Hedley Junction
#1
Hi everybody,

Alpha_1 worte to me recently about one of my kitbash and he awaken that train bug sleeping peacefully since a few months... So I paid myself a visit to the club this very evening.

Hedley Junction is our "club layout" depicting Quebec City Area (harbour and insdustrial borough) circa 1957. It is strongly flavoured with QRL&PCo rolling stocks and structure to give it a distinctive character.

This evening, we decided to play with some ideas I had previously developped for the challenge contest this spring. Mainly, we selected Legrade Meat Packing and the sawmill. Few months ago, we built a small peninsula to enlarge the switching district but didn't decided on any specific industries. Now it was time to mock up something!

Legrade:

Version 1: We decided to use the buildings as I built them for the small switching layout. The main problem is dealing with the cars. Not fun at all to switch with a two storeys high building in from of your track...

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Version 2: Buildings were placed according to the real prototype. It means cattle pens are in front, so no more obstacles. It also provides a better interaction between the meat packers entrance, Lairet Station and the underpass road. However, we will have to rebuild the main structure in a mirrored fashion. The positive aspect of this is that it will be oriented as the prototype. This industry is quite nice to operate because it handle 4 different car-type: stock cars, reefers, tank car (grease) and hopper (coal). It provides a lot of operation in small and simple track plan.

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Léo Cauchon sawmill:

This sawmill is located near Cape Tourmente tunnel portal. Its footprint takes advantage of the space available. The spur can old 3 40-ft boxcars, 1 hopper (or 2) for woodchip service and 3 flat cars full of timber. Another effective way to handle many different cars with one "small" industry. Vegetation was put just for fun.

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Enjoy!

Matt
Proudly modelling Quebec Railway Light & Power Company since 1997.

Hedley-Junction Club Layout: http://www.hedley-junction.blogspot.com/

Erie 149th Street Harlem Station http://www.harlem-station.blogspot.com/
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#2
Comparison between prototype and mock up:

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Reference to the 2012 Resolution Challenge (not so long ago!)

http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic...e&start=30

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Matt
Proudly modelling Quebec Railway Light & Power Company since 1997.

Hedley-Junction Club Layout: http://www.hedley-junction.blogspot.com/

Erie 149th Street Harlem Station http://www.harlem-station.blogspot.com/
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#3
We resumed our mock up work at the club yesterday evening, trying to tackle the tunnel exit from the furnace room. On the prototype, this part is called Saint-Joachim, a nice rolling countryside with 300 years old farms. Using old building I once kitbashed, we tried to capture this feeling of farmland and track curving gently under large trees.

All tracks in this section have been primed with red/brown primer and then painted with acrylics to simulate different type of ties (new, old, etc.).

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A general view of the sawmill site.

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The old farm located right to the sawmill. The farmhouse is built according to a prototype still standing in Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré and built circa 1658. Probably among the oldest houses still surviving in Canada. The farm follow a mansard-roofed prototype located in another village, it was quite fashionable during the late 19th century. I'm quite satisfied with this mock up because it really catch the character of the place, well beyond the generic North American rural city found anywhere and nowhere.

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Hidden tunnel entrance and semaphore:

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Railroad crossing:

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During our work, we were lucky enough to see the #429 pulling a light freight train through St. Joachim.

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Matt
Proudly modelling Quebec Railway Light & Power Company since 1997.

Hedley-Junction Club Layout: http://www.hedley-junction.blogspot.com/

Erie 149th Street Harlem Station http://www.harlem-station.blogspot.com/
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#4
We worked an other session tonight.

I finished painting the rail at St. Joachim and started to think how I would handle the train station there. I have a rough idea and found new picture of small stations in the area... Many small railway sheds along the track, a very small flag stop and strange catenary/utility pole, all lost in fields.

You can see a few pictures of what I tried out. My idea was to run a short mixed freight with a combination, a milk reefer and probably a boxcar for LCL. In the pictures, the thrall door stand for the combination. No other passenger train would stop there as other trains just pass by this flagstop.

