I just got into the hobby about 1.5 years ago. For my subject matter I chose Canadian Pacific’s Kettle Valley Railway Coquihalla Subdivision. I’m trying a difficult 4 level shelf layout. It’s definitely asking for trouble in some areas, but I really wanted to get in as much of the Coquihalla has possible and wasn’t interested in trying to model the full height of some of the mountains. The scenery is being done in 8 foot long segments, 12" deep away from my office equipment, and then being placed on a shelf. Because of this goofy arrangement, tracklaying will have to be per prototype… aka after the scenery. Maybe I will regret this later, but would appreciate your comments on how I’ve done thus far, as a beginner. Please ignore my ugly computer collection that appears in places – that’ll be dealt with later!
The project looks hugely ambitious as you are approaching it…a ton of work. But, I like what I see so far, very much. I look forward to seeing it progress.
Thanks for the compliments! As a beginner, getting any sort of approval is incredible!
I’m based in Squamish BC, right next to the former BC Rail. My interest in modelling comes from history and from the artistic aspect. I’m not really an operational modeller. This project will probably never be done, never work 100% right – but that’s ok. What I wanted was to be surrounded by pieces of the Coquihalla, since I can’t physically get there often. I figured if the operational aspect was plagued with problems, it was that much more prototypical! And if it never gets done, I’ll never be bored!
I would continue with the approach and orientation that has sustained you to this point, but it really won’t be hard to continue to keep an eye on eventually laying track and being able to actually run a 4-6-0 or a 2-8-0 just like the KV Ry did in the early 20th Century. Continue to make the grade and sub-roadbed in a way that only gentle filing or sanding will make it more planar and easier to lay good flextrack on it. You will be grateful, once you have it done (and it will happen…), to actually place a locomotive on the rails, even if it isn’t yours…say a friend’s…and watch it run back and forth on the terrain and tracks you created. Do a good job of the ballast and weather the rails, and you will easily get photos published in the magazines…if that should ever be a goal and an inducement for you.
Sorry David – I just realized I never mentioned that my model is in n-scale. The track in that picture is just a piece of Code 55 placed there temporarily. I didn’t do any roadbed/ballast yet – I just wanted to shoot some practice shots with the locomotive in the scene. I didn’t like Code 80 at all.
I spent about a year planning/thinking it over. If it works as designed I’ll be amazed – if not, the good thing about doing it in sections is I can reconfigure into a more conventional layout fairly easily. I wanted to be surrounded by trains, and I wanted to feature as many of the Coquihalla section facilities as possible. The design is fairly ‘simple’ in principle – starting on a 30" table at the bottom, it goes along until it hits a helix on the other side of the room. That brings it up to the next level, just under the scenery. The track is hidden at that point, but it’s accessible right at shelf’s edge behind a cover. It runs all the way back to the side of the room it started, and then near the end starts climbing, rounding a 14" radius turn into the scene (which is 2 inches above it), and then proceeds to run through the next level, to the next helix. You can picture the helixes all stacked on top of one another with about 2" gap between them. Same with the ramps on the other side. Where I have, say, a bridge scene with a gulch, the hidden track will simply run briefly behind it and then come back to the shelf’s edge. This is to keep inaccessible track to an absolute minimum.
There are a few reasons I went this way, despite some disadvantages. First, I didn’t/couldn’t give the trains a route past my door to simply loop around the room. If I’d left out the hidden track underneath the scenes, this being a mountain railroad, I would have had the trains entering the scene the wrong way, or I would have had to put the mountain on the side facing the viewer. Neither option worked. Another byproduct of that is it slows things down. Instead o
It looks fabulous. I expected to see Rambo hanging from one of the cliffs. (First Blood was filmed in that area for those who didn’t know). I’m in the planning stages of the Brookmere area of the Coq but in HO and not too large, 4 X 16 maybe. Good luck and keep us posted.
I’ve used only a bit of plaster for a few test Woodland Scenics rock moulds. 90% of it is painted foam, or spackling compound. I’ve been using this spackling that comes in a blue plastic tin… it’s not as watery as others I’ve worked with and shapes really well. However, the scene is almost to the point of requiring some extra help for each move!
Hahha… I should throw a little rambo figurine on there just for fun. I take the wife and kids to Hope every now and again – we like it there and we are always confronted with Rambo’s legacy when we get there.
I have Brookmere slated for the bottom tables. Going to try to do it in scale and just break it into pieces since I don’t have the wall length. How about you? I know someone has done an HO scratch build of the Brookmere station - (it’s on Hector Turner’s KVR site) but I have no idea how he got the dimensions, etc.
You and Langley Dan need to change the time zone difference on your profiles page. We are - 8:00 here on the wet coast.
That is awesome work. I am so glad you did it out of foam as that is what I am going to be using for my rugged Rogers Pass section. What colour gray did you use for the rock it looks great? I am not good with colours at all and will need coaching.
Here are some pics of the water tower at Brookmere if you haven’t been there. Keep up the great work.
Brookmere is only 8KMS off the Coq. The road in is good. It is worth a visit to any RR buff that is going past. There is also the remains of an old turntable and other bits and pieces. These pics are about five years old but I think it is all still there.
Last summer a friend and I did some 4 x 4 exploring of the line west of Rock Creek towards Penticton and Kelowna. Lots of ghost. Lots of fun.[:P]
This summer I think I am going to do the trip from Brookmere down to Princeton to see what I can see. The old roadbed is quite drivable from what I’ve been told. We will see.[:O]
Hi Falter, I am going to be basing mine on the Brookmere area but have decided to not be too OCD about the exact placement etc… I’ve seen the picture of the scratch built station and it looks (and I think I read somewhere) that it was a standard GN depot of that era as the original line through there was GN. The model on that site looks great though. I’ve looked for HO models of GN depots and have come close, I’ll still keep looking though.
Batman thanks I have changed the time zone but it sometimes pops back. Love your pics, on Google Maps you can zoom down and actually still make out the Water tower and I think the caboose. The Brookmere water tower was a two sided tower with two pipes to fill on either side as both the CP and GN went through that area at one time and it was originally in the middle of the two tracks. Thanks for the pics.
Maybe I will regret this later, but would appreciate your comments on how I’ve done thus far, as a beginner. Please ignore my ugly computer collection that appears in places – that’ll be dealt with later!
