The Yonge Steet underpass in downtown Toronto now has a functioning flashing light in the traffic island. I've been on a lighting kick lately. I was cleaning out under the layout and while I was under there, I installed the Woodland Scenics Just-Plug stations to get this light and a few others working. I had installed the LED when I built the bridge, just never got it working until now.
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| Light goes on... |
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| ...light goes off. |
The traffic lights at each Toronto intersection are up and running. I'm using Walthers traffic signals and the company's traffic light controller. All the lights are synchronized allowing for better traffic flow along Front Steet and its cross streets.
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| Three blocks of red lights in downtown Toronto. |
This part of the layout includes two of the structures I wanted to build: The CBC's (Canadian Brodcasting Cooperation) Canadian Brodcasting Centre and the Toronto Hydro Power Station on the corner of John Street and Wellington St. West. They are across the street from each other. They both made it on the layout. I like the hydro station because of the large fences and the billboards on top. It really tells you that you're in the middle of a city.
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| The trackside entrance to the Toronto Hydro power station. |
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| Danger - High voltage! |
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| Billboards surround the hydro station. Each billboard displays an advertisement for Blackberry. I miss my Blackberry. |
The CBC Broadcast Centre is pretty simplified but gets its point across as to what it is. The first floor of the CBC houses other shops, too. Here on the corner of John and Front we find a Boston Pizza complete with outdoor terrace.
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| The Toronto Broadcast Centre is at the corner of Front Street and John Street. Many CBC employees have lunch on the patio of Boston Pizza just outside of the main entrance. Boston Pizza is still missing a sign, but one is in the works. |
Next to the CBC is Simcoe Park. This is a plaza in the heart of several high rises. I built it in the summer of 2022. I'm really happy with how it turned out.
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| Simcoe Park on a June day |
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| Simcoe Park is a separate piece on the layout. It can be taken out if something happens to a figure or a tree. This is a picture of it on the workbench. I really like the patterns on the walkway. |
A lot of research for the layout is done using Google Maps, especially in the downtown Toronto part of the layout. More often than not it seems that John Street is under construction between Front Street and Wellington. This has been an easy detail to model. A special thanks to Miniprints for making the right looking construction barrels. I scratch built the trailer that holds the flashing arrow board.
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| Expect delays if you're driving down John Street. Hydro crews are digging up the middle of the street, again. |
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| A new scratch-built trailer for a construction arrow panel. The sign is made by Miniatronics Corp. |
One of the pieces that is missing from this neighborhood is the Toronto Convention Centre. It's located across Front Street from the CBC. The convention centre is a very recognizable building in downtown Toronto but remains to be built. I have a Shell gas station in its place. I like how this station is located in a very small space between two high rises. It looks out of place but is also prototypical to big city living. My wife loves raccoons, so I've included the gas station dumpster. Toronto is known for its large population of raccoons and they problems they cause. Case in point. Again, thank you to Miniprints for making the raccoons and garbage bag details.
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| A busy Shell gas station and Food Mart convenient store in the heart of Toronto. The model is produced by Summit Custom Models. |
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| The city of Toronto has tried to combat the over-population of raccoons in the city. After looking at this picture the city may be losing the battle. |
I just finished adding strobe lights (non-functioning) and decals to a Walthers bus. A quick project that will bring a little detail to a scene. The CN logos came with the bus. The rest of the decals came in a set from Highball Graphics. I still need to paint the doors black.
Welcome to downtown Toronto! Toronto is the biggest city in Canada, it is also the biggest piece of the layout. On most layouts there would be a rail yard on the largest part of the layout. I used the 12 feet of valuable real estate for high rises and a five-track passenger station. Front Street runs the entire length of the city. It passes many well-known structures found in Toronto. The places I'm writing about today aren't really found on Front Street, but they needed to go somewhere.
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| Looking east down Front Street |
I knew I wanted to add something to resemble the CN Tower and if you have the CN Tower then you also have to include the Rogers Centre (home of the Toronto Blue Jays). My scratch building skills are not sharp enough to try to tackle a replica of the CN Tower, so until they are I have to rely on Faller and their television tower.
