Quebec South Shore Railway

[sailormatlac]

It is no secret, 2 weeks ago, I was in quite a slump. The club layout isn't very exciting in its half destroyed look right now and I needed I new project to try a few ideas and scenery technics. I was reading GEC's post about his actual feeling toward the hobby. I could have written all that myself! I see this new project as a way to cure my perfectionist disease which caused many exciting projects to die too soon. With the new project, I follow one motto: try your best but move forward if achieving perfection will halt the project.

Blog address is http://theendofsteel.blogspot.ca/



For this reason, the layout is loosely based on typical small time rail-served town that can be found anywhere on Quebec South Shore, particularly on Drummond Sub and between Charny and La Pocatière. A mainline, a siding for a feedmill and some disused team track. No need to search a prototype because it's so prototypical! However, it is inspired by real life place I went, so call it protofreelanced. I named it St. Pamphile because it was supposed to be a South Shore town that was to be linked to Quebec Central Railway but these plans were folded because of WW1 and the 1930s Depression.



Inspiration is various, mainly modellers doing New England roads (Confalone, MikeC), Trevor Marshall, Chris Nevard (UK) and many others like Jon's Sweethome Alabama (looks like we are many to follow these folks). I'm trying to go for very low track density. In Quebec City area, track density was never very high except in the downtown, everywhere else, it is mainline running throught fields and woods (euh, Canada!).

The concept was quickly pinned down using tracks and buildings I already had on hand. In fact, those buildings were my first try at scratchbuilding when I was about 13 to 16 years old. Thought they are quite old, I still like these structures because they are based on local industries I liked back then. They also have a very local flavour that help to set the layout in Quebec and not in the Prairies, New England or Midwest.



The track plan is nothing more than a runaround and a feed mill siding. Trains emerge from a highway overpass. Beyond there is a single staging track, merely an extension of the mainline. The concept was to model a end of line spur. A semi-abandonned branchline turned into a simple industrial siding. The scenery is very generic and can fit a vast array of era from the mid-50s to the mid-90s, only needing to replace rollong stock and vehicles. The goal is to fit my tastes has they evolve and give me a nice diorama to shoot my locomotives and cars. That means New England roads, CN, CP and others.



The layout is built on two modules of 18" x 80" (hollow core doors with a 1" thick styrofoam board). Track is PECO 83. I prefer their products, they are easy to work with and even if they have small details, they are quite sturdy which isn't the case with Atlas.

Power is supplied by a NCE Powercab DCC throttle to simply things.

So far, I like the experiment. In less than 2 weeks, I have achieved to reach scenery. In fact, after 1 day, I was able to operate. Operation sessions last between 15 to 45 minutes depending on how many cars I switch. That's fine with me.

The layout height is 39" because my office room is located in a gable. But that's just fine because I can operate sitting on my chair at eye level and when I work on the layout, it's quite comfortable.

This new layout should be an excellent practice before rebuilding the club layout (Hedley-Junction) into something nearer to our intentions. In that regards, a fellow club members found dozen of pictures recently and that could be a key to plan a new track plan.

Enjoy!

Matt