A Shed From Scrap - Part 1

This week end, I visited my brother's farm in Château-Richer. He has been busy over the last few weeks converting a small shed into a barn for his newly bought Canadienne cows. It is an historic race of cattle that was created in New France back in the mid-1660s when our King Louis XIV sent many farm animals selected among the best animals that could be found in France. After many decades of evolution in North America, the cattle developed a set of characteristic making it a small yet highly productive and resistant animal. And they are very fun animals too being quite friendly and good-looking with their dark brown robe. Don't be surprised if a few Canadienne cows fidn their way on the layout near the farm house!

My brother's cows running like crazy last spring

 
While all this is interesting, what struck me in the face was that my brother - a man who works about 80 hours per week - had the time to "kitbash" a 1:1 structure while I'm only working 35 hours per week and struggle to finish any limited scale project I start... The answer was easy: he just don't waste his life on computer and other such gadget. Not that he doesn't used them, but rather that when he does, it's for a limited yet productive time.

So I just decided to keep the computer shut down and see what I could do... It didn't take a long time before I found things to do, including priming the feedmill, repairing a 1/12 figure that got broken and finally finding a new life for useless HO scale structures... After having litteraly destroyed my Walthers wood grain elevator for nothing since I didn't use any part on the Agrivoix Coop, I thought it would be sad not using the parts for something else.

The only part of the shed in good shape was the housing on top of the elevator which looks decidly liek a small house or shed.

Using my trusty hobby knife, I salvaged two other windows from the building to add some openings into the small shed. A Tichy door was from the junk also came to my help to bring life to this structure. The roofing texture on the plastic parts was scrapped and replaced with corrugated cardboard to get a more industrial look.

Finally, using the hobby knife blade I gently scraped some plastic from the windows horizontal mullions. In Quebec, you often see these old windows with a large central member and smallish horizontal mullions. This is a typical detail seen in French Canadian architecture inherited from France during the colonial time and which survived well intothe 20th century. Adding this kind of subtle reference helps to see the model into the right time frame and location.

I don't know what I'll do with this building. It could be an employees wooden shed at Donohue or used as a storage and pump house for the feedmill. I do plan to add a heating oil tank near the track and if this small shed looks good it will end there. If it's too big, I'm in no shortage of small shed. Whatever the use, this structure will be in need of repair with peeling paint.

Well, I can say keeping the damn computer shut down until 9 PM was an excellent idea to be more productive. Next time I'll complaim I'm lacking time to do what I want... I'll shut up my mouth!

Coopérative agricole de Charlevoix - Part 2

Work on the feedmill is progressing nicely. Over the last few days, I was able to clad and add windows to the office section, glue several stiffeners inside the building and add the roof.

Then I moved to detailing such as the fascia and soffit. Unfortunately, these details are often overlooked by modellers while they add a lot of extra realism without taking too much time or skill to implement.

Others small details like electric meter and gutter were also added. The gutter descent was salvaged from the Pola feedmill but filed down to a more realistic square as often seen on modern buildings.

Finally, the concrete staircase leading to the office door was kitbashed using Pola feedmills stairs and scraps of cardboard. The shape is very reminescent of own poured concrete stairs were designed back in the 1980s and later.

About color, I'm not sure if I'll leave the office building on galvanized steel or paint it white like the rest of the building. That's a decision I'll have to take soon.

As for the roof, I won't add the corrugated steel panels until the paint job is over. At that point, I'll also add a dust cyclone on top of the elevator to make it looks like a modernized plant. It was an attractive feature on Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré feedmill and I will try to reproduce it verbatim.

Coopérative agricole de Charlevoix - Part 1

Whatever the outcomes of that crazy American election saga, when I'll be asked what I was doing that evening I'll say I was scratchbuilding a feedmill for my HO scale layout. Yes sir, a HO scale feedmill in cardboard! But not any insignificant feedmill...

Better known as Coop Agrivoix since the late 20th century, the Coopérative agricole de Charlevoix (located between Clermont and La Malbaie) was founded in 1940. It was still rail-served during the mid-1990s according to CFQ timetables but it doesn't mean it was still receiving goods by then.

As I mentionned in a previous post, my take on this particular industry is far less prototypical than I generally use to. The main reason is the lack of space (oh, what a convenient excuse) and the unforgiving geometry of the peninsula. That said, it doesn't mean the building will be smaller than it should. I based the dimensions on  the real life exemple of rail-served feed mills in Clermont and Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré to make sure the size is believeable. Also, it seems Agrivoix started as a relatively small structure back in 1940 which grew up mainly in the recent decades only. One thing however I must forget about modelling is the bunch of grain bins and surge bins as they doesn't look good according to some of my mockups. Instead, I'll replace them with a good old wood grain elevator. There is none standing in Clermont nowadays, but I suspect one was built back then to be later replaced with more modern steel bins.

Not bad, proportions are right...

As a starting point, I thought about kitbashing the Pola feedmill but gave up. Too much work to make it believeable. I also tried to see if I could do something with a Walthers grain elevator, but this too prooved to be far fetched. Thus I decided to take the easiest way possible: scratchbuilt the structure to fit my own design. Faster and more satisfying. It also helps to give the layout its own personality which is rather hard to achieve with catalog structures.

The Coop is made up of three different parts: a 30ft x 30ft grain elevator, a 30ft x 50ft warehouse and a modern 30ft x 16ft office/store. Not a big industry, but with enough presence to guarantee limited rail-service. In fact, I copied the Pola feedmill dimensions and rounded them up to fit real life structures. I also used the Walthers elevator footprint to draw my own version (which is based on Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré feedmill which was built in the same era). These dimensions worked out fine on the layout, why change a winning formula!

