Layout Tour #9 - Brockville, Ontario

    Brockville is a town in eastern Ontario.  It's a little more than 100 miles to the south of Ottawa.  It has a rich history as a railroad town.  The Canadian Pacific's Smith Falls subdivision terminates in front of the train station in Brockville.  VIA Rail uses the Smith Falls sub to get trains from Toronto to Ottawa.  If I had more room in this section of the layout, I'd include the CN railyard that is just to the west of scene I model.  

    On my layout, Brockville immediately follows Port Hope.  The tour starts with a dead-end road on one side of the main line and the fictitious Brockville Building Supply Company on the other.  The lumber yard is no longer rail served, but if you look really closely you will see the railbed and ties from the track that once serviced this company.

This was an Atlas kit that my father built for my first layout back in the early 90's.  It was too nice to just keep in a storage tub.  The stacks of lumber are from Osborn Model Kits.

Under all that tall grass is the railbed and old rail ties for a spur to the Brockville Building Supply Company.  

    The William Street Bridge is next.  I moved this bridge from the east side of the station to the west to help transition from Port Hope to Brockville.  It also hides the track to provide continuous running. 

    There were two buildings I wanted to make sure I included on the layout and they both ended up in Brockville.  The first was Faller's 1970's church.  The second was the Aurtown School building.  I really like the large windows on this school building.  To make both of them work together, I made it a Catholic School.

    One of the signature buildings in the part of the layout is the CN Metals Distribution facility.  This facility has two tracks to bring boxcars in.  Different bulk metals are unloaded and transferred to flatbed semis that move the metals out of the facility.  Servicing the facility is done daily by CN.  I scratch built this from a Pikestuff kit.  It's provided additional fright switching work for the local that works in Port Hope and Brockville.  This facility should be across the tracks from the Brockville train station, but I wanted it to have enough room, so I moved it to the other side of Perth Street.

    The train station was scratch built by the previous owner.  It was a building that my parents purchased for me at a train show when I was younger.  The station was part of a scene on a lift gate the original own had on his layout.  The actual lift gate benchwork didn't last long but I kept everything that was on it, including this station.  I've always liked the building and respect the time and energy the builder put into it, so I've included it on this layout.  It doesn't look like the real Brockville station, but it fit the space and it does the trick.

    VIA trains coming from Toronto normally come into Brockville on track one and have to make their way over to the third track to get to the station platform.  They enter the station blasting their horn for the Perth Street grade crossing. 

Train number 50 from Toronto, enroute to Ottawa moves from the mainline track (left) to the station track (right) in Brockville.  

    Where the CN Metals Distribution Property should be, I've placed an Esso gas station.  In reality it should be a restaurant, but I haven't seen a building that looks like John's Restaurant.  If I come across something that fits or I decide to do a little scratch building, the gas station may go.

"You're on your way with Esso."  It's a Canadian layout and I'd like bonus point for taking a knife to the Esso sign on the roof.  The last word ordinally read C-E-N-T-E-R, but I made sure to invert the R and the E so my Esso Service Centre looked the part.

    At the end of Brockville is the main entrance to the layout room.  I have a five-track duck under bridge.  Every model railroader that talks about avoiding a design with a duck under bridge is right!  It's no fun to constantly have to bend down to clear the bridge every time I want to go in or out of the layout room.  The bridge can be taken out if I need to, but it's not an easy process.  Three tracks head toward Montreal.  One track represents the CP Smith Falls spur.  There is a siding track on the opposite side to represent the Brockville CN yard.  Cars are set out on this track for the CP interchange.  The tracks on this bridge also serve as a fiddle yard for AMT commuter trains coming from Montreal and heading to the Quebec suburbs that I have no room to model.

The track on the left is the CP's Smith Falls Subdivision.  The track on the right is all I could manage to fit for the CN's Brockville yard.

On the Layout: Filling in Track Ties

     While I was waiting for something to dry on another project in the Montreal part of the layout, I decided it would be a good idea to spend some time replacing the track ties in that area.  These were the ties I needed to remove so I could install rail joiners when I was laying track.  I used a spare piece of pre-painted track and then cut the number of ties I needed in that space.  I cut off all of the track spike detailing, so the top of the tie was flush and then inserted the ties back under the rails.  A pretty simple process that up until now was a victim of procrastination.  I now just need to do the same thing to the rest of the layout.

A before image of missing ties in the yard.  Look at all that ballasting that still needs to be done.

Another before image.

An after image of the same location as the previous picture.  These tracks leading to Gare Centrale (Central Station) look much better with all of their rail ties.

On the Layout: Front Street Highrise Construction

     Summer is my busy season in the basement working on the layout.  My work schedule allows me to spend much more time accomplishing things on my To Do list.  For the last two weeks I've been working on my latest highrise project.  Custom Model Railroads makes this Building Under Construction kit.  CMR makes most of the highrise buildings found on my layout.  This was a terrific kit to build.  I highly recommend Custom Model Railroads if you're looking for tall city buildings for your layout.  

Building Under Construction kit by Custom Model Railroads

Kit pieces come bubble wrapped and bagged in ziplock bags to help with identifying parts and keeping things organized.  The back directions identify each part with a picture and part number.

    The directions suggested that I paint parts as I go along instead of waiting until everything has been put together.  The paint job was pretty simple for the building.  I primed the acrylic plastic parts with gray primer and then painted each piece with Krylon Camouflage Khaki.

It was important to keep the vertical supports perpendicular to the baseplate.  I used 3-2-1 blocks to help keep each support straight as the glue was drying.  

