A Small Town That Could Be Anywhere

[sailormatlac]

Mike's Port Able project gave me the boost needed to revive my resolution to build a small switching layout at home. Wall shelves proved to take to much place in my cramped room (ah! those old sloped roof).

The plan came together easily. Building arrangement too. I guess ideas from my first days doing modelrailroading just resurfaced.

I returned to an island layout 4' x 5'. At this point, it will probably stay in the basement for a while.



It depicts the most generic rural town you can think of. The locale is set in Quebec City south shore Bellechasse county where most of my real life clients are located. There's no specfic prototype but it is a melting pot of several small community that had classic grain elevator, small manufacturing plants and typical David Ouellet's flamboyant churches.

The elevator will be modelled according to St. Vallier Station from which I found nice pictures. The village setting similar to La Durantaye and the industrial district inspired by St. Damien.



There's no specific era, but I intend to operate somewhere between 1960 and 1990, when those rural elevator became obsolete.

The operation concept is that a train leaves a string of cars (about 6) in the station siding. Then a local switcher sort out this small train around the town.

The industries are an oil dealer, a plastic factory (loosely based on real life IPL and IEL from this county), the grain elevator and it's cooperative store.

Most building on the pictures are stand on. The goal is to operate and scenic the track. Structures will be upgraded, bashed and replaced according to my needs.

Minimum radius is 18". I only intend to run 4-axle diesels and small steamers I have on hands. Preferably Geep, RS-3, SW9 and S-2, CPR and CNR.

Relief is done with a rasp. I always found that too many layout overlook the importance of modelling ditches around the trackage. A small detail that makes the difference.

Track is PECO, turnouts Setrack from my long gone Harlem Station project. I've ordered a few stretch of PECO 83 for the mainline and PECO 75 for the sidings to test them before using them on the club layout in the future.

Credit for the track plan goes to Mike, not me!

















Don't expect too much update, this is a project just for fun...

I'm actually in the process of turning the Walthers elevator into something less generic.

IPL/IEL plastic factory is a combination of DPM's Cutter factory and Cabs garage. I reworked the window details to make them similar.



Matt

[Catt]

Nce start Matt.I can see some real potential in that little layout.

[shortliner]

Matt - have to admit that I'm not a great fan of the "roundy-roundy" format - but this has definite possibilities - it's looking really good - looking forward to your progress

[jwb]

This is very much in the spirit of one of my favorite modelers, a guy in the UK named Peter North (be careful if you google, it's not him). You can see some photos of a very similar layout at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.kathymillatt.co.uk/2008_layouts.htm">http://www.kathymillatt.co.uk/2008_layouts.htm</a><!-- m --> if you scroll down to Godinez, Iowa.

[kamerad47]

I'm glad to see you have a interchange track!!!!

[sailormatlac]

Call it coincidence, call it gate, I had a meeting in Bellechasse this afternoon. My boss took St. Vallier's exit to go there. To my surprise, the road sign, relatively new, still harbored "St. Vallier Station" which is quite an archaism. We passed by the place were the old picture was taken. The elevator was torn down years ago, but the Co-oP store was still in business and looking to do quite fine. It's no longer rail served, but the siding was still there with telegraph poles. Honestly, a neat little place to model. I though about getting rid of the church to make the scene breath a little bit more and feel less charicatural. Few hundred feets away was a little rock ridge with old houses and and old mill with a small creek. Well, I was lucky to guess right!

I'm glad to see you have a interchange track!!!!

Worth suggestions are always taken in account.

@Jack: thanks, I'm not a fan of circles, but Mike reconciled me with them by changing my perspective.

Nce start Matt.I can see some real potential in that little layout.

@jwb, I looked at the link, very interesting work and similar on many points. Will be useful!

@catt, that's the spirit. I recently went through your Z scale layout thread... it gave me lots of ideas too.

Time to make some fascia.

Matt

[sailormatlac]

Fascia and putty done. The fun thing about always rebuilding small layouts is that you get more efficient!







I added missing details on the grain elevator. Added traps, doors, window moulding and vent to the roof per prototype. We got this building in bad shape and incomplete at flea market years ago. It will be painted with with red trims and large billboard.





I received a shipping notice to get my new tracks to the post office. I may start laying track tomorrow, maybe later. I still need to receive the Micro Engineering bridge.

I finally decided to name the layout. Elevator/hamlet side will be St. Vallier Station. The industrial park will be Rivière Boyer (Boyer river). Both are real places.

Matt

[jwb]

You can find a slideshow of another Peter North layout at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.uckfieldmrc.co.uk/exhib06/rosa.html">http://www.uckfieldmrc.co.uk/exhib06/rosa.html</a><!-- m --> His current Virginian layout is larger, but the others are all roughly the size and trackplan of yours.

[sailormatlac]

Thanks JWB, very interesting link and a useful one too.

Today I painted the fascia and the styrofoam with a brown base color (except for road and track (need to keep my center lines). The layout in now in the "train" room.







I also experimented with structures, trying to determine which kind of station would fit the best the space requirement. I tried with the real St. Vallier Station, but it is far too big. About the same size as Atlas station but twice the height! Not very good to operate the siding behind it.

I finally proto-freelanced something inspired by Grand Trunk practices. Rather generic, but feels at home. I'll be using the same technic shown here with cereal boxes for siding. Works great so far, lots of place around it for the Station Road and also a freight shed included.





Matt

[BR60103]

Matt:
if the layout isn't fixed to those legs yet, can I suggest putting it on a pair of bookcases? You can usually find a couple that will fit it.
We once had a "train ferry" siding on a layout where the train ferry never got built. Cars were run onto the siding and manually transferred to shelves below. Returning cars were added to the layout.

[sailormatlac]

Matt:
if the layout isn't fixed to those legs yet, can I suggest putting it on a pair of bookcases? You can usually find a couple that will fit it.
We once had a "train ferry" siding on a layout where the train ferry never got built. Cars were run onto the siding and manually transferred to shelves below. Returning cars were added to the layout.

The old table is temporary and far too loe for operation. I was planning to build custom legs with shelves for storage purpose, maybe with a car drawer like the clun layout. Still wondering if I should put wheels on it for easier moving.

Matt

[sailormatlac]

I tried to make legs and shelves under the layout tonight but could settle on a sound design and operation height. I'd like something between 52 and 55 inches (call me crazy, I know). I'm 5'-6", but I hate to have to bend myself only a few inches more to have a realistic vision of things, not good for the back during an operation section.

Instead, I continued working on the station building. All walls are now completed.

Rear side:



Front with telegraph office:



Matt

[steinjr]

Looking good, Matt !

What did you do for the siding on your station building?

Smile,
Stein

[sailormatlac]

Looking good, Matt !

What did you do for the siding on your station building?

Smile,
Stein

Stein, I'm using cereal cardboard scribed with an x-acto blade. Cut are then spread with a needle point following Tetter's excellent WIP:

http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic...=22&t=5354

Matt

[steinjr]

Ah - I missed the part about widening the cuts the first time around. Smart trick from tetters there - and great application by you. I like the way you scratch build great looking structures !

Smile,
Stein