Dawson Creek Subdivision - British Columbia Railway - H0

[Painkiller]

You got a great model railroad underway and process is fun to follow. Love the warehouse scene and the alley diverting to the front as well you industries are big enough to be served by the railroad. I still remember just a few decades ago when on the layouts ware puny industries, much smaller than the freight cars serving it with two track sidings. Keep it up!

[Twist]

Hi there,

@painkiller, thanks a lot for your kind words. That´s the point why I thought I want to have some bigger industries on the layout.

There will be some more progress on my layout,soon.

Cheers,Chris

[Twist]

Hi there,

@ MLW. Thanks for your kind words,too.
Finally I have to post some update pictures of my layout. I made some small changes and also some progress during the last weeks. Not to much but also small things can change the whole look.
First part is on the industrie area on the upper level. There are the two elevators and Prarie Coast Farm equipment pressed into the corner. I removed that business,stretched the tracks up to the walls and moved the second elevator away from the first one.

And yes,there´s some paint on the background

The small warehouse moved to the other side of the tracks and will be now a small construction business or something like that. Prarie Coast Farm Equipment moved to an new location.

Finally I lengthened the interchange track a bit to store more cars if needed.


A tracklevel shot of the two elevators. I painted the backdrop behind Wreigths Food Service,too.



So as I said only small changes but a big change to the overall look.

Next step was to finish the inbound tracks for Northwestern wood preservers mill for tankcars,boxcars and from time to time some hoppers. The deliver the other goods needed for manufacturing plywood etc. The tracks will be glued down on some 2mm cork. The buidlings are only mockups and will be changed later.


Left track will be for tankcars, right track for boxcars in the background between the buildings and hoppers. I´m waiting for the curved Peco turnout to finish trackwork.

The next thing I´ve done was to find a location where I could build a small engine servicing for storing some of my locos. I found a proper location on the lower level next to the yard and siding. It´s only a small place but it will be a small service area. Enginehouse will be a Pikestuff The Shops kit with interior.I covered the interior walls with roofparts of that kit. It will get some details inside like an Peco inspection pit, maitenance platform etc. I´ll build an fuelplatform and sanding tower outside the building.




This is version two of the engine servicing and also the final version so I have to change the korkbed for the current version.

The track to the far right on the front of the layout will be for storing some caboose or engines.

The last change i made was on the Canfor planer mill. There was a wooden post on the front corner of that area and distrubed the whole look of this place. After some thoughts I cut it away. It looks way better now.

before with the post

After i have removed it.

Two Alco´s sitting on the main.

Main is on the left with the Alco´s and the entrance to the Canfor mill is on the right side.

So that´s all for now. More progress on all those small areas will follow soon. Thanks you for watching and following my build.
Any ideas,tips or comments are always very appreciated.

Cheers,Chris

[Painkiller]

Looking good!

[Twist]

Hi there,

I haven´t done much on the layout so far. I´m not happy with my lower level. I´m still missing a staging and the solution for the yard is ok....but not more....I made some op sessions the last weeks but I´m not realy satisfied with it when I reach the lower level.
Here´s the trackplan of the lower level as it is today.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1Cp0m...ersion.jpg

So I searched the net and a lot of my books for some inspiration and finaly decided to redo the complete lower level trackwork. I did some tests with Anyrail and finally found a solution with a yard around one corner and using the helix for reaching a third level for staging without a complete Helix rebuild. Maybe I´ll build a better Helix someday but not now
I also have an engine service area and the spur to the Canfor mill. I have to buy some turnouts,flextrack,kork and plywood but before I´ll start that I want to know what you think about my new plan. Any ideas and tips are very appreciated. So here´s the new version of Chetwynd yard on the lower level.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-H9qo6...2B1.03.jpg

The Radius on the maintrack is 80cm in the yard area.The mainline is the second yardtrack from the left.There are track 1 passing siding, 2 main and the other 3 are arrival/departure tracks. The main coming from Fort St. John staging below Chetwynd .The track passing next to the engine service against the wall is the main south to vancouver. Hidden staging will be 4 to 6 tracks.
So the more I look on the plan the better I like it.Please tell me what you think about it.

Thanks,Chris

[mountaingoatgreg]

Chris,

I like the look of the new yard, it looks way more like what a railroad would build. Every track looks to have a purpose and will be well utilized during and operating session.

[Twist]

Hi,

Thanks Greg. I bought the plywood yesterday and will start drawing the new tracklines to the wood next week. The good part of the rebuild is that I could switch on the upper level. I´ll split the lower level into power districts,one for staging and one for the yard. So I´ll have six independent power districts on the Layout for now.

Regards,Chris

[faraway]

You are going to build a real empire. It is looking very good so far

[Twist]

Reinhard,
Thank you. You are very welcome to visit the layout in person if you´ll be in my area near Cologne.
Your layout is always a great inspiration for me. Your eye for details is fantastic.

Regards,Chris

[Twist]

Hi there,
so as I mentioned yesterday, I started removing the old trackwork from the plywood.Went out very easy because some of the tracks aren´t mounted permanently.

