Dawson Creek Subdivision - British Columbia Railway - H0

Hi and good morning from Germany,
Thanks a lot for the kind comments.
Boxcab, before I started with modelrailroading some years back I collected H0 scale vehicles for some time. One day I decided to build a layout and that´s the reason for all the cars and trucks. I love US Cars and Trucks.

Regards,Chris

 

HI,
as I wrote on my last post, I made some changes to the Northwestern Wood Preservers mill. I rearranged the trunouts and tracks for a smoother and simpler look. There are now 3 tracks, one of them still for woodchip cars, the next track for outside loading of bulkhead flatcars and center partition cars or boxcars and the last one for loading inside the shed. The woodchiptrack is designed to load 4 cars, the outside loading track could hold 3-4 cars and the inside track can hold 3 cars max. Logs will be delivered by truck.Liquid additives will be also mostly delivered with trucks and from time to time with tankcar.
Here´s the trackplan of the upper level:





The buildings will be made from Pikestuff kits and scratchbuild.

The other thing I changed was some trackwork on the lower level in Chetwynd yard. My goal was to get more prototypical operating on my layout. On the prototype most traffic is empty cars from the south (Vancouver) up north and loaded cars from the North back south. SO I searched for a way to include a hidden staging to the south of Chetwynd. But the destinations on my Layout are the other way, I could add a staging to the northend and not to the southend. On the proto Chetwynd yard the Canfor mill and the engine service are located on the south end of the yard and the spur to Dawson Creek on the north end where the helix is build on my layout....My mind was blocked how to get that working....Some days ago it hit me with a hammer,lol :wall1: :wall1: :wall1:
My layout is proto freelanced so why not change the directions of the lower level....this will be not much more than changing names...The difference to the 1:1 yard is now that the spur to Dawson Creek starts on the south end and the engine service and Canfor mill are at the north end. But I can add a second track going down the Helix and entering a staging level below Chetwynd.
In an op session ti means a train coming from Vancouver will set out the cars at Chetwynd.The engines will go to the service area for their turn back to Vancouver later. The yardswitcher will sort the cars for their destinations, local or Dawson creek and the Train to dawson creek will go it´s way up the helix and the yardswitcher at chetwynd serves the local spots.At Dawson Creek a local will switch the industries around and the train will head back to Chetwynd.At the end of the session the Train back to Vancouver is ready with loaded cars from Dawson Creek and the local industries and will be travel to the staging.
Chetwynd yard was changed a bit with some more turnouts and two new small industries to be served, BC Hydro Utility Pole yard and Imerial Oil spur.Trackage for both has to be layed but the trackage in the yard is ready for wires.
First there´s the Anyrail trackplan



Old northend of Chetwynd before the change


After the changes the two new spots will be on the far right.


Sticker for the direction of the tracks will be added to the fascia later.

I´ll add a passing siding on top of the Helix for some more fun.

Thanks for looking any any comments,tips,ideas are very appreciated.

Regards,Chris

 

Hi there,
it´s been some time since my last post. I finished the trackwork in Chetwynd on the new designed south end of the yard. The tracks are connected with the helix again and I run some trains through this new part without any problems.




I also moved the engine facility to this end of the yard. Track is layed down for now, maybe I´ll change the tracks a bit but for now it will stay as it is now. I´m thinking of adding an additional track for some MOW equipment but this will eventually happen later. The walthers fuelplatform sits there just as an placeholder.



The left track is the subdivision to Dawson Creek, the right is the mainline down to Vancouver staging. I´ll extend the track to the helix and one turn down to the level I need to go below Chetwynd yard. The staging will be build below the long wall where the Canfor mill and the northend of Chetwynd is located.
I moved my workbench to the other room to the place where the engineservice was before. The wood was removed and will be build up next to the Helix to extend the benchwork. Here´s the new home for the workbench:

I´m still playing around with placing of the structures for the Canfor mill....I think I´ll go with some Pikestuff buildings and stay away from the Walthers sawmill. mybe I´ll place this somewhere else.


