worth a visit and we had the chance to meet Clément Pot in real life, a young modeller who often post on Quebec Railway modelling Facebook groups. It's always nice to meet people and exchange with them.

Windsor station is the centerpiece of V&E

What I didn't expect was to find two True Line CNR ice reefers in 1950s paint schemes and a Proto 2000 GP38-2 locomotive in CN colors which was the last engine needed to complete the Monk roster. I've heard rumours that Rapido will probably do its own version, but that Proto unit runs silk smooth, has great details and a decoder. It would have been stupid not to jump on that occasion.

In the next weeks leading to Christmas, I will be installing a drop ceiling in the main layout room while trying to complete the new staging by then. I may be dreaming, but laying tracks in the main room during the holidays and maybe running an inauguration train would be quite the feat if you ask me!