One other thing I thought about some time was how the structures for Northwestern wood preservers were arranged.
1. inbound byproducts, 2. mill building, 3. outbound plywood, 4. inbound wood...no real company would do it that way...

I rearranged the structures so now they are in a more logical sequence.
1. inbound log and pulpwood unloading ( by rail and trucks )
2. sawmillbuilding
3. processing plant with inbound byproduct unloading (Tankcars,boxcars, hoppers)
4. 2 warehouses for outbound finished products ( plywood etc.) rail and truck.






I think that was the reason why I haven´t assembled more of the structres. Now I´ll make more progress to this area,soon...

Thanks for looking,
Cheers,Chris

[Twist]

Hi there,

so here we are two weeks later. I have removed the old trackwork and turnouts, ripped off the old kork and plywod and started new.
Printed out the plan and started with the turnouts,then track. I think it will be ready by the end of this week, maybe Sunday.
Pictures will show how it looks now.

looking south to the engine service,main and canfor mill spur to the far left.

looking north.





Next step is to finish the northend of the yard and the connection to the existing track to the helix.


I was one bluepoint controller short and hope it will be delivered today so I can mount the turnouts permanent this evening after work and finish trackwork tomorrow. On saturday evening after work I´ll then connect the wires and will be testing my work on Sunday evening after work. We will have a small two man op session on Sunday evening so it would be fine to include the Lower level into that operation...If not we could operate the upper level and this alone will be againa lot of switching. We will see how it work. Will post more progress tomorrow.
Thanks for looking,
Regards,Chris

[Twist]

Hi there,
so it has been some time since my last post. I was busy on my Layout and in real life so there was not much time to post....Sorry for the delay on updates. But now here it is. First thing I have finished was the Yard at Chetwynd,BC. Track is glued down,wired and tested. All went well...and I found out that I have no pictures of the finished yard....I´ll do that this evening and post some pictures of that tomorrow....After the yard was finished I decided,that I need more room for storing engines and that I´m not happy with the current location of it. So I swapped the engine service and the Canfor mill. This gave me the possibility to add some more length to the mainline around the corner. At it´s end I´ll add a kind of staging cassette or something similar.
Here you will see the mainline to the left. It´s heading south to Vancouver. The engine facility is next to it. I added a fourth track to it.


The building is made from an Pikestuff "the Shops" kit with some additional wall sections,the foundation was made from several layers of styrene sheet.


I inserted an Peco inspection pit to the track.I´ll add a fueling island in front of the building and also a sanding tower. Other small sheds and other things will be added. There could be placed 4 engines inside the building and maybe 4-5 outside. I painted the structure in a green color from the rattlecan. That Duplicolor color is similar to the light BCR green tone.



While the paint was drying I started with cutting the parts for the I beams on the inside of the facility. They were also build from sheet and glued together.They will be painted in a dark grey color. The frames, dorrs and windows will be painted white or maybe dark green to mach the BCR paint theme.



From the engine servicing following the main a bit north around the corner you will see the Canfor Mill to the left and Chetwynd yard in the distance


The mill structures are raised on 20 mm foam, the woodchiptrack is layed out on to layers of 5mm kork and the loading tracks will be glued to 5mm kork.I´ll build a ramp for the vehicles to the foam. The loading shed will be scratchbuild from wood with a loadingdock inside the shed. I have to find out the final position for the buildings like the truck woodchiploader etc.





So that are my updates on the lower level, but there are some more changes to the upper level. Only small things but I think they are worth to show.
The first bigger change was also a swap of the interchange with the teamtrack. Not much to do here than changing the name from interchange to teamtrack and alter adding some details liek a loading dock etc.


You´ll see a new structure to the back of it. It´s no more railserved but has it´s loading dock on the railside. I have not decided what company will go into that but I think it will be some kind of storage building.

I added two other buildings on the opposite side of the street. One will be a construction company ( to the front) and the other another type of small business...maybe some type of electronics supply. The side you´ll see will only be the backside of the building with some fence around it....
Next to it is Wrights Food service. The complex moved to the left and into the corner. This was possible because I extended the benchwork around the corner. This is the place where the Interchange track is now located. Mainline and Interchange are ending there below a roadbridge. Maybe I´ll add a removable two track storing cassette here,too. There will be no structures or roads here,only scenery....




And the last thing was a smal change at the West end of this area next to the G.E.R.N. complex. I moved one track and turnout around and also moved some buildings and the mainstreet. This breaks up the straight look of track,street and row of buildings.




So that´s all for nearly two months. Now I think I´m happy with the look of all those scenes.
Thanks you for looking and any comments are very appreciated.

Regards,Chris

[postman]

Nice update!. Why did you choose this prototype?. How do you get info for modeling the area.

[Twist]

Hi,
When I started in modelrailroading a few years back I searched the net for prototype pictures and was fascinated with the BCRail...so I choose this for me and found a region I could model in my space. So that´s it. All infos for it I found online. I´m not a prototype modeller, there are some freelanced and some more prototypical areas on my layout.

Regards,Chris

[UP SD40-2]

Fantastic job so far Chris! It looks like its going to be a very busy layout, great progress