So there´s a lot of things to do. But I´m getting closer to the finish line and to the point where I could start with all the fun stuff like painting the backdrops etc.

more progress will follow,soon.

Thanks for looking, Regards,Chris

 

Hi there.

Last week I made a final decision. I was not happy with the location of my helix for a long time but was afraid of rebuilding it. But why stay with something what is not working and looking the way I want it to. So I removed all foam,track and benchwork of the helix and a small part of the benchwork next to it. I left the base of the helix untouched but moved it from the middle of the room into the right corner. This gives some space in front of it for scenery and a little bit more isle space.I started relay the track and made some measurements for the hights of the first level of the helix. All worked fine and I made a good start. I hope to finish it next week. I´ll show more progress the next days and how it all will work.
First picture is when the helix was buildsome time ago.


Here are some first pictures how the room is looking now.I will take a picture from the same angle to see the difference

New benchwork in place.

Started with some plywood. I have to make the cuts for the subroadbed and screw it to the risers. Landscape will be made from foam cut to shape. There will be a farmscene in front of the tracks and some fields in the background behind the tracks. Maybe a dirtroad....trees,bushes...etc.
More pictures will follow tomorrow if I find some time to work onthe layout this evening.

Thanks for looking,
Regards,Chris

 

Hi, so I´ll try to repost the pictures from my last post and hope that they will show up:
First picture is the old helix location

Next one is the same spot with the new benchwork

An a second one with the helix in the new location and the upper two turns removed.


So I hope the pictures will show up this time. I´ll show more progress in my next post.

Regards,Chris

 

Hi,

here´s some more progress on m helix rebuild.
I removed the old trackwork and wood from the base benchwork, removed the metalrods and started new. I added one turn that will go down to the later Vancouver staging. Next step was to make the connection from the trunout at Chetwynd to the entrance to the helix. After this was finished I added the tracks , next turn on top of that with wood spacers glued and screwd together.



I started then to build a frame for the mid deck with the siding I have planed. The treck will come out of the helix on the left side into a siding and head into the helix again on the right side.On the next picture you will see the "balcony" I will build for the siding. This is only a rough plan. I have to finish woodwork and some scenery below that "thing". I also started to add a backdrop around the helix.


The next pictures will show how the track flows from the Chetwynd turnout to the helix entrance. I added a curved turnout for the spur to the Canfor mill.




The last picture shows the location for the Canfor mill. I moved the mill to this spot to free up the old place for the engine service. I moved the structures around to look for the best placement and started adding some foam for scenery.



The Bridge will be sourrounded with trees etc. and will hide the hole in the backdrop where the train enters the helix. I have to cut a piece of plywood for the backdrop before I will glue down the basic landscape.

And finaly here´s the spot where the engine service is now placed. It´s at the end of the layout next to the north end of Chetwynd yard. The track next to the fascia is the mainline north. I will add a Highway bridge to the corner to hide the end.



That´s all for now....I ordered some wiremesh for the odd shaped spaces between track and helix and I´ll add more foam and some kork for basic scenery around it and the mill.

Regards,Chris

 

Wow, takes guts to move a helix, job well done and appears to have been worth it. Nice work Chris.

 

Hi there,
Michael, thanks and yes it´s worth the work. I want to do it for a long time and finaly have done it.
No,had no help from friends. I´m almost working alone on my layout. From time to time a friend comes by and run some of his HO engines and we do some little op session but that´s more for testing. So I have done it alone but it´s always a lot of fun. I try to work an hour or two on the layout every evening.
Yesterday I managed to glue down the kork and some foam for the Canfor Mill. Today I will make the feederwires and glue all the trackwork down.


Thanks for looking,
Regards,Chris

 

I'll be honest, sharing my layout with others is very rewarding, but there's no "right way". Do what's best for you. M

 

Hi there,
Michael, yes,that´s right. So it´s been some time but I made some progress on my Helix. I cancelled the idea of adding a midlevel with the siding to it. I decided to place the siding on top of the helix on the last turn. That one is visible around the small village and will be partially hidden by some scenery. So you could not see the complete loop. This way I could build the siding a bit longer and the shorter track could hold a 12 50ft car train with two 4-axle engines and an caboose.track is glued down half way of the siding. I hope to find some time next week to finish trackwork and make the connection to the old tracks in front of the bridge. I´m still thinking about what bridge I´ll use and for now I´ll go with the Walthers Single Track Truss bridge but maybe I´ll change this later and rebuild the older wooden trestle as a smaller and shorter version of the Kiskatinaw Railroad Bridge.I also started to add some fascia to the upper level.




