Setting the mood

Donohue Paper Mill in Clermont is a mid-sized industry in real-life. But when scaled down in HO, it is a very large industrial complex. Even if one had the place, it would take a lot of material to build the structure itself.

For these reasons, I decided to make a photo backdrop of mill and only scratchbuild the rail-served buildings, including the woodchip unloader and the warehouse, and a few secondary buildings.

The back drop is about 13' long by 3' high. I can limit the height at 24 inches to save on printing costs, which won't be negligeable. I'll check this week with a few local printing shops about cost and delay. I would like to have it ready by late July, before doing any scenic work near the plant. I'm looking forward to that moment when this empty shelf will become a real industry.

Modelling CN Woodchip Cars

Revisiting an old railfanning trip made was enough to decide to tackle a very old project of mine.

Freight trains on Murray Bay Subdivision were quite simple during the post-50s era until the late 2000s. A typical consist from the 80s and 90s was made of 50' newsprint boxcars lettered for CN, CV, DW&P and GT (The Good Track Road logo was a staple back then), a few bulkhead flat cars for lumber, grey hoppers (cylindrical, traditional and Procor), kaolin slurry tank cars and a few gondolas. Difco and ballast hoppers weren't a rare sight from time to time. But one of the most iconic car was the 60' woodchip car. Most of them were lettered CN Rail, that short-lived "modernization" of already modern CN logo.

I always wanted to get these cars in HO, but it never materialized. As I already said, it was evident for me - at least for the last 15 years - that some day, I'll have to scratchbuilt the car myself. So today, I decided to make one in HO scale, using Sketch Up, a few pictures and general dimensions from a CN Freight Equipment Catalog. It is based on a Transcona design built in 1982, car series 878XXX. Many Canadians use the Walthers model as a stand-in, but I find it ugly and it isn't enough similar to the prototype to be a decent representation of a car type I liked.

The model was designed using Shapeways design guide for their White Strong & Flexible material. Not a great looking material, but affordable for a first prototype (about 48$). I made it as a 1 part car, using an old MDC Roundhouse Railbox car as a template for few details. The relatively simple and orthogonal shape of this specific car makes it easy. The goal is to only have to add Tichy ladders, metal stirrups and grabirons, couplers, trucks and brakewheel. The brake parts are included directly on the model. They are relatively concealed by the carbody and I'm not that crazy about wasting time and money on undeframe detailling that is barely seen from a normal line of sight. If you want to take a look at the 3D model.

The model I design isn't perfect. Crucial real data wasn't available and there's some discrepancies. However, I feel the model is fairly accurate (0.5mm to 1mm). All in all, I expect the car to cost about 60$ when detailed, decalled and painted. It is a little bit pricy, but when you think prototypically correct canadian cars are are often 45% to 50$ per car, it sound good to me. Scratchbuilding them from styrene would be extremely tiring and less detailed. No thanks.

The next problem is to find (read to make) suitable "CN Rail" decals for these cars.

Railfanning the Charlevoix Railway in 1998

When I was 15 years old, I went to visit my grandfather in Clermont with my parent. For some reason, I was eager  to try my new photo camera and brought it with me. That was to be my second railfanning trip. People who knows me well know I rarely do railfanning trip. Most people are interested in racing like crazy on rural roads to catch a train crossing a bridge or a grade crossing. That seems extraordinary, but honestly, it have been done millions of time. And seriously, if I want the thrill to see a train on a grade crossing I prefer the real thing than a video. Anyway, I'm more interested in the locales the train cross. To learn how it was built, what industries it served, local railway architecture and to understand how it works and mesh in the area. Most people don't give a damn about that, they want noise, huge engine and tractive effort... just like car enthusiasts. Nothing wrong with that! I love to see a string of powerful engine under effort, much better than a ridiculous sport car! However, mix these two kind of people together and you understand why I rarely venture out in the wild with train folks.

Tha said, in 1998, the only train-related thing I knew was Murray Bay Subdivision. I hated the new CFQ black and yellow switchers and missed CN's M420 and cabooses. But, I was curious to see the destination of this neighboring track. It was Clermont. Quickly, this trip inspired me to get models I've seen there (a pair of Athearn SW7, few 50' CN boxcars, a Walthers Russell snow plow and a P2K mill gondola.

First of all, please excuse the pictures poor quality. I was an inexperimented photograph back (and still is), lighting conditions were deficient and worst - my scanner's driver isn't compatible anymore - I had to photograph the picture with my digital camera... But I think the quality is good enough. Also, some shots were acquired by adventuring in places I wouldn't nowadays. I was a teenager and didn't saw any harm in my actions: climbing car ladders, walking down a semi-abandonned yard. I don't think I would do this again, but back then, I though it was normal. What's done is done, but I can't recommend doing this to anybody nowadays.

