Just finished hauling 36 boxes of 12mm Attic brand Pewter laminate flooring into the basement. I think I’m good for a couple of stiff drinks and a night in front of the TV!
I also bought some good quality underlay for the floor. Its the same stuff I installed in our old house and it is worth the money. After letting the new laminate settle with the temperature of the basement, I’ll start putting it down.
Well, almost. I need to buy 13 more Dricore panels, but I’ll wait until Friday to do that. Yesterday I found some 12mm laminate flooring I like, so the plan is to purchase and haul the laminate home next weekend.
In the image we are looking at the center peninsula of the layout, Chetwynd will be around the corner to the left, and to the right (where the pile of stuff is currently sitting) will be the mainlines for the Dawson Creek and the Prince George sub (one above the other). The layout will wrap around the stud wall in the center of the image.
So it’s not quite Christmas, but I couldn’t resist a couple more locomotives for the railway! Today an Overland SD40-2 and an M630W arrived.. These two will have a future pulling road freights between Prince George, Chetwynd and Ft St John. The models will get Soundtraxx Tsunami decoders as well as some light weathering before going into service
Home Depot saved me a little work, although it took a 1/2 hour to round up an employee that #1 Could think for themselves
and #2 Could drive a forklift
So we have 120 Dricore panels in the back of my truck waiting to be carried downstairs:
After much grunting and swearing, the panels are now in the basement. Added to the 50 I already bought, I only need to buy 39 more. That will be next weekend’s project…..
I painted the drywall in the room with a good high quality paint (Behr Slate Grey). I did not bother mudding and taping all the drywall in the basement, since 98% of it will be covered by benchwork and backdrops.
Area where Chetwynd Yard will be built:
Looking towards Dawson Creek Yard:
Next up is the purchase and installation of 209 Dricore floor panels, followed by some laminate flooring. The Dricore panels look like this:
The black part is the bottom, and the top part looks like sub floor. This floor material, in addition to some good quality 12mm laminate should provide a comfortable area to work and operate the layout.
I should add I am NOT looking forward to moving 209 panels from the store to my basement!
Like a lot of people, I have more than one hobby. My “Summer Hobby’ is restoring and operating old railway motor cars, or speeders. Once used by railroads in MOW service before being replaced by high rail trucks, speeders are now owned and (sometimes) operated by private individuals across North America.
I belong to the North American Railcar Operators Association, or NARCOA for short. http://www.narcoa.org
Much like an old car club, we meet several times a year on selected railways, and with their permission and assistance, operate our cars on a portion of their tracks. We have our own rule book, insurance, and operating licenses, so it is all perfectly legal.
I currently own 4 cars, 2 of which run, with a 3rd almost complete and a 4th set aside as a future project.
That future project is quite special to me, as it is a former BC Rail Railcar Canada CBI car.
The car as I bought it:
The most interesting thing about the car is the lettering on the doors:
“Grounded for Operation in Electrified Territory” which to me says this car likely operated on the electrified Tumbler Ridge Subdivision.
The car is in rough shape, but I did managed to get the motor to run! It is a very model built by the Railcar Canada company in Hamilton Ontario, in 1981. The car still has its builders plate, with a serial number A022, making it the 22nd car built! It is estimated Railcar Canada and its successor Woodings built around 400 cars. It is currently stored awaiting the day when I can restore the car. I want to keep as much as I can on the car original, which means leaving the paint as found. Most of the work will be mechanical and interior. I stripped out most of the interior and all the old rotted wiring from the car before placing it into storage.
Through the magic of the internet, I managed to track down the original owner of the car, after it was purchased from BCR. It seems that back in the day, BCR would not sell any surplus speeders to Canadian residents, for fear they might run them on railway tracks! Americans, however, were free to buy as many as they wanted! The old owner of the car told me he was able to purchase my speeder from BC Rail for the princley sum of $30 Canadian. Yes that’s right, 30 bucks! Here is a photo the old owner sent me, of my car in the back of an old Ford Ranger (the original full size Ranger) in the Squamish (corrected thanks Dave!) yard.
Someday that old BC Rail motor Car will run again!
Board, sitting at home waiting for the big dump of snow were are supposed to get…
My first layout after leaving home was a small switching layout that ran around the perimeter walls of my basement. The plan came from a mid 1990’s Model Railroader article in which author David Barrow described a plan for a small layout based on Santa Fe operations. I originally constructed the layout in the basement of a rental home, then moved it to a different home and added onto it. I used 40 and 50 foot box cars and GE 44 Ton locos (from Bachman) to make the layout feel larger than it really was. Few photos of it exist, but here’s what I could find:
Main yard of layout, with diesel shop in the background
2 Overland GMD1’s switch the yard, I traded these 2 models away years ago…
An Overland M640 sits with 2 OMI C630’s. All were sold off, and I wish I had kept the M640 as its getting quite hard to find. I did find one for sale recently, but no funds were available to purchase the model! One day I will have the 4744 once again!
This layout was torn down, and replaced with an On30 D&RGW:
Chama Yard, under construction
Track and turnouts were handlaid Code 83. Turnouts were built using Fast Track jigs.
Cumbres The hole in the wall was to be covered by a wooden snowshed as per prototype
And I actually had some scenery at Loboto:
As I explained in another post, I soon grew tired of the On30 layout and tore it down in favor of a BC Rail layout. The On30 equipment was sold off to finance some BCR motive power and freight cars.