At the Canfor mill on the level below, most of the tracks are glued down and the feederwires aer added.The picture was taken before that work was done. The woodchiptrack extends behind the backdrop. So I have the space for three empty woodchipcars to be loaded. The hole in the wall will be hidden by some tubes etc. This track will be on groundlevel with a lot of woodchips and dirt .In front of the loading shed and the freeloading area will be some type of concrete surface and also a lot of dirt etc.



Last part on my list was some more work on my engine service area. I added the Walthers diesel house and finished the tracklayout. I will add some kork to the top of the styropor to get the correct hide for the tracks. I will add some more tanks etc. concrete tabs and much more. I think I will get the railhead hight by adding kork and some styrene on top of it painted a concrete color. I also added an caboose track to store up to four vans.





And one last view looking north out of the engine house.


I hope to get finished with tracklaying next week and could start with the buildings for the mill and the engineservice.

Any comments are very appreciatet. Thanks for looking.

Regards,Chris

 

Hi, I have a timeframe. It´s the early to mid seventies.... I know that the to blue BCR and the SD 40 are to new for that timeframe but I bought them, before I decided to have a timeframe... So I´ll run some newer stuff from time to time... Most of the engines are two tone green. I´ll put my hand on one of those Rapido Cowl units,too.

Regards,Chris

 

Hi there,
again ut´s been some time since I last updated my blog so this time here is a bigger update.
I had a small test ops with two friends and we found out some small issues with other spots on the layout. The first one was the Northwestern Woodpreservers Planer Mill on the upper level. It was nice but the tracks are hard to reach over the buildings. So I reworked that area again. The structures moved to the back and the tracks to the front...I changed the purposes of the tracks. I have now one track for outbound plywood under a shed, one track for inbound tank and Boxcars next to another building and one for inbound pulpwood.


The mainline is hidden by the mill structures. I´m very happy with the new design and it´s working out nice. Here´s an overall view of the area with the new trackwork and structures.

The next area I started to work was the place for the engine service. After the tests with the Walthers dieselhouse I decided it was to big and did not match the look I wanted for it. So I searched the net and my books for pictures and finaly found some place I like. It´s the old PGE enginehouse at Lillooet. This could work for me in a similar way and I decided to try to build something like that. Here´s the picture I found on Flickr. It´s not my own picture and I use it for reference. I have some similar photos in one of my BCR books but this one shows the tracks better.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/37908073@N04/3494972727/in/album-72157621907755857/

And here´s my version of that place. The enginehouse was scratchbuild/kitbashed from pikestuff parts, the Shop building is also made from pikestuff walls. The other structures may be used as the are or will be changed with other structures.



As you can see in the last picture I shortened the main to the far left. The caboose track will be extended to the left track next to the engine service shop and it will be connected with a turnout and the small structure in front of the tanks will be removed and there will be a track for delivering dieselfuel for the engines.


Some engines stored in the engine house and on the tracks around. I have to do some work on the base for the structure and start with some basic landscape.

more in part 2

 

And after all that work I decided to made a last change on the layout. This time on the upper level in the other room around the mainstreet and the industries around. I reworked the tracks and turnouts and now I have a more straight look. I also removed one of the two elevators, moved the mainstreet into the far right corner. On the liftout in front of the window the structures moved to the back and so giving more room for operations.

New place of the mainstreet. There will be a small scrapyard behind the gas station.

Maybe this will move a bit to the right to allow two longer tracks for the elevator.

A&C Cylinder Head rebuilders to the right, Mikes Custom Woodworking to the left.

The new place for Diamond Fertilizer.

The left over elevator. You can see the rebuild still in progress but it´s finshed now. Have to take some pics.