Donohue Paper Mill and the railway bridge over River Malbaie

My grandfather's friend was living next to the paper mill, on the Malbaie River shore. I was really impressed by the deck bridge over the river and the paper mill in the background. That scene really struck my imagination then. 16 years later, I'm actually modelling the scene and it's iconic bridge. If you've seen my previous posts, you'll see the area didn't change that much since then. However, the river water level is particularly low on this late summer shot. In spring, it is about 8 feet higher.

North end of Clermont yard. Note the station sign.

Clermont yard was a small railway terminal built to hold and store cars from the paper mill. Boxcars, woodchip cars and a few gondolas were the only car types seen there. There's a mainline, 3 sidings and an unused stub siding. No locomotives, no activities. It was evident most switching chores there were performed by the paper mill switcher. The yard geometry conforms to the landscape and is S-shaped. Maintenance was relatively good with minimal vegetation (except the stub ended siding which disappears in the wood on the right side).

Typical 50' boxcars

Typical cars were these 50' boxcars with ribbed side. Strangely enough, I didn't spot any 50' NSC Newsprint boxcars, even if there were often spot on trains. I suspect most were routed to Beaupré's paper mill.

Typical CN woodchip car

Another typical car was this iconic CN woodchip car. I'll probably need about 6 of them to have a believable fleet. Unfortunately, no commercial version exist of this particular model. I always liked the ridiculous "CN Rail" logo on them. Even back in 1998, I knew I would have to scratchbuilt them one day. And thus, I took an interior shot.

Interior of an empty CN woodchip car.

This illegal interior shot give is a good idea how a woodchip car is emptied at Donohue Paper Mill. It seems the woodchips are vaccuum. Our observation of the plant last spring confirmed this. Weathering a car like this would make empty cars look visually interesting.
 

A pair of rarely seen gondolas on Charlevoix Railway

Among the many boxcars and woodchip cars, there was an interesting pair of 53' gondolas.

Wonder how to weather your Rapido HO gondola?

The gondola interior revealed a lot of debris, garbage and junk. I have now I idea about its purpose on the Charlevoix Railway, but it definitely wasn't in revenue service at the time of this picture.

Later in the afternoon, a few miles south, my parents accepted to drive into Clermont industrial park. This railway transloading area is located on a wye which is called Wieland. There, a siding near a loco shop revealed two nice things. First, one of the switcher. CFQ had 3 switchers: 2 were pulling the regular freight train and one was kept at Clermont as a replacement.

Ex-CN 55254 snow plow stored at Wieland.

Finally, behind the switcher, there was this nice snow plow. Not identical, but very similar to True Line's new project. The snow plow is still owned by Le Massif de Charlevoix, bu didn't saw action since a long time and is a rust bucket rotting on a forsaken siding a mile south from Wieland. Two years later, I bought a Walthers Russell snow plow to kitbash this one. I shorthened the body and painted it. Finally, I restored it to it's full length about 3 years ago and airbrushed it.

Then, we returned home and I only came back there this spring. Most thing didn't change... but the yard was empty, a large tree felt over the tracks and remaining cars near Wieland were rotting on spot. Donohue's switcher is still there, but no more CFQ locomotives.

Preparing the benchwork

Yesterday was a productive day and we made a lot of progress. Enough to be able to start laying track during the month of July. Maybe. Among many task, I started to paint and weather the turnouts that will be used on the mill site. It is easier to paint turnout before installing them than after. Flex track will be painted on site though.

First, the fascia was completed all aroung Clermont. That included rewroking the first section we built to get a better looking curve.

The second section - left to the river -  was modified. After looking at prototype pictures, it was determined the track on the mill side is located on an embankment that is far higher than surrounding lands. This new platform open a new perspective on the bridge and makes the river valley looks larger than it real is.

Also, the fiberboard was painted with dark brown latex paint to seal it. That material makes a lot of dust overtime and we wanted to seal it for this reason. Also, it will give us a nice ground to build scenery upon.



Finally, the fascia was primed and received two coat of paint to blend it with the existing fascia. We thought about repainting the fascia a dark green, but so far, there's some disagreement about that.

Next step is to give fascia a last coat of paint and install definitely the bridge abutments. Building the river, printing the mill's photobackdrop and making labels are also top priority for the next weeks. I'll have to invest a few buck into a static grass applicator too.

The Bridge on the River Malbaie - Part 7

This afternoon, we remade the fascia near River Malbaie. As said in a previous post, the fascia snapped because there was too much stress.

The new fascia was allowed to follow a natural curve and no stress was induced while putting it in place.

This time, we learned our lesson and cut the fascia prior to any installation. The fascia on the left side of the river was also reinstalled to keep stress at minimum on the MDF board.

It was also a good occasion to make the benchwork larger were the river flow along the track. This will reinforce the feeling the railway is making its way between the mountain and the river.

 Next step is fixing the abutment and starting the river.