My guess was to put the milk platform right behind the barn and accessible by road. The flagstop would stand on the other side of the road (the smalled yellow structure behind the employees house). Other yellow buildings are tool and storage sheds for the railway, the white one is a farm building. According to some accounts, QRL&PCo installed electric power to Petite-Ferme in 1934 which permitted to build a butter factory.

What do you think of this setting? Is it completely stupid to stop the train on the middle of the road? I mean, this a rural road in a very remote area that only served dairy farms together (all properties of a Seminary). Nobody except the employees would drive there since it's not a destination. You can see the real road here.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=fr&ll=47.0...9&t=h&z=18

Other question: the water tank. I never saw a picture of it nor a map showing it. However, it should have existed because this place was the interchange between electric traction and steam traction. I lack space and it's a tiny place. Could a stand pipe with a pumphouse be used to water engine in such a rural location or should I go with a water tower? Other question, should I locate it on the siding or on the main line? I'm at lost!

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Aerial views:

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Thank you!

Matt
Proudly modelling Quebec Railway Light & Power Company since 1997.

Hedley-Junction Club Layout: http://www.hedley-junction.blogspot.com/

Erie 149th Street Harlem Station http://www.harlem-station.blogspot.com/
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#5
sailormatlac Wrote:...Other question, should I locate it on the siding or on the main line? ...

That is going to be a great layout!
The water tower should be located where the engines comes during normal operation usually to an stop. It is my understanding that the prototype did not uncouple the engine and go for water but it got water where it stopped anyhow.
Reinhard
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#6
Very nice layout you have there Matt. Thumbsup
Mike

Sent from my pocket calculator using two tin cans and a string
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#7
sailormatlac Wrote:Other question: the water tank. I never saw a picture of it nor a map showing it. However, it should have existed because this place was the interchange between electric traction and steam traction. I lack space and it's a tiny place. Could a stand pipe with a pumphouse be used to water engine in such a rural location or should I go with a water tower? Other question, should I locate it on the siding or on the main line? I'm at lost!
Even in rural areas, a standpipe could be fed by a remote cistern or tank(s), so the standpipe by itself is OK. The pumphouse is a separate question -- the pump is always going to feed the tank or cistern, not the standpipe, which is gravity fed, so if there's a pump, it could also be off scene.
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#8
jwb Wrote:
sailormatlac Wrote:Other question: the water tank. I never saw a picture of it nor a map showing it. However, it should have existed because this place was the interchange between electric traction and steam traction. I lack space and it's a tiny place. Could a stand pipe with a pumphouse be used to water engine in such a rural location or should I go with a water tower? Other question, should I locate it on the siding or on the main line? I'm at lost!
Even in rural areas, a standpipe could be fed by a remote cistern or tank(s), so the standpipe by itself is OK. The pumphouse is a separate question -- the pump is always going to feed the tank or cistern, not the standpipe, which is gravity fed, so if there's a pump, it could also be off scene.

It all makes sense. I found out this morning few insurance maps of the area recently put online by the National Archives and found out few water tanks were not aligned with the tracks.

@Faraway: Thanks for your comment! It's been years since I seriously did scenery work. Even if you model modern era, your work influences me a little bit! I will keep the water tank / standpipe there after thinking about what you said. The train pictured is west bound to the city terminal. In fact, this station is the end of steam traction. The engine will be refilled for the eastbound run after being at a nearby wye.

QUESTION: I read a lot this morning about milk train and mixed train but most articles don't talked about returning empty milk cans. I mean, if you stop your mixed freight with the passenger coach in front of the station, it doesn't align with the milk platform on the returning trip. Did they just tossed empty cans at slow speed? I'm really curious about that.

Also, it is depicted on the layout, but a creamery (it still exist) was located about them miles from their. I suspect they used the combination car to move this freight on the line (never saw any mention of reefer or insulated cars on QRL&P).

