I recently offered to doodle some plans for a friend of mine who recently moved and wants to build an S scale CNR layout. He’s fairly open to ideas and I thought it would be interesting to explore the possibilities in his new layout space.

I came up with four designs – all heavily influenced by the prototype – but the one I liked the best is a layout depicting two towns on the CNR’s Southampton Sub. This subdivision was served out of Palmerston, Ontario and is written up in Steam Over Palmerston by Ian Wilson.

The branch – for branch it was – is 53.16 miles long, starting at Harriston Junction and ending at Southampton on the shores of Lake Huron. (Trains ran 6.04 miles on the Owen Sound Sub between Palmerston and Harriston Junction.) The railway served 10 communities on the Southampton Sub, including two I chose for this layout plan. And it had four scheduled trains on the line:

- Train 178 (a Second Class Passenger Train) left Southampton at 5:50 am and arrived at Palmerston 7:50 am
- The return trip – Train 179 (a First Class Passenger Train) – left Palmerston at 9:10 pm, arriving at Southampton at 11:10 pm
- Train M329 (a Third Class Mixed Train) left Palmerston at 11:30 am and arrived at Southampton at 2:20 pm
- Train M330 (also a Third Class Mixed Train) left Southampton at 12:30 pm and arrived at Palmerston at 3:45 pm
- The two Mixed Trains were scheduled to meet at Paisley (MP 36.12) at 1:30 pm

(Southampton Station – 2011)

Southampton was an obvious choice for inclusion on the layout plan. The town featured: a handsome brick station; a freight shed; a two-track engine house; a section house with adjacent oil storage shed; a company (WH Rogers) that received lumber and other building supplies plus fuel oil and coal; and two furniture factories (Fitton Parker Furniture Ltd and Hepworth Furniture Co), each with their own spurs. These factories received lumber by rail, and shipped carloads of furniture. They also received other materials in Less-than-Car-Load (LCL) shipments via the freight shed. So, in addition to all the normal activity in a terminal, there are interesting railway customers that would generate a variety of traffic.

Notably, the Southampton terminal had no run-around track. Instead, a wye adjacent to the yard was used to turn trains and steam locomotives.

M329 would arrive in Southampton and – if it was short enough – would proceed directly to the station. After unloading passengers, the entire train would turn on the wye, then the crew would proceed to do its switching. (Longer trains negotiated the wye before making the station stop, so that the passenger cars could be spotted at the platform for unloading.) With the switching done, the passenger cars would be placed on the track next to the engine house – the lead to the two furniture factories – and the engine would tie up in the house.

Train 179 would arrive at the station, unload people and express, turn on the wye, then spot the passenger cars on the lead to the freight house before retiring to the engine house for the night.

(A period photo of Mildmay Depot)

While many of the online towns are worth including on a layout, I chose Mildmay (MP 15.14) for several reasons. On the prototype, Mildmay was laid out on an S curve and – as shown in several photos in Ian’s book – the terrain has a nice roll to it here. Mildmay also has a good variety of customers – and, for the most part, different than those at Southampton. There’s a combination depot, a stock pen, a coal shed, and a co-op. The Schwalm Sawmill has a spur with stacks of lumber piled high beside it. Schwalm also stacks lumber along the spur beside the stock pen, and Ian’s book suggests the company receives building supplies such as cement and wallboard as well.

Across from the stock pens, the JA Goetz turnip waxing and storage building makes for an interesting railway customer – one that’s not often modelled. Ian’s book notes that many of the turnips were exported to the United States, in American refrigerator cars (eg: PFE and FGE). Such cars would add a welcome spot of colour to a train.

(Offline but nearby, the Lobsinger Brothers factory built the Lion Threshing Machine. While it had stopped using rail by the 1950s, rail service could be reinstated on a model railway, via the team track at Mildmay.)

A bridge over the Teeswater River north of Paisley limited the branch to 4-6-0 and 2-6-0 locomotives. Until September of 1956, each train on the line ran with a baggage-mail car and a coach. The mixed might have a boxcar in express service, too – plus regular freight cars from and for online customers. After the mail contract was cancelled, the RPO was replaced with a full baggage car.

(A layout plan in S: Click for larger view)

My friend has a space approximately 13.5 feet by 20.5 feet, with a 5.5 by 7.0 foot alcove in one corner, and permission to build over the laundry area (a soft boundary) in the diagonally opposite corner. For this plan, I used 42″ minimum radius on the main, but a 36″ radius on the lead to the engine house, and the spur to Fitton Parker in Southampton. I specified #9 switches anywhere that a passenger car might travel, and #7 switches elsewhere.

