Building a Track Scales - Part 3

The track scales is now complete and ready to be installed on the layout. It was a straightforward and fun project. To be honest, I rarely model modern structures, but they are as fun to build than old wooden structures.

I heavily weathered the structure according to the prototype. A cement plant is a dirty place and building should be accordingly.

I rarely detail structure interiors, but this time I painted the walls, added some desk and instruments. Also, the building is almost an aquarium, so I added blinds made of drafting paper. I really help to bring some life into the building by giving it some depts. I also distract the eye to see how empty is truly is.

 

I'm actually wondering if I won't add a sitting figure one day.

M420 on Murray Bay Subdivision

If you're wondering with my last post had "M420" in its title, here's the answer.

During our last open house, Jean-François Boudreau kindly brought one of his most interesting locomotives: a Kaslo Shop CN M420 with an Atlas frame and Tsunami sound.

When he offered us to operate it on the layout, we gladly accepted and the M420 pulled the train back to D'Estimauville.

The home trip was quite long since we made him stop the train in many location to take a few good shot of it. It was a good occasion to recall memories from this now lost era when CN operated the line.

Among our guests were many younger railfans in their late teens and early twenties. Some of them never saw a freight train over the Murray Sub and none ever saw it under CN tenure. However, they were eager to know more about that prototype they've heard from older railfans.

It's crazy how such a backwood subdivision still have an impact upon the collective memory of younger ones. The time when the line attracted American railfans in the 1940s-1950s and when Omer Lavallée wrote articles about it is long gone...

 
I had a lot of fun to answer they numerous questions and they delved into my childhood memories as if it was something that happened in some fabulous era. Gosh! It just the mid-80s/early 90s, that's yesterday!

They were quite surprised to hear that 4 to 6 trains per day travelled the line, that motive power was often made up of three M420, that train were regurlarly from 60 to 80 cars and that 100-car consist weren't unheard of. I told them about the snow plow operation, CN employes in the caboose and special commodities handled over the line.

It was also a good way to introduce them to an era when Quebec City still had large industries like Ciment St-Laurent and Dominion Textile, both gone at the time of their birth. In return, they talked about their hope to see this railway line get a new life in the future.

With that open house, I just discovered another aspect of modelling a real prototype. You're not only recreating your own memories, but you pass down history to the next  generation.

New Year Annual Open House Meeting and M420

Last Saturday was our delayed New Year open house. It wasn’t an operation-oriented meeting since there was too much guests to stage a normal train, but there was some action for those interested. One of them was kind enough to bring some special locomotives with him that you'll see later in this post.

It was interesting to get some feedback from people who didn’t saw the layout since a year. Most people commented about the drastic track density decrease over the last twelve months. It was generally viewed in a positive light. One of our guest who visit several layouts on a regular basis said he had grew tired of layouts with too much tracks for their own good. He recently visited a new club layout under construction and was quite shocked to see the ludicrous amount of tracks, so much he was still wondering if they would ever see any significant action.

To railfans in Quebec, the CN Murray Bay Subdivision has a special place in the heart of many and at least, they enjoyed seeing the line modelled in HO without too much compromise. The younger ones were quite surprised to discover the substantial traffic that moved over these rails not so long ago.

Just before the diner started, Jérôme managed to run a train from Limoilou to Donohue. Since Donohue was overflowing with excess cars, the #522 was shorter than usual but had 3 cars to be delivered at Montmorency Falls including a rare visitor: a CP Rail boxcar.

As usual, the train departed D’Estimauville and was pulled by a single GMD1. The train was short and management saw no need to assign a pair of RS18.

At Villeneuve, the train passed by a pair of tired GP9 delivering a coal train and few empty insulated boxcars to the cement plant.

It wasn’t long before the GMD1 emerged from behind Dominion Textile. The crew made a quick stop at the abandoned station to meet with a mill employee about the switching instructions at the plant.

It was only a matter of a few minutes to pull the empty Rock Island hi-cube boxcar and replace it with 2 loaded boxcars of cotton originating from Memphis, TN. I heard the CP Rail boxcar was loaded with supplies ordered from Ontario. They are probably some special parts for the plant equipment.

After a while, #522 was ready to continue its route toward Clermont.

 

The crew left the inbound cars in Clermont siding and after a few moves, proceeded to cross the bridge to switch the plant.

 

Donohue hasn’t yet received its new switcher from Merrilees. The small ALCO locomotive is undergoing cab modifications, paint and repairs. Meanwhile, CN perform the switching which is a treat to any railfan.

The first set of moves was to switching pull the empty car from the unloading areas, including roofless boxcars and a few tank cars.