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On this picture, at left, you can see a part of a flagstop platform. What looks like a wood bench was in fact a raised step to board the train.

At this point, I could just build a long raised wooden platorm about 90 ft long to handle a LCL boxcar and a combination. Add an open shed for the flagstop and put the stand pipe at the east end... As a good friend of mine always says KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Honestly, when I watch old rural trackside pictures, there's almost nothing, just a shed and a wooden walkway...

This one is a large flagstop at Beauport... no platform at all.

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Typical raised wooden platform on QL&P.
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Maybe I'm trying to hard to pinpoint evything!!! Isn't it funny how very simple aspect of life such as a rural flagstop can be puzzling when you never lived in this era... Archeologists have even less material to work with! We are just talking about the 50's, an era that many here lived!

Matt
Proudly modelling Quebec Railway Light & Power Company since 1997.

Hedley-Junction Club Layout: http://www.hedley-junction.blogspot.com/

Erie 149th Street Harlem Station http://www.harlem-station.blogspot.com/
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#9
If milk cans were handled, the regular train crews handled the cans (not a popular part of the job, especially if they had to wear passenger uniforms on that run). They both loaded the full cans and unloaded the empties. At less busy stops, there would have been no raised milk platform, and the crews would have lifted the cans from the low platform to the level of the car floor. (Not a popular part of the job.)
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#10
sailormatlac Wrote:.....QUESTION: I read a lot this morning about milk train and mixed train but most articles don't talked about returning empty milk cans. I mean, if you stop your mixed freight with the passenger coach in front of the station, it doesn't align with the milk platform on the returning trip. Did they just tossed empty cans at slow speed? I'm really curious about that.....

I'd guess that the empty cans from a previous day would be dropped-off when the current-day milk was picked-up. The farmers would need enough cans in-service to account for whatever the turnaround time was between the pick-up and return of one set.

Wayne
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#11
Remember that for every inbound milk train with loads for the city (typically in the morning), there had to be an outbound with empties (typically at night). Empty cans would be unloaded on the return run.
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#12
Thanks for the input. Very useful. I understand this job wasn't the most interesting!

So I won't use a milk platform, this place is to remote. Heading to the layout to prepare the ground for the new station.

Matt
Proudly modelling Quebec Railway Light & Power Company since 1997.

Hedley-Junction Club Layout: http://www.hedley-junction.blogspot.com/

Erie 149th Street Harlem Station http://www.harlem-station.blogspot.com/
Reply
#13
Did some work on the afternoon. I decided to extend the platform on both side of the street. Anyway, they are just gravel platform running along the track. Milk cans will be loaded directly behind the barn. The nest question is if I raise the platform a little bit in front of the flagstop or just keep everything ground level... I feel like this remote place would have seen minimal investment in ground leveling.

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Inbound train loading milk cans:

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Outbound train clearing the crossing:

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The passenger "platform":

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Outbound train refilling the tender prior to heading to Baie-Saint-Paul:

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Is the water spout location realistic? Almost in the field!

Matt
Proudly modelling Quebec Railway Light & Power Company since 1997.

Hedley-Junction Club Layout: http://www.hedley-junction.blogspot.com/

Erie 149th Street Harlem Station http://www.harlem-station.blogspot.com/
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#14
If there was a structure at all, there would be some type of level cinder area, possibly surrounded by ties, but at ground level.
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#15
jwb Wrote:If there was a structure at all, there would be some type of level cinder area, possibly surrounded by ties, but at ground level.

It was what I had in mind when I cut the square section under the flagstop. I'll go that way.

Matt
Proudly modelling Quebec Railway Light & Power Company since 1997.

Hedley-Junction Club Layout: http://www.hedley-junction.blogspot.com/

Erie 149th Street Harlem Station http://www.harlem-station.blogspot.com/
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