The tail track of the wye curls into the alcove and there’s about 8 feet of tail beyond the switch, so that’ll govern train length. Eight feet is pretty good for a branchline train in S, though – with 3.5 feet taken up by a locomotive and two passenger cars, the remaining 4.5 feet still allows room for a half-dozen 40-foot freight cars. I made sure that the backing move in the alcove would be through the straight side of the switch, which will reduce the likelihood of derailments.

Equipment needs are modest, which is always a good thing in S. The layout would require two small steam locomotives (a combination of 2-6-0s and 4-6-0s), two baggage-mail or full baggage cars, two coaches and an assortment of freight cars – boxcars, tank cars, stock cars, hopper cars, and so on. The locomotives have been done as brass kits (and are what I use on my own layout). My baggage-mail conversion would work well, as would the MLW Services Colonist Car. We don’t yet have a CNR full baggage car in S, unfortunately – so I guess the mail contract is still valid!

Prototype layouts are always a compromise and the big one here is that I have drawn Southampton as a mirror image. It was the only way to fit this interesting terminal into the room. The good news is, creating a mirror image of a terminal doesn’t change how it operated one bit.

I put Southampton on a peninsula so it could be viewed (and worked on) from both sides. The access aisle along the top of the diagram is narrow – just 24″ wide – but that’s plenty for an operator to step sideways along the scene. The wall here could be painted sky blue, or even given a full backdrop treatment. It would look great when photographing the town from the centre of the space.

The furniture factories will be lovely imposing brick structures – and look big enough to justify carload traffic. The engine house will be right up front, where visitors can enjoy a fully-detailed interior.

At Mildmay, the scene gets fairly deep – the road on the plan is 39″ long. For access, I would notch the benchwork under the turnip plant and build the structure on its own, removable base. Lift it out of the way, put it somewhere safe (top of the dryer in the laundry, perhaps?) and then one could step into the scene to maintain track or scenery near the backdrop. Some shrubs along the join line would conceal the lift-away nature of the plant, and trunk latches could keep it securely in place.

While not shown on the plan, I’ve indicated room for the mill pond at Mildmay (wrong side of the tracks, but that’s okay). I’ve also indicated a suitable spot for a bridge scene. While the weight-restricted bridge north of Paisley was straight, something similar could be built on the curve – and the 5 mph slow order on this bridge would help extend the run.

Operation would be relaxed, but engaging:

Train M329 would consist of a 10-wheeler or Mogul, a few freight cars for Mildmay and Southampton, a boxcar in LCL service, a head-end passenger car, and a coach. It would start in staging – a stub-end yard over the laundry – and run to Mildmay. There the crew would do their station stop, then set off freight cars. This would require run-around moves since the train overnights in Southampton (leaving the cars within sight of the co-op or sawmill would likely result in strong words from those customers).

Arriving at Southampton, the crew of M329 would wye the train, do its station stop, and leave the passenger cars at the platform while freight cars were spotted as needed – including spotting the LCL car at the freight shed. The passenger cars would be moved to the industry lead next to the engine house, and the crew would tie up.

Train 179 would consist of a 10-wheeler or Mogul, a head-end passenger car, and a coach. It would start in staging, make stop at Mildmay, then run straight to the station at Southampton. After doing its unloading, the crew would wye the train, spot the passenger cars on the freight shed track, and tie up in the engine house.

Early the next morning, a crew would board an engine at the house, collect the passenger equipment for Train 178 and back it to the station. The crew would leave for Palmerston, making a station stop en route at Mildmay.

With 178 out of the way, the crew for M330 could go on duty. The passenger cars would be spotted at the station, then the crew would collect any freight cars ready to leave town – including the LCL car, which would have to be placed next to the passenger equipment. M330 would leave town, make a station stop at Mildmay, lift any freight cars from Mildmay, then head to Palmerston.

It’s difficult to incorporate a wye into a layout in any scale – but especially in a larger scale such as S. So I’m pleased with how this plan turned out. I hope it offers some ideas to others faced with an awkward prototype like Southampton.

I had a lot of positive response to my write-up on the Sacramento Northern as the subject for an achievable layout (thank you!), so I thought I’d offer another interurban theme – this time, from the opposite corner of the United States.

The Aroostook Valley Railroad was a small interurban system in Northeast Maine. It ran northwest from Presque Isle to Washburn and then north to Carson, where a junction carried the line north to Sweden and east to Caribou. More history on the AVR can be found on the Presque Isle Historical Society website and on the Maine Memory Network website.

