February 2008
A little field work.
The sun was hardly up when I was called into see Mike about some work scheduled for the line between Hudson and Pearson. This was a heavily used section and all the employees took this issue seriously. Of course I found him out in the tool shed behind the box plant. He called that place his ‘office’ but it wasn’t much more that a place to hang his clip board.
He said he was short some material he needed for that job and it looked as though we wouldn’t get it shipped in until some time next month. Not a good thing. We were trying to have all the major maintenance done during the next ten days. After that the grain would be flowing pretty heavy and then winter would set in around here. That wasn’t the time to outside on the bald prairie with cold steel and hand tools.
The shed was a result of an article I wrote for Canadian Railway Modeller although the original seeds of that story were planted in September of 2006 during a rail fan visit to CN’s Wainwright Subdivision. The prototype was/is an unusually complex speeder and tool shed in Landis Saskatchewan. I changed the location of the freight door for visual effect and the updated the state of repair a little to reflect how it may have looked during the 1970’s.
Check out http://www.cdnrwymod.com/body.htm
Mike had work to do right here so I ‘volunteered’ to head across country and into Hudson to speak to our supplier personally. Perhaps a little one on one would expedite the situation. It was a cool, sunny day anyway and the back road could cut about 40 minutes off the highway time - if you knew your way around. Besides, I had to get there before they closed shop if I wanted to prevent a weekend of ‘nothing happening’.
Little used grid roads on the prairies can be a history lesson. It could make you proud one moment, sad the next. Hopeful at one turn and depressed at another. Solvey’s ESSO was a case in point. John had put a lot of money into refurbishing that old building as soon as he heard that the government was going to upgrade the road into town. Oil had been found a few miles away, the community had been growing and the only thing holding up the new highway was that bridge over the Little Smoky. Well the road builders went around the river, and the old bridge. Grid road 865 stayed pretty much the way it was. The garage served campers and fishermen for a while but soon it was over.
Painting a backdrop can be therapeutic . Painting it well can be nearly impossible. So I Googled some public domain photography done in the Western Canada and incorporate it into a pastoral painting, such that it is, of my own doing. A photo of an abandoned service station was actually taken in the dead of winter and so the snow had to be painted out. The grain elevators on the horizon were chosen to set the ‘time and place’. Those power/telephone poles in the scene fit right in with that Bachmann product in the front.
Your sure to find the originals, as well as many more helpful prairie scenes, at http://www.harrypalmergallery.ab.ca/galsentplaces/galsentplaces.html
I reached our supplier by late afternoon. The sun may set early in September but there was still lots of time to organize a ‘rush’ on our gear and put us back on out schedule. Heavy Power Ltd. made their way by supplying temporary generators to industry so they were on our list of favourate places. Our kind of work was more or less seasonal and an idle inventory of this expensive equipment would cost us money. On the other hand, no power at all, might cost us even more.
Phone calls were made, backs were scratched, favours were returned, priorities were shuffled, fax’s were faxed and papers were signed. By the time I left it was way past their closing. They had moved the earth for me and our parts were on the way. As I stepped out into the evening I was relieved and exhausted at the same time. I’d head into town, have supper, get a nice clean room and make my way home tomorrow.
A friend of mine in the HO scale world has convinced me that lighting is as much a part of a great railway scene as water tanks and round houses. I resisted at first (to ‘gadgety’ by far) but I gradually let him work on all my 1/24 th scale cars and trucks. The affect on visitors was quite surprising. They loved it! So I started adding lights to my structures as they were being build and I’ve never turned back. It takes next to no extra time and 12v lamps are available just about everywhere - in many sizes. I this case, a grain-of-wheat lamp lights the doorway but a larger 110v bulb lights up the interior.
The delivery boy is from http://www.seltd.net/ I really like their products. They have great detail and they’re more ‘every day’ looking than most train related figures.
As I crossed the tracks I could see that the big grain terminal was lit up for the night. That wasn’t some civic show of pride, although I’m sure pride was there. This was a 24/7 operation at this time of year and clearly demonstrated why it was so important for us to get our tracks up to standard and our heavy trains moving. Overseas orders were backing up already. Lighter GP9’s and SW1200’s could do the job now but in two weeks I’d need all those leased units working right along side our own fleet of SD40-2’s.
I remember when they were building this facility. I was working in the city at that time but the country anxiety was such that it made all the papers. As smaller wooden elevators closed, suppliers closed. As suppliers closed schools closed. As schools closed so went the towns and villages. But there was real industry here with real, full time jobs at a living wage. Life didn’t stop after all. It simply moved.
For those of you who don’t drop by www.mylargescale.com on a regular basis this will be a new photo. The Pearson Wheat Pool grain terminal is the biggest building on the layout but it still looked dead to me. The bright yellow elevator and conveyor equipment helped (when all the basement lights are on) but there was something of a ‘wow’ factor missing. Then I had a chance to see a similar facility working at night. It looked like a giant fireworks display against the prairie sky.
There are 50 small yellow LEDs on each string of miniature Christmas lights. I ran one up the elevator access ladder and another along the top of the conveyor equipment on the top. I also used those otherwise useless search lights from a model work train to light up the steelwork at the top of the tower and a 5mm white LED to light up the company logo on the silo.
