When I originally built the layout, I had planned on having some staging in the utility room of my basement. I installed some tracks, but the length of each yard track was so short that it really didn't work. This was before I really developed the layout's operation plan whereas this first track is used as a fiddle yard track to represent MacMillan Yard (a fiddle yard is where cars are taken on and off the layout and stored in bins, boxes, shelves, etc.). I tried to use the track farthest from the aisle as a fuel dealer and the two middle tracks were to store cars that will be switched around the Toronto area. Needless to say, none of this really worked well and all but the first track became wasted space. I also didn't have a name for this location; it was non-descript.
I decided to give the space a little bit more of a purpose. Since the fiddle yard is meant to represent MacMillan Yard, I decided to build a few of the industries around the yard. MacMillan Yard, located in Concord neighborhood of Vaughan, Ontario is the largest rail yard in Canada. Besides sorting cars to move throughout Canada and the United States, it also has four industrial yards.
Within MacMillan Yard's A Yard you'll find CN's Cargoflo facility. Bulk liquids, like fuel oil, are unloaded for Greater Toronto Area customers on the 14 tracks. I decided to model one track of the Cargoflo facility to unload fuel. I've also included the holding tanks and fueling facility for local trucks to reload the fuel.
When I build the small shelf benchwork, I never thought I would scenic the area and so I added extra lumber supports to the wall that now needed to be hidden. I masked one of the supports with just a few pieces of corrugated styrene to represent a building in the Cargoflo lot.
S-Yard is a single yard track that unloads lumber. With the arrival of Rapido's recent run of center beam flat cars (and an upcoming run). I thought this would be a great scene to model, although it's largely compressed. I used the lumber loads I wrote about in a previous blog post. It also has glued pieces of lumber that were once part of a lumber yard on my very first layout. These pieces of strip wood were all glued by my father over 30 years ago. It's nice to have them back on the layout.
I added one more structure to the scene. The blue building represents CN's steel facility in the West Industrial Yard. It was added to hide the continuous running track that goes through a hole in the wall. I rarely use this track and so it can hold two or three cars with steel loads when not needed to continuous running.
I have more plans to develop this part of the layout. The other end of the shelf will include a Canada Post facility, and the rail served Cascade Paper facility. Both of these are found across the street from S-Yard. I still have a few details to include. A few steel scraps and signage can be added. It also needs some figures and a loading door at the steel facility. More to come....