    I used Bondine Plastic Cement as my glue of choice.  I like that it can eat through paint, which was needed for this project.  The bottle comes with a brush, but for the hard-to-reach places on the kit I used CMR's glue bottle with a fine point needle on top.  I picked one up in January at the Springfield show knowing I would be building this kit in the summer.  One thing that was very helpful to avoid gluing pieces to my workbench was placing wax paper under the base of the building.  It worked like a charm!

Once the first floor is built the middle floors are just a repeat of the previous floor.  Each floor gets painted, time to try and then the next floor is glued.  I needed to scrape the glue off the vertical support columns each time I started a new floor.  I did this by applying some Bondine to soften the paint and then used a #17 blade to chisel the paint off.  

    The process was slow because of the need to paint each floor and then clean the parts that needed gluing, but the steps were pretty repetitive for each floor of the building.  I ran into a problem on the upper floors when the paint started crazing.  I'm not sure why it happened, but some light sanding and reapplying the paint took care of it.

Progress continued to be made.  This floor was where I needed to extend some of the vertical column and the supports on the right ended.

The 3-2-1 blocks came in handy again.  The directions suggested using some of the top floors to get the additions to the vertical columns going straight up.  The floor below the blocks has just had the supports glued and are currently drying.  There are still a couple more floors to go.  It has taken about a week to get to this point.  These kits are not designed to be done in a day.

I finally made it to the top floor!

  The construction elevator was built according to the directions, and I painted it using silver and orange paint.  I eventually secured it to the building using Canopy Glue (which is another great glue to use).  I used canopy glue because it does a great job tacking down pieces, but it can be removed, if needed, without damaging the paint.

It was time to work on the construction elevator.  It was important that these parts stayed at straight as they could.  I certainly didn't want to have a crooked or leaning elevator once it was upright.

Everything was painted and I glued the elevator into place (on the 6th floor).  

 I made some changes to the top floor.  Following a picture that I took of the building CMR had on display a few years ago at Springfield, I cut off three of the pillars at floor level and added some piano wire to simulate the rebar that would soon be surrounded by cement to build the supports for the next floor.  It gives the building the feeling that there are more floors to be added.  When the frame of the building was finished, I started adding the walls and windows for the first two floors of the building.  I use Tamyia gray primer for the cinderblocks and silver paint for the windows. 

This was an O Scale kit the CMR has built and displayed a few years ago at Springfield.  I used it to get ideas for the kit I was building.  Notice the top floor as some columns that only show the rebar.  You'll see in the next picture that I strayed from the directions and did the same thing.  I also liked that they had orange safety fencing at the edge of each floor.  I plan to add this to my building at some point.

The three columns to the right now just the rebar.  

It was finally time to add the walls and windows on the first two floors.  The cinderblocks were painted using two different primers.  I started with a darker gray to show the mortar and then spraypainted a lighter gray for the cinderblock surface.

The finished building before moving it to the layout for the first time.

The first look while on the layout.  It was now all about adding details and getting the scene completed.

    Once the kit was built, I moved on to some of the details to complete the scene.  I used the sidewalk shelter from a Walthers kit.  I needed to alter the length just a bit.  I painted construction barrels from Miniprints Road signs were printed on regular copy paper and backed on .010 styrene painted black.  The posts were made using .040 styrene.  I painted a Busch container to use as a construction office. 

A sidewalk shed I built years ago is finally being put to use.  I needed to trim a few inches off of it to fit the scene.  I built the signs while I was waiting for the glue to dry from my kitbash.

I used an image for a skyscraper under construction in Toronto for a prototype.  These two signs were seen along Front Street.  The trucks entering sign on the right was a little difficult to find, especially in orange.  I ended up just printing the picture in back and white and using an orange Sharpie.  Both signs are backed on .020 black styrene.

I tried two different color schemes for the job site office.  I decided to go with the one on the left.  The modular office on the right will end up getting use somewhere else on the layout.

    Inside the building I added some pallets of cinder blocks some round styrene tubing to represent pipes and conduit.  The kits already had predrilled holes on each floor to be able to add these details.  I would still like to add safety fencing around the perimeter of each floor.  I also need to add some safety tape on each elevator opening.  The scene is missing construction figures, I am searching for some that I like.  I also want to add a Welding lighting kit I bought once-upon-a-time from Bakatronics.

Pallets of cinderblocks are placed in different parts of the first three floors.  You can see some on the third floor.  Also notice the white pipes running from the ground floor up to the top. The pipes are just styrene tubes.

    The final step was to paint the benchwork the same earth brown used on the rest of the layout and then add Scenic Express's real dirt for the driveway.

Plenty of detail has been added on the ground.  I'm really happy with how this came out.  The sidewalk's curb cut has been painted orange.  This is based on a prototype photo of a Toronto construction site on Front Street.

    It took me around two weeks to get everything complete.  I am happy with the construction site and look forward to my next Custom Model Railroads kit.  However, I am running out of room for additional skyscrapers.  In a future blog I'll talk about the different high rises found on my layout. 

The new high rise construction site as seen from the front doors of Union Station.

Union Station hides most of the details in the scene.  This is what it looks like from the aisle of the layout.

 

    

Trackside Photo #2

 

A rare treat, a train with a caboose at the end!  This CN PSC Van is heading back to Toronto after spending time on a work train in the Cornwall area of Ontario.  It's seen here crossing the Perth Street crossing in Brockville, ON.