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| Scratch built CN Tower ticket booth and entrance |
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| The current CN Tower thanks to Faller |
The Rogers Centre is not built yet. It will have to be a very compressed structure to fit in the space given. I am happy with how the lower levels of the Rogers Centre turned out. I think if you've seen this part of the Rogers Centre as you're heading to the CN Tower, you'd have to agree it has a striking resemblance to the real thing.
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| Outside the hotel entrance and main gates for the Rogers Centre. |
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| Walkways leading from the main level of the Rogers Centre to the CN Tower entrance. The Toronto Blue Jays fan store and Rogers Centre guided tours are inside, behind the stairs. |
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| VIA Rail Tempo coach #370 (a Rapido Trains model) is on display behind safety plastic at the Toronto Railway Museum |
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| Canadian National wood caboose #78377 (a True Line Trains model) is found at the Toronto Railway Museum for visitors to walk around and see. |
Across the street from the Rogers Centre is the Northern Linear Park. At the entrance to the park is the Chinese Railroad Workers Memorial. Canada's cross-country railway was primarily built using Chinese workers, many of whom died building the railway. I plan to include the memorial in the park.
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| A TTC bus has just picked up passengers in front of Toronto's North Linear Park, this is the future home of the Chinese Railroad Workers Memorial |
Last stop on our tour has us hanging out under a bridge. The Rob Robbie bridge crosses the tracks leading to Union Station and gives visitors to the Rogers Centre and CN Tower access from Front Street. My bridge connects to a high rise because the ramp from Front St. to the bridge would have been too steep to look real.
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| Visitors to the Rogers Center and CN Tower may access Front Street by walking across the bridge and down the stairs just through the double doors. Some Toronto tourists have stopped for a hotdog before leaving. |
Below the bridge is the John Street interlocking tower. The Toronto Terminal Railway uses the interlocking system to switch turnouts around Toronto's Union Station. We can talk about the real interlocking system another time. What I love about the whole thing is that they built the bridge right above the John Street Tower. To do so they took the pitched roof off the building to get the bridge built. The building now has a flat roof and a large bridge above it.
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| The real John Street interlocking tower right below the Rob Robbie Bridge. Roderick Robbie was the architect that designed the Rogers Centre (originally known as Skydome). The bridge was named after him in 2013. The John Street Interlocking Tower is found directly below the bridge. |
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| John Street Tower on the layout. There is a little more clearance between the bridge and roof, but there still isn't enough for the peaked roof that came with the kit. |
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I dedicate this locomotive to my father. From 1965 to 1967 he served in the U.S. Army as an E5 Sergent in the First Calvary Division during the Vietnam War.
Thank you for your service, Dad!
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| Etobicoke, Toronto, Ontario |
The TMC has four yard tracks, a car wash, fuel depot, a diesel storage tank & pump house, and a three-bay repair facility. It also has a 90 ft turntable to rotate locomotives and rolling stock. The real TMC also has a turntable but I'm not sure how often it is used since the property has a wye track to turn consists around. My layout does not have enough room for the wye and so the turntable probably gets used more often than the real one.
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| VIA Rail Canada wants its equipment looking nice and clean. This LRC coach goes through the car wash at the Toronto Maintenance Centre. |
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| VIA 6426 returns from Ottawa and begins the process of refueling at VIA's Toronto Maintenace Centre. |
There is a dedicated SW1000 yard switcher at the TMC. The facility also has a Trackmobile that moves cars through the repair and inspections bays.
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| The yard switcher, VIA 201, is waiting for the signal to fetch an LRC coach out of Bay 2. The SW1000 will bring the coach back to the yard for its return to revenue service. |
Mimico station is pretty simplistic. It has platform space for three GO Bilevel cars. The station is a small structure, much like its prototype. The platform has two shelters for waiting commuters.
