This weekend we were also saying good-by to a leased RS3 from the Pacific Great Eastern.  The 578 had been brought in to help out during the grain loading season but because of a less than expected harvest we found she was being employed mostly in and around Winter Valley doing simple switching chores.  A job usually relegated to the operating crews on their way through.  I guess that made it easier on them, and our on time performance had improved but it was still an expensive luxury we could do without.

            Back in April 1972 the PGE had become the British Columbia Railway and this rental was the last one still painted in the old PGE scheme, and also, it hadn’t been used as a first team road unit so it was still in pretty good shape.  As clean as when it first came out of the paint shop.  Some photos here would be a good idea as well.

                The RS3 is a project I started and finished for a friend during the long post Christmas – pre boating season.  I learned a lot doing the PGE/BCRail research as well as working with paint I wasn’t at all familiar with.  I would have used G Scale Graphics at http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/DelTapparo/ instead of custom made water slide decals but I went with what the customer wanted - so there you have it. 

            I removed those odd Aristo classification lights and replaced them with nothing.  There’s really nothing correct on the market and I didn’t have the skills to build them from scratch.  I did build a hood mounted, CN style bell assembly for the front and replaced the simple horns with a three chime variety in the proper location.  Radiator guards and sunshades were also installed as per the prototype.  Oh yes, artistic license allowed me to leave the top green.  Black looks ok in the 1:1 view but looks very bad in a smaller scale.  So there!

                Just walking by the 578 down at the elevator reminded me that when I first arrived in Winter Valley there were quite a few old, ex-CPR Alco’s on the roster.  But this is a pretty compact operation and it just made a lot of sense to get rid of anything that was costing us more money than we couldn’t get back.  We didn’t have enough RS3’s to warrant a fully equipped shop and had farmed out a lot of the maintenance anyway.  Just as we do today for the SD40-2’s.  Compressing our fleet to one builder, GMDD, made more sense for us than it did for the BCR.  Besides, there had been complaints about the smoke and what it did to laundry being hung out to dry in trackside yards. Honourary steam engine indeed!

            But now there seemed to be some non railway action over on 2nd Ave……

                This is a very smooth running engine though.  I had one in the common CPR scheme when I was just starting out in the large-scale world.  It was the engine I used outside when I was pushing debris of the track.  It never failed me but it was soon replaced with USA Trains products once I was indoors.  The clunky, toy like details soon turned me off the model.  It’s a tried and true engine but I sure wish Aristocraft would upgrade the pilots and the hand rail stanchions.  The technology is there today.

            Do I still recommend it?  Absolutely.

Looks like the local constabulary found an abandoned car next to the crossing and while they wouldn’t normally press to have something like that moved right away (In case it was claimed and moved away for them.) the location of this car made it a potential safety hazard.  Thunder Towing was called in and Mike did his best to jump-start the derelict before giving in and hoisting it onto the back of the truck.  I know. Not an apocalyptic event but it would soon be big news around here.  The local press was talking to the officer already.  Could I have been witness to next weeks leading story? “Police Pursue Proprietor of Parked Porsche.”  Probably.

Anyway, if I hadn’t stopped to rubberneck a little police action I would have missed that pair of cab units came by.  They had been put in charge of an extra heading over High Pass and then down into Pearson and Grande Prairie.  It would be really something watching the cab units at work because the F7’s were a pain to switch with and now days their use on LTCL was almost unheard of. 

Click here for video

                John Green has done all my scenery lighting effects and I thank him for that.  I’d like to think that visitors down here are blown away by the railroad but, truth be told, they fall in love with all the lights.  Car lights, streetlights, crossing lights, building lights, neon window lights, arc welding lights just to name a few. 

            This police car has the typical random red, white and blue flashing roof lights as well as random flashing front and rear lights.  The tow truck has flashing lights on the front, top and rear.  A great scene that attracts a lot of attention.

            The chase was on but finding those old F’s up the hill wasn’t going to be easy.  They struggled with a load that pulled them down to 15 mph but the highway often twisted high and low, east and west of the tracks.  I had the speed advantage but was usually far from the action. 

            At one special spot the sun had broken through the low clouds and turned the forest into a magic land of green and white.  The wind and shadows had played tricks on the trees.  In some places they were snow covered and sparkled like some Christmas display come early and just a few feet away they were still bare and green in their best summer dress.  The slow moving train introduced a rainbow of foreign colours into the scene.  The bright, new Winter Valley caboose most of all.

