Hi there, I´m building a part of the British Columbia Railway in H0-Scale. It´s the Dawson Creek Subdivision from Chetwynd,BC to Dawson Creek,BC.It´s a two deck shelf layout around the walls in the basement of our house.Time period are the early 70´s around the namechange from Pacific Great Eastern to British Columbia Railway.Most of the livery is two tone green with the white stripe...I want to paint one RS-3 to the old Yellow PGE livery with a heavy weathering...I also own three Dash-8´s in their later only blue livery with white lettering and also on SD-40 in their blue,red and white livery with BC-Rail lettering.There´s also some CN motive power and some RDC´s.Those have to be repainted and detailed. Some of the structures will be scratchbuild or kitbashed,tracks are most Peco code 83 with some Atlas track. DCC with Digitrax.Benchwork is finished,most trackwork is complete and track is wired all the way up to Dawson Creek.I changed some parts of the layout because I wasn´t happy with the look of it and also made an extension to Dawson Creek Interchange...with some more Industries to switch..Also this will give me the possibility to use a NAR GP-9 for switching that area.You will see the progress pictures on my google album https://plus.google.com/photos/100139588555513180033/albums. This is how some part´s of the layout look today. There will be a backgroundbuilding on top of that yellow foam with some fence around it... Feedmill and elevator...the signs on the wall will be removed... the opposite side of the mill complex... New location for the wooden elevator. And two more pictures of the final arrangement of the structures on the liftout section and to the left of it the empty space between the houses in the background will be filled with a walthers house my 8 year old son will be building.. I have a removable background piece of wood for the liftout.... Will continue in a few minutes. Regards,Chris
Continued those are all structures on the Dawson Creek interchange section of the layout and the small liftout in front of the basement door. Next post will continue some pictures of Dawson Creek Yard. Thanks for looking, Regards,Chris
I think it's great that you're getting your son well and truly involved in putting it together. Hopefully the bug bites and stays with him!
Hi, here you´ll see Dawson Creek Yard with the started Station and Freighthouse and the different elevator structures. I have to shoot some new photos of the layout because most of the older pictures don´t show how it´s looking today so I´ll do that this evening and will post more of my layout tomorrow. Any tips,infos and comments are very appreciated. Thanks for looking, regards,Chris
Chris, I am finding your posts and photos especially interesting largely because I was a long time resident of Chetwynd B.C. and I currtently live in Prince George wherein stands the Prince George Railroad museum. I visited the museum only a few days ago and took a few photos but there isn't a lot on display...
Your layout is evoking a LOT of memories and I strongly encourage you to continue to share your progress here! Bill
Hi there, Bill,thank you for your comment.I hope I could catch the look and feel of the area because I could only model from pictures and videos I found around the internet or in some books...bought this on http://www.amazon.com/British-Columbia-Railway-John-Garden/dp/0969162154 some years ago but it was a lot cheaper than today.It gave me a lot of inspiration,but it´s hard to find pictures from the early 70´s. I also found a lot of inspiration on Timothy Hortons N-scale Layout and some others... So all infos,tips and comments are very appreciated. I shot the pictures yesterday and will show you some more of the layout in my next post... Regards,Chris
Here is a short tour on my in progress layout. So the first view when you enter the basment is this one...sit down and have a cup of coffee.... Now you turn left and on the lower level you´ll see a compressed version of Chetwynd yard based on the drawings of Timothy Hortons N-scale Dawson Creek Subdivision and some internet research. The room for the shelfs is limited so I have to work with the background to get the right look.There are less buildings to that yard area and I think I will place a lot of trees and bushes in front of the rear wall....there is also a small engine facility and the Station and Freighthouse.Both will be scratchbuild from pictures.I´ll started with both buildings. this is the entrance to the yard area with the mainline in the background curving to the left.I´ll add a removable section of benchwork for storage.Maybe I´ll build it to fold it down out of the way. This is the last section of Chetwynd yard,track in front is the start of the Dawson Creek Sub and in the background is the main going further to the North....down into a small staging with return loop below the helix. Next will be part 2 of the tour
Part 2: From Chetwynd track will follow along over my benchwork and an area without scenery to Tremblay siding with an grain elevator and some other additional buildings...I have no photos or other information about that place so I have to make more freelancing.Maybe I´ll get some pictures and infos some day so I could do it more like the prototype... As you can see, this is a very small area before the track enter the helix.The bridge will be converted into a street bridge...or I´ll will use another type of bridge to hide the entrance hole to the helix....there will be also a lot of trees and other green around the bridge and the hole.... Helix with 1.6 % grade,radius is about 75cm.The lowest track is the return loop for the hidden staging below the tremblay area.It´s only a two track staging but will be expanded later below Chetwynd....have some ideas for that but that´s future sounds maybe.... More will follow in part 3 of the tour.