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| A westbound GO Transit train is leaving Mimico Station. One commuter just missed the train and will have to wait for the next one to arrive. |
What's missing from this part of the layout is GO Transit's facility, Willowbrook Yard. If I didn't need an aisle to stand in, Willowbrook would be there. ...So it goes.
The track is a single mainline in this part of the layout before beginning the double mainline through the rest of the layout. This single track opens to four staging tracks on the other side of the wall as well as the continuous-running track mentioned earlier.
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| Lakeshore West GO Transit train arriving at Mimico Station before heading to Union Station in downtown Toronto. |
Over the last few days, I've been working on an engine shed for my Pointe Saint Charles yard-switcher in Montreal. The actual shed is a Quonset hut, but I had a lot of extra Rix Products walls and doors from other kits. Eventually, I'll make a Quonset style shed but this will do fine for now. I'll add a light over the bay door once I am ready to outfit this part of the layout with lighting.
Downtown Toronto
Yes, one of the buildings looks like it is touching the ceiling. ...It's actually one centimeter away from the ceiling. Plenty of room!
I got married in 2006 and when to Toronto for our honeymoon. Following that first visit to Toronto I knew I wanted to model the city. Toronto is an amazing place both as a visitor and a railfan. Subsequent trips allowed me to figure out exactly what I wanted to include on the layout. I knew I wanted to include the John Street Tower, The Don Valley, The Royal York Hotel and GO Transit's Don Yard. There were things, many things, that had to get cut from the plan because of space. The Port Lands was one of the hardest things to have to remove from the plan. This is a rail spur that follows Lakeshore Dr. just to the east of downtown Toronto. The 11' x 18' room that houses the layout just isn't big enough.
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| VIA Rail #64 en route to Montreal passes by VIA Rail #57 which is minutes away from arriving at Toronto's Union Station. Both trains are crossing over the Don River and Don Valley Parkway just east of downtown Toronto. As an added bonus, Train #57 has the Glen Fraser as the last car of the train. |
Construction on the Toronto, Montreal & Brockville started in 2015. "Phase I" (The Ontario part) is a 126 square foot layout. I started "Phase II" (Montreal) of the layout in 2021 when the return loop of the layout was built in the adjoining bathroom's closet. This added an additional 42 square feet of layout space.
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| Phase II Construction - (Left to Right) Downtown Montreal with Pointe Saint Charles, Port of Montreal, and a piece of the South Shore |
The trip from Montreal to Toronto takes about five hours (without delays for CN freight trains or stopping in Ottawa). There is quite a distance between the two cities. I do not have room in my basement to model the entire distance. I had to make compromises in what would appear on the layout. The TM&B is not a prototypical layout. It has bits and pieces of places along CN's Kingston Subdivision, but it doesn't exactly resemble those places. I'm okay with that. The TM&B is still a work in progress. The major construction is finished, but details and repairs take up my time.
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| (Left to Right) Don Valley, Toronto, Oshawa, Port Hope and Brockville |
One thing that has not been completed and might never get crossed off my "to do" lists is ballasting. I do not enjoy ballasting track. Often, I'm unhappy with how the track looks after I ballast it. I've decided to leave my track unballasted for two reasons. First, as I said, I don't like ballasting. Second, this layout is not my last. This is actually my first I've learned a lot building it and would do many things differently on my next layout. That next layout may happen sooner rather than later. Having unballasted track will allow me to recycle more of the track when the day comes that I decide to redesign what is there or start all over again.
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| A morning AMT commuter train is arriving at St. Lambert Station. This is the last stop before Train 807 crosses the St. Lawrence River and arrives at Central Station in downtown Montreal in about 10 minutes. |
Happy New Year! Welcome to my Toronto, Montreal & Brockville HO Scale layout. The goal of this blog is to give visitors, near and far, the opportunity to see the progress on the layout. I'm not sure how often I will update the blog. I will try to add something weekly, but it may be bi-weekly (it may be even longer). Regardless, I hope you enjoy!