                I bought the USA Trains Great Northern caboose back when there simply wasn’t anything produced in Canadian road names.  Never mind that the HO guys were complaining about one-of-a-kind Canadian prototype cars being built with the wrong thread size on the third brake hose from the left.  I had nothing.  So an otherwise beautiful GN car would have to do.  Simply remove the goat and add decals and a few individual things like the radio antenna and it would become a Winter Valley van extraordinare. 

            I’m also well into the snow field project at the other end of the house.  The East wall, seen above, was finished in the orderly, step by step process that saw the scenery done as I worked my way around the room.  Somehow the finished scenery jumped past the West wall and continued on to Hudson and beyond.  Past time to fix that. 

            A little lower, and on the sunny side of the hill, 9034 and 9047 came to a rest at the Colder warehouse still basking in the late summer sun.  The mine had experienced its first snowfall but that was just a warning of things to come.  The crew prepared for the switching duties and I carefully lined up the camera for a traditional ¾ roster shot. 

            Oddly, there were no telephone poles in the way and nothing obvious in the back to ruin the profile. Well, apart from the trash stored (dumped) out on the right-of-way.  This was common in the past but a relatively new movement had begun to put pressure on politicians, and industry, to clean up their act.  Some studies were beginning to show that humans were having a negative impact on the environment.  A passing fad?  Perhaps.

                The USA Trains F3 had long been on my list of ‘had to have’ so when the major part of the layout was finished and I had project time on my hands I started to look for a pair that I could turn into CN F7A/B 9034 and 9047.  An undecorated pair was impossible to find but there was a Pennsylvania set for a good price.  So it started.

            There were plenty of photos of the prototype pair.  Research would not be a problem.  I added new grab handles, antennas, horns, bell, winterization hatch, cooling pipes, windows and built a modern F7/9 type grill for the sides.  Paint was approved CN colours from Scalecoat and warm black.  Oh yes.  That headlight’s an Adobe phony too.

            They will be the first engines to receive any new RC decoder - with sound.  I’m testing the market right now and leaning towards QSI.  We’ll see how that goes.

            Railfans, and I count myself among them during my off duty hours, always enjoyed taking in the switching chores at Colder.  Engines were often forced out onto the main line and onto the bridge over Smoky River Falls.  It was the last wood truss on the railroad and had been designed to handle the weight of heavy steam engines and while her age may one day be an issue, she was still quite capable of supporting a pair of modern diesels that could spread their weight around.

            The falls themselves were always best at this time of year and well worth the trip up the hill.  They froze solid during the winter.  All ice and covered with deep snow.  Spring floods created one powerful plunge that by September gave way to a succession of smaller, more beautiful falls attracting visitors from far and away.  And this is where that little sister of mine would be hanging out.  I’d drive back into town with her.  If she put the top up.

                That waterfall was another first try project.  I saw a similar falls being built in HO scale and it looked wonderful so I figured what the heck. I can use the same techniques and upscale it x3.  Well, of course it’s just not that simple.

            Aside from the two complete kits of Magic Water (There is also a large lake behind and under the bridge) I only had to really build the falling water.  Various methods were tested but I finally settled on the clear silicon method.  I drew out long strings of clear silicone onto wax paper and when it set up I ‘hung’ them on the lip of the falls.  A few highlights and it was finished.  Not a prize winner but….

The next day dawned clear and warm.  Perhaps the last taste of an Indian Summer that extended well into late September.  It was a time of year when folks would normally wake to find a thin sheet of ice on the fishpond and so it was a bit ‘refreshing’ racing off to work in an open convertible.  Obviously the transplanted prairie girl hadn’t gone soft during her year in California.  I kept my jacket on. 

The boys in the shop gave her car a quick once over while we got ourselves a coffee.  Mine for the start of a workday and hers for the road.  We shared a few risqué brother-sister laughs, at my expense of course, and headed outside to get her on her way.  It would be late in the day before she found herself in Thompson River country and latter still when I took a call from Lucerne.  Some one was up late.

            A couple of things here.  First, there is a huge lack of common, family vehicles available in 1/24th or 1/25th scale or anything else close to 1/29th scale.  There are lots of trucks, muscle cars, and a few luxury sedans but it’s been hard to find those four door Hondas and Pontiac’s that were all over the place in the mid ‘70’s.  This red convertible is an example.  Nice though. J

            Little people are expensive and again, there isn’t a huge choice.  I have two or three of the fellows you see standing by the car but I took the time to repaint each one.  This one is no longer in the all gray look and is now into jean coloured pants and coat.  Much better.  Also, I think the model car field provides a much better selection of figures.  The cute little lady is from Scale Equipment Limited.   

Oh!  And if your modelling tends toward an HO scale excellence drop by right here….
 

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