Loomis Express building moved into the corner to give more room for the trucks in front.

I´m still thinking about the structure. I don´t know if I´ll stay with that structure or will add a new structure made from pikestuff walls and doors, which will match the look of the prototype much better. Here´s a google street view picture of it. I could simulate a much bigger structure with the pikestuff kit.

So this was a big update on my layout but I´m quite happy with he changes I made. Now I can go back to finish the work on the helix with the two new bridges and the final trackwork.

Removed the old trestle but have not made a final decision for that.

This one will be placed right to the other bridge over the tracks heading out of the helix and will hide the hole to the helix.

Thank you for reading and following.Any comments are very welcome.

Regards,Chris

 

Great progress! Love the engine shop! Also, I might copy you on your helix!
JMS

 

Thanks. No problem.

Chris

 

Hi there.
Here are some recent updates of my layout.....and again some changes.....only small changes.
First change was done to thenorthwestern wood preservers plywood mill again. I was thinking how the prototype would do it. I think they will feed raw wood into the mill on one side, add some ingredients during the manufacturing and will get finished and packed plywood on the other side....so it will make no sense to deliver the glue and paint on one end,the wood on the other and load the plywood in the middle....so this is what I came up with:

First part is a part of the area where the Logs and pulpwood is stored. The logs will be deivered by trucks as is on the prototype

Next step is the inbound track for tank and boxcars.


And the second track is for loading the outbound finished plywood into boxcars,flatcars and trucks.This will be the other end of the mill.


It´s only a rough mockup with leftover structures etc. but it will give me a better feeling for the whole thing.

The second part I´m working on was the interchangetrack and the look of this end of the layout.
I moved Wright´s food service around the corner and removed the cold storage. I placed the interchange to the rebuild area next to the teamtrack with the siding.


This gives me some new space where Wright´s was located. The single track is the NAR/CN row heading into Alberta. I will scratchbuild a road overpass maybe a third structure...I´m still searching for something maching to the two other buildings and will add some backyard scenery to it...some trees bushes etc.


More progress wil follow soon. Thanks for looking.

Regards,Chris

 

Hi there,
It´s been a month since my last post. I was very busy with my work and had not so much time for the hobby. I was not so happy with the last conversion on the layout for some time. The Modules and benchwork I made for this part of the layout were not all level and I was not happy with them. So finaly I decided to remove that part for now. It was not a big deal to remove the trackwork and cork. The wood will be fired up the next winter .The industries will be placed on other locations on the layout and the G.E.R.N. Industries Ltd. Facilitiy got some more tracks and has grown bigger...Here is the new trackplan. As you can see I changed the liftout at the entrance door,too. I removed the curves and have now a straight piece of track...I also started with the trackwork redo at Dawson Creek Yard. I used a shematic track diagram of the prototype for that and only removed one of the yardtracks and the spur to National Food. I added one track in front of the No.3 elevator and it will be used as teamtrack and also for loading TOFC cars.

I started with the G.E.R.N. complex. The trackwork is glued down and wired. From left to right starting with the truck loading structure.There will be a background structure behind the warehose connecting it with the mill building. I´ll add a door for boxcars to that new building where the track will disapear into it.

Mill structure with the elevator in the background. I will add an addition to the mill with an overpass to the other side of tracks next to the elevator. There will be also some pipes etc. going over the tracks to the mill.


Diamond Fertilizer on the right side to the front (blue and beige structures with the silo) is one of the railserved customers from the old part of the layout.




I also have some first pictures of the new arranged Dawson Creek yard.First pictures entering the yard from the east coming back from the G.E.R.N. area around the next corner


From right to left or front to backdrop are mainline, two yardtracks, runaround and elevator track


Looking from the other direction with the station and freighthouse in the far distance


More pictures will follow as soon as I could do some more work on the yard. I hope to get the Industry area with G.E.R.N. finishe d by the end of the week with painting the backdrop and adding some cork as a baselayer for the paved areas. I´ll use styrene sheet for most of the paving again. Some tracks will be paved in and some not.

Thanks for looking. Any coments are very appreciated.

Regards,Chris