Part 3 Leaving the helix entering a farm area with some farm structures,cornfields and more.I hope to catch the look of some small rolling hills and a rural scenery with dirt roads.... The silos in the background on the second picture are not part of the scenery....I have an idea for a small abandoned structure there with a road curving to the back....but don´t know what I´ll do with that....track curves left to the Kiskatinaw Bridge.This will be scratchbuild from scale lumber. First small train passing the bridge while testing the track... Leaving the bridge the track again curve left and entering Dawson Creek yard passing the Northwestern Wood Preservers Planer Mill. You can see the later to be developed planer mill in the back of this picture,in front to the left is the TOFC ramp with two tracks Next is the Alberta Pool #3 Grain Elevator Western Agri-Service Grain Elevator Complex Fosters Seed & Feed Cargill Grain Elevator More in Part 4 of the Layout tour
Last part of the layout tour Most buildings in Dawson Creek like the silos,elevator,station and freighthouse will be scratchbuild or kitbashed... Started with the station building from evergreen sheets and made a mockup for the freighthouse from cardboard with some printed drawings glued to the cardstock. the last building in the Dawson Creek Yard will be Scott National Food Warehouse.The current building is a Pikestuff structure. The track in front is the mainline to the interchange "yard" and the part of the layout from the beginning of the thread. Most of the track is wired and glued and I made some testruns with a lot of switching fun.I have to wire some turnouts in the Dawson Creek Yard and install the backgrounds,than put some paint on all the wood and foam....Some pieces of fascia are still to mount and paint and some other things but I hope to start with some scenerybuilding here and there.I think I´ll start on the upper level and working towards Dawson Creek and then down to Chetwynd.... The room with the helix measures about 16 square meter and the room with the two yards is about 10 meter in lenght.I layed down about 240 ft of track all around the walls including staging and the helix so if I count right it´s about 4 scale miles of track....If I didn´t get some crazy ideas benchwork is done,golden spike is nailed some days ago with the complete mainlinerun from Chetwynd to Dawson Creek....Thinking of adding a Digitrax Booster I have on hand.... not much to look at....4 different Power districts,1.Chetwynd to Tremblay 2.Helix with Farm Area to Kiskatinaw Bridge 3.Dawson Creek Yard to liftout 4.Dawson Creek interchange from the other side of the liftout to the end of line.I´ll add 2 more Throttle panels and another trafo for structure lights etc....I´ve added an additional buswire around the layout for that use and will go on with that when I start with the final placing of the structures....so there´s a lot of work to do and I´ll keep you updated if you are interested....this is the end of the layout tour,next post´s will be actual updates on the layout as I go on with the work. Any tips,infos,critics and comments are very appreciated.... Thanks for looking, Regards,Chris
Chris, excellent progress and concept. I love the Kiskatinaw Bridge scene, wow, that will be an eye catcher for sure. Also love the Pringles cans as silos. Frankly, I say set them upright and leave them be, ha! Look forward to following your progress. Michael
Looks great! I, too, like the pringles cans. They seem to be just about the right size. Question about your helix(as, I am thinking of building one)... did you put a rerailer at the beginning, one on each level, and one at the end of the helix? I was told that I should do that. But, would I need to put that many in the helix? Thanks! JMS
Hi there, thanks for the comments....I think I´ll use the Pringles cans as the base for the silos...It´s not easy to get that much of the Rix silos here so I´ll do some scratchbuilding. John,no,I put no rerailers on my helix....I´ve heard that some do that on their helix but all is working fine on mine,so there are no rerailers... Cheers,Chris
Thanks for the reply. I built a couple silos from PVC pipe. I also built a couple with cardboard tubing that I then took square and round styrene strips and glued onto the cardboard tubing. I did 10 round strips, then a square one, and repeated. It took about a month to build two silos...but, the results were worth it! JMS
JMS,do you have pictures of your silos....Thought about using PVC pipe...I think it will be a problem to get enough metal corrugated siding to glue on the Pringles cans or the PVC pipe....I have an idea for that and will try it out soon...any other ideas are very welcome..... I also made a small change to the Dawson Creek Interchange section of the layout....I added 12 cm to the front of the shelfs to get more room and decided to build a row of elevators as it is seen on older pictures of Dawson Creek http://knowbc.com/limited/Books/Encyclopedia-of-BC/D/Dawson-Creek I´ll build three of those elevators.Maybe kitbashing from Walthers kits and some scratchbuilding. You can see the addition to the shelf..... more will follow soon.....have the backdrop ready to mount and also the fascia.... Any tips,infos and comments are very welcome, Regards,Chris
I've been meaning to ask- What diameter are the threaded rods used in your helix? They look to be beefy, possibly approaching 3/8 of an inch?
Boxcab those rods are M-10.I think it´s been 3/8 inch.There are two rods in each location,one on the outside and one on the inside..... hope this helps, regards,Chris