The structure is built of 1.5mm thick illustration board, which I consider a versatile material to work with and relatively easy to cut, particularly window openings. When using wood glue, assembly is fast and strong. As the building take shape, I'll add more bracing to prevent warping.

Following the prototype building, the structure will be clad in 10" asbestos shingles which I model using Tamiya tape. Very fast to apply and the rough texture of the tape is perfect for such an application. Roofing will be made out of prepainted corrugated paper sheet exactly as I did with the small shed earlier this month.

Doors and windows are a mix of scratchbuilt and Tichy parts. For larger wood door, I scribed wood planks with a awl. Then using the same tool, I delicately scratched the surface to create a distressed grain wood. This is similar to the technic generally used for styrene, but the goal is not to tore the cardboard surface but rather press down the fiber to scribe the wood grain. I'm curious to see how it will look once painted and weathered.

The next step involve adding the roof and internal bracing.

Railfanning Central Maine & Quebec Railway - New pictures

Fellow railfan Mathieu Gosselin was kind enough to give me permission to post four of his best shots taken on our trip between Lac-Mégantic and Sherbrooke on October 15th, 2016. I hope you will enjoy the pictures as much as I did. I like the very personal touch Mathieu has when framing his subject. Remember, all rights reserved to Mathieu Gosselin and don't forget to ask his permission before reproducing the pictures.

Lac-Mégantic

Lac-Mégantic, Québec (credit: Mathieu Gosselin, 2016)

This one is almost self-explanatory. CMQ consist is slowly running through what used to be Lac-Mégantic downtown before the June 2013 disaster. The crew member on the locomotive platform is getting ready to step down at the former main street to protect the crossing. As a strong reminder, the fire hydrant is almost exactly located in front of the plot where Musi-Café bar used to stand and where the MMA train derailed.

Nantes

Nantes, Québec (credit: Mathieu Gosselin, 2016)

This picture shows a 25 mph train passing by a crossing in the vicinity of Nantes, a few kilometers west from Lac-Mégantic. The rusted rail reminds us CMQ as undertaken serious rehabilitation work on the line.

Scotstown

Scotstown, Québec (credit: Mathieu Gosselin, 2016)

CMQ freight consist cruises along the shore of Lac Dumoulin (Mill's Lake) in Scotstown, a former industrial town centered around the ruins of a plywood mill. This is a very scenic area and a few hundred feet west, the track starts to descent into the scenic but hardly accessible Salmon River valley.

Lennoxville

Lennoxville, Québec (credit: Mathieu Gosselin, 2016)

Later that evening, the train is now nearing Sherbrooke after crossing St. Francis River. Illuminated by CMQ locomotive headlight, the base of an old cantilevered signal bridge protects the junction between CMQ & SLA (ex-Grand Trunk mainline to Portland, ME).

Shaping Clermont

Last Friday was a very loooooong evening. But at least, it was extremely productive! As far as I'm concerned, Clermont basic topography is now complete and tracks are painted with the brown base color. Next steps involve replacing the Shinohara turnout with a custom made one and weathering the track. Once done, we will be able to start applying basic scenery and ballast which will have a tremendous impact on the scene. But until that happens, we started to finalize the planning surrounding Clermont.

Leaving Clermont with Donuhue paper mill far away in the background

Long time readers will find it took us an eternity to settle down on a final concept for that area, but I'm rather happy didn't rush it. We've been operating the layout for over two years now and have a much better grasp at what we expect from this scene.

That said, working on a scene in 2D or simply with basic topography can be extremely misleading and we got a good surprise last Friday when trying to make something out of Clermont. Structures and trees can have a serious impact on your perception!

As I recently said, it has been aknowledged the second siding isn't probably going to materialize in the near future, so we decided to move forward with the scene instead of using it as an excuse to do nothing. For an operational standpoint, we need a versatile siding that can handle a sizeable variety of freight commodities.

For this reason, we decided to forget the propane dealer thing and rather go for the feed mill. As I explained in many occasions in the past here, there is indeed a Coop in Clermont that used to be rail served until the early 1990s. Such an industry is convenient because it can handle a lot of traffic including grain, building supplies, heating oil and propane.

It was now time to see if this idea could survive the mockup test. For the occasion, we used an old Pola feed mill. The structure is European in style, but the shape and size (except the elevator is too small) is right.

I always feared such a large structure would look awkward because of the location on a S-curve and the relative proximity of the cliff. Some test with Walthers grain bin didn't bring any good results. But this time, I feel the scene composition, while protofreelanced, carry perfectly the feeling of railroading in Charlevoix.

Too make sure the composition was right, we added a lot of trees to see how the final result would looks. And seriously, I'm amazed by how it now looks. It's far better than I expected and the new added land on the peninsula really frame the scene perfectly. As a matter of fact, trees now make this scene looks larger and efficiently separate the St. Lawrence river scene from Clermont.

So now I found a new challenge, having to build a decent feed mill from scratch. The structure is now about half-built and proto-freelanced using Clermont and Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré's feedmills as inspiration. I made sure the building is based on credible dimensions so it looks good with 50 feet cars.

Now, the big question is: would 40ft grain boxcars be still in service in Eastern Canada by the mid-1980s. It seems it could have been possible and I would certainly prefer to run them than use Canadian cylindrical grain hoppers that would look out of place in Charlevoix. Keeping in mind the restrictions of weight on the line, that could make sense. At least, it would be a good reason to improve and weather my fleet of Athearn and Roundhouse CN grain boxcars. If any of you have more information about grain boxcars in Eastern Canada during the 1980s, feel free to reply. As far as my research goes, I only found the usual stuff about the Prairies' branchlines and Churchill.