A temporary mockup marks the tank car unloading area

When done, the outbound cars were left on the runaround track while the locomotive started to switch the loaded newsprint boxcars at the warehouse.

Lots of excess cars were still waiting on the plant property and they were dutifully spotted in the warehouse.

It was a matter of time before the crew started to push the outbound cars over the bridge down to Clermont.

A few minutes later, the inbound cars were pulled over the bridge to be spotted.

At this point, the diner was ready and Jérôme only had enough time to spot the empty newsprint boxcars in the warehouse.

The crew left the train on Donohue’s property. Operation will resume where it was left next week.

 

Building a Track Scales - Part 2

The original structure we used for the scale house was a portion cut away from an old Life-Like bungalow. Jérôme simply took apart the solarium and slapped a roof on it. While crude, this mock up was relatively similar to the real structure.

The real scale house was a small aluminium curtain wall structure with a large flat roof with a corrugated steel fascia. I once found a photo negative of the structure in Quebec National Archives last year, unfortunately, having a copy made was not economically viable. So I crammed in my head the most information I could and built the structure from memory. Fortunately, I have access to insurance maps and Google Earth to figure out the structure lenght and width.

 
Though the Life-Like parts are relatively crude, they are a good approximation for a 1950s curtain wall and I decided to used them again. Various window and panes were combined until it looked like my memories.

 
Opaque panels were added near the floor and a desk was added inside. The structure is so transparent I feel I'll have to decorate the interior to fight the empty aquarium look!

The roof was made from styrene sheets and styrene corrugated material. It won't be glued on the structure, but I glued a piece of styrene that acts like a peg and secure the roof on the building. It will make painting andd glazing much more easier.

I find the final structure to be attractive. The nice modernist and industrial look fits very well the layout era.

Building a Track Scales - Part 1

Before describing this project, I just want to take the time to thank all people that took time of their life to read, comment and share this blog. Over the last year, readership reached well over 3000 hits per month and more than 50 000 visitors took a glimpse at Hedley-Junction. I was recently baffled to discover Mike Cougill quoted my words when I feel I should be the one to quote him.

We practice model railroading on an individual basis. Most of our achievements are done like medieval monks and friars working on artworks and scriptures. But just like them, we truly grow and evolve by doing so as a community.

For me, 2015 was the proof this is one of the most rewarding aspect of this wonderfully complex hobby. I may not be able to complete most of my project, but I was humbled when my little work was enough to prompt people to do something by themselves. It was also a year I discovered that my vision of a more achieveable hobby wasn't an isolated wish, but what many people wants too.

North America is well-known to be a place of opportunity. Too often we take it for granted and while the sky is still the limit, I firmly believe doing Grand things isn't always about the project size but our mindset.

Finally, 2015 was the year we went back to regular railroad operations. The layout reached that point where it was an entertaining game to play. It took us 10 years to go back to our roots when we founded the club back in February 2006. Do I have regrets? No. The trek was formative! But if I can only give you an advice, it's to play with your trains whatever happens.

While the layout's concept and track plan are now quite set in stone, a lot of challenges are awaiting us! We didn't set any specific goals or took resolutions this year. But it is evident making Ciment St-Laurent more operation-friendly is one challenge we must overcome and it's exactly what's this post is all about!

Building a Track Scales

Ciment St-Laurent's operation can be slightly boring when shoving mindlessly strings of cement cars. However, in real life, switching the plant was much more demanding. Each outbound car had to be individually weighted before shipment. So now - under Jérôme's request and guidance - I am building a track scales.

We could have gone the easy way by buying a Walthers model, but it was fitting our prototype (not a gauntlet type) and we would need to trash most elements anyway. It was thus decided to scratchbuilt the scale in MDF and styrene, allowing us to save the cash for an electronic weighting station.

The track scale itself is made of a 1/4" thick block of MDF covered in styrene sheet. I scribbed the sheet to represent seams in the concrete pad. A styrene curb was added on the perimeter.

Rails are code 83 PECO flextrack glued with CA glue on the styrene. Each rail was then secured in place with custom made tie plates and spikes. Almost 200 hundreds parts were required. They only required about 5 hours to glue! Lots of fun! I could have kept them simpler, but just didn't look right according to prototypes. Ciment St-Laurent's track scales was built back in 1954 and had very little in common with modern slick prototypes we are now accustomed to.

Next step will be to paint and weather the model, but before that, it's back on the layout for a fitting test and operation. I'm also planning to build the scale house that stood beside the scales. It was a fine exemple of modern 1950s industrial architecture.