The normal sounds of the night were disturbed by a sharp PISSSST! And then another. One of our leased engines was already sitting on a siding waiting for orders and a crew. Extra 5604 would be taking a mixed string of cars into Winter Valley late tonight and then joining the line up for grain cars already stacked up in the yard. I was breathing much easier now knowing we would have that river of wheat flowing smoothly by next Friday.
A couple of kids laughing somewhere in the trailer park brought me back to where I was. It was dark and I was railroad lonely. Perhaps if I wander down to the station…..
As a fond tribute to our first home after Bev and I were married I built an 8 x 32 foot mobile home decked out in ‘modern’ silver and pink siding. There was no way I could be sure it leaked as bad as the original but I’m sure it does. And the pipes probably freeze solid in winter and that guy with the cowboy boots will spend some time under there with a blow torch. Don’t set the place on fire!
And who wouldn’t want to keep the lady happy? These are Preiser figures. Relatively expensive, and a little large but if kept in a well-chosen location they’re not out of place. And they’re fully clothed too. Something many European figures are not.
The CN GP38-2W is a scratch built cab on a USA Trains engine.
The last mixed train in the country was due any time now. The “Midnight Special” left Grande Prairie at 10 PM – give or take. ‘Give’ being how many freight cars were spotted and ‘take’ being how many were picked up. Regardless, given that the road was in good shape and there was nothing else on the line at that time of night, the train always made up the required time and would arrive at 1150 pretty much on the dot. It left 10 minutes later and was into Winter Valley by 2AM. Five hours more and you were having breakfast and making connections with the Super Continental in Edson.
Two girls were being dropped off. They were travelling light tonight along with a guy and a suitcase. Fridays were the busiest. People were off to somewhere for the weekend or returning home after a week in the bush. In this case, the guy with the luggage was being sent off with a great show of public affection by a young Norma Jean in a pink dress. They were obviously friends. Perhaps cousins.
It’s nice to be able to use the lights in the cars to illuminate small scenes. Just like in the real world. In this case I chose a pair of bright LED’s that brighten up the whole end of the station in Pearson including the work being done on the platform. Scenes don’t have to be ‘action packed’ at all. Two ordinary people on a bench under a street lamp is just as effective as an array of spot lights shining on a jack hammer crew. Pick your spots and make them a very common part of real life. People will relate to that much better.
I talked to the agent for a time, watched the train leave, and saw him gather up what was left of a midnight snack and hide it in a small fridge under the desk. When you go to the trouble to make these things yourself you get very protective of an egg salad sandwich. I was reminded just how darn hungry I was. It had been 12 hours since I wolfed down two hot dogs and an Orange Crush and hit the road. ….must….find…food!
But things were very quiet on Home Street. Someone was cruising in a shinny yellow hot rod and the lights were on in store windows but there were no open doors in down town Hudson tonight. The Chinese café, an icon of prairie main street, was trying hard to hurry out the last table of customers. They waved my on when I tried the door dashing my hopes for Almond Chicken and a pale ale. But hey! Hadn’t I passed a small pub as I came into town? Right! There it is.
Home Street has been pretty active since it’s conception. A couple of Chevys filled it when it was new. At 1/24 th scale, they were around 20% too large for the layout and the street itself had been reduced by about 10% for effect. As a result, they looked rather silly there. Then John put lights in them and it was even worse. They had to go. The latest addition sports a tiny Pinto and an old hot rod. Both still out of scale but smaller in relation to the street. Even with lights they look much better. The Highball Pub can be seen in the background.
The green awning is on a common Piko kit. The only one I have. The IGA grocery store is scratch built from drawings and photos I took of the same small shop in Carberry Manitoba. Odd that after retirement from the Air Force I took a ‘temporary part time’ job at the local IGA Marketplace. Hmmm. That was over seven years ago.
The Highball was a railroad worker’s home away from home. It was situated right next door to the Produce Warehouse and the spur that serviced the areas largest non-grain related industry ran right over the pubs front steps. The food was mostly basic pub fare and a variety of beers and ales were on tap. Training beers; Coors, Bud and the like, as well as tasty, malty brew for the seasoned vet. I ordered a burger and fries. It was simple, fast and filling and the kitchen was closing for the evening anyway.
I was soon the last one in house and as I dug around for my credit card I was struck by how good it felt to be an active part of this railroad again even for just a day and a night. What I did on a ‘real day’ was important and the company couldn’t operate with out someone pulling all the maintenance issues together and building a schedule but that desk back in Winter Valley sometime felt a long way from the rest of the world.
I built the Highball some time ago. It didn’t have a name then or even a place on the layout. In fact, there was serious talk of either completing all of the walls or giving it away. After all, it was only built as n experimental platform for the two HO ‘neon’ window signs. And the signs were free – with no instructions so why worry.
But once Pearson spread around the far corner of the basement towards Fox Creek and the Produce Warehouse flat was finished, the little flat building seemed to fit right in there. It was just a matter of running110v to that part of the layout so I could plug in a couple of 3VDC transformers. It also meant that I didn’t have to create backdrop for that extra 12 inches of bare wall.
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