When I started to plan the new layout, semi prototypical operation was a key design element. For several years now, I’ve been involved in a local round robin group of very talented modellers. Each week (or so) we meet at someone’s house to operate their layout, work on projects, or usually kill the evening with a lot of BS.
I really like operating sessions on scale model railroads. Rather than run a train endlessly around a layout, you get a chance to run it like the real railroad would. Of course, as model railroaders we keep on finding reasons to make more switching moves, whereas the real railways try to get things done in the least amount of moves. I’ve operated with car cards, and switch lists, and plan to use both on the new layout.
So here’s a quick run down of the trains I’ve planned to run on the layout:
Chetwynd Yard: Handles switching of Chetwynd yard, building outbound trains as well as breaking down inbound traffic. Job will also switch the team track, station track, and the Canfor Mill. Yard job will also handle motive power make up for all outbound trains. Could be a 2 person job depending on work load. Power will be a C420 or RS-18
Dawson Creek Wayfreight: Runs from Chetwynd to Dawson Creek and return. Power restricted to 4 axle M420, C425, and RS-18 locos. Max train length 10 cars, 3 units and a caboose. Dawson Creek on the old layout was a pretty good switching puzzle (as is the prototype). The new layout will essentially have the same track layout. Traffic is cars to the Louisiana Pacific OSB mill, TOFC, station track, 3 grain elevators as well as the CN interchange.
Pinsul Local: Runs from Chetwynd to Pinsul (located o nthe upper level) Switches the Pinsul sulphur load out and runs back to Chetwynd. Power 2 units, 6 cars and a caboose. The prototype in my time period quit running the local and had the regular freights witch Pinsul, however I wanted to keep the local job. In addition to switching Pinsul, the local may be required to run to other locations to lift bad order cars dropped by other freights.
Helpers/ Locotrol Operation: This job was created after one of my friends asked if I would need helpers up the helix. The trains that run up the helix should be sufficiently powered, but I liked the idea of a helper job. The helpers will consist of a 2 unit high horsepower set (C/M630 and or SD40-2) and will push trains from Chetwynd up to the siding at Mackenzie. I don’t have room to model the branch line to Mackenzie, but I will have a dummy wye and maybe a short siding on the upper level. The helpers will use one leg of the dummy wye to cut out of the train, then return light to Chetwynd. For sessions where I don’t have a helper crew, all south bound (lower to upper level) freights with the exception of the Pinsul Local will have Locotrol slave units cut into the train.
Chetwynd Prince George Freight: Runs from Chetwynd up the upper level of the layout to Prince George (staging). Power will be 2 to 3 units, train length 20 cars or so plus a caboose. No on route switching required other than switching out bad order or off spot cars
Prince George Ft St John Freight: (or PGFSJ) Runs from Prince George staging on the upper level to Fort St. John staging on the lower sub level. Job will drop Dawson Creek/Chetwynd cars in the yard at Chetwynd, list FSJ traffic, then run to the FSJ staging yard located under the Chetwynd yard. Power 2 to 3 units, 20 cars or so and a caboose.
Prince George Chetwynd Freight: Runs from PG staging on upper level to Chetwynd yard on lower level. Freight terminates at Chetwynd.
In addition to the scheduled jobs, I plan on running work and passenger extras when required. Typically I’d like the layout to run with 3 to 4 operators, but I can add or remove jobs based on the number of people that show up.
Yet another RS-18, this time its the 615 in the so called “Hockey Stick” paint scheme.
For this build, I decided to use the Atlas Trainman RS-36, since it has the fuel tank style I need as well as the long hood is fairly close to the RS-18. I dipped into my stash of RS-18 CAT conversion parts for this model. Etched air intake grills, handrail stanchions, and a resin long hood end were added to the basic model. Throw in some tread plate, Kaslo nose and pilots, and the air cooler grill left over from the 608 project and I was pretty much done:
I was given 4 jars of pre production True Line Trains BC Rail paint to test out before the product hit the market, and chose to use it on he 615. The paint is excellent! Very easy to spray right out of the bottle and covers very well (especially the white, typically a hard color to shoot) My only gripe was the silver had too much paint flecks in it, and took several coats to get a smooth finish. Other than that, I’m really happy with the way the model turned out:
The model will eventually get weathered- lightly. Well, as light as ALCO weathering goes! This model was the last I completed in the old house, once I get my work bench set up I plan on adding some soot on the roof and road grime on the trucks.
Next up for the RS-18 kitbash project was the 608. This model has a different long hood configuration than the 630.
I pretty much used the stock Proto 1000 RS-18 long hood, except for the removal of the large cooling air louvers near the rear of the hood (which just pop off the model). I added 2 new square style air intakes on each side of the hood. The parts were photo etched and produced by Jeff Briggs as part of a project to produce parts for a RS-18 CAT conversion kit. The hand rail stanchions for the 608 came from this kit.
A couple hood doors were re[placed with Cannon parts, one air intake louver was removed and the hole filled with putty, and the Kaslo short hood and cab front kit were added.
For some reason, the pilot ends on the 608 differ from other BCR units. Because of this, I was able to keep the stock Proto pilots. The bars that run along the rear radiator grills are built from strip styrene.
Model now primed:
Painted and Decaled:
Finished model on the old layout:
This model has some running issues. There is too much side play in the truck gears. I have some washers to shim the gears, however I haven’t had a chance to tear the trucks down to install them. Maybe once I have a workbench set up…..
bcrailnorthline 