The AVR offered passenger service, with a mix of combines from Brill and Wason providing six round-trips per day (four between Presque Isle and Caribou, and two between Presque Isle and Sweden). But what makes the AVR interesting from a modelling perspective is that it was the only interurban in Maine to run freight trains. A since train per day – powered by either a 40-Ton GE Steeple Cab or a 60-Ton Baldwin Westinghouse box cab – served potato warehouses and other online customers. Outbound loads included potatoes (lots of potatoes), lumber, starch and hay. Inbound loads included fertilizer, grain, flour, coal and other general supplies for life in the area.

Freight traffic would allow the AVR to survive beyond the Interurban Era. The AVR ran freight under wire until 1945, when the railroad acquired a pair of GE 44-Tonners finished in an attractive blue and yellow scheme. Passenger service ended the following year, but freight service continued into the mid-1990s. Unfortunately, I do not have a lot of information about customers in the modern era.

Parts of the line are now a recreation trail.

(The AVR is surprisingly well-documented online. There are photos of vintage equipment at Dave’s Electric Railroads site – starting here. For photos of the AVR in more recent times, the NERail online archive is a good place to start. And, the AVR has proven popular with modellers. Bob Henry has an extensive website on the AVR and how he’s modelling it. Geof Smith blogs about his AVR layout in N Scale. And those with the Model Railroader collection on DVD should check out the July 1966 issue for a Railroad You Can Model feature by Peter Cook, complete with a suggested plan for a 10×16 foot layout in HO scale.)

While the AVR is a small railroad – at 32 miles, it could be modelled in its entirety – I feel the most interesting portion of the line is in Presque Isle itself. This was the last area to remain in business, interchanging with the Bangor and Aroostook and the Canadian Pacific, and serving customers of the Skyway Industrial Park – a former airbase that was converted to civilian use after the Second World War.

I have not drawn up a complete layout plan for Presque Isle, but have drawn four key areas – the Yard, the Industrial Park, the Junction and the Interchange. Unfortunately, I don’t have accurate track maps from which to work – I interpreted the track arrangements from rough drawings and photographs in Aroostook Valley Railroad – History of the Potatoland Interurban in Northern Maine by Charles Heseltine and Edwin Robertson – so my drawings, while close, may contain inaccuracies and are not to scale.

(Click on the cover to check availability of this book on ABE Books)

Let’s start at the main yard:

At the bottom of the map, the Bangor and Aroostook line meets the AVR at the passenger station in Presque Isle – it then continues east (to the right) to the modern era interchange yard.

The AVR curves way from the BAR, across a bridge spanning the Presque Isle Stream, and then into the yard. This portion of the line was removed after passenger service ended.

I’m not confident of the run-around track in the yard, but one is needed on a model to work the spurs, which face opposite directions. The narrow building to the left of the siding is a combination freight house and dispatcher’s office, while a two-stall carbarn sits to the right of the main. I’m not certain about the online customers – but potato houses would be a good guess since many of the photos of this area taken when the AVR still operated under wire show crews switching refrigerator cars.

The mainline continues to the Skyway Industrial Park:

The industrial park was a former airbase, converted to civilian use after the Second World War. It became the main source of freight traffic for the line, although I’m not sure what customers were located there. A few spurs should do the trick to serve them – think of this area as multi-track team track, with assigned spots for each customer, and there will be plenty of switching to keep one busy.

The main line continues past the industrial park to Presque Isle Junction:

Here, I’ve moved a short passing siding from further up the line, so that those interested in the more modern era have an opportunity to model a shelter (disused, of course) to help convey the line’s heritage. The main continues to Washburn – site of the original BAR interchange – and then beyond to Caribou and Sweden. In later years, this was cut back and became a long tail track that was used for equipment storage.

A line branches off to the lower right to the modern era interchange yard:

Here, the AVR ducks under the BAR to a simple yard where it interchanges traffic with the BAR and CP Rail. A line drops down from the BAR mainline to reach the yard. (Note that the BAR continues west (to the left) to the station area.) The CP connection is at the east end of the yard. The connecting tracks for the interchange partners would be a great place to display foreign road power.

Since the AVR was built to interurban standards, a layout could take advantage of this by incorporating short passing sidings and relatively sharp curves and switches. The interchange would be a place to include broader curves and larger switches, though, as befitting the full-size railroads that connected with the Potatoland Interurban.

I hope readers enjoyed this somewhat sketchy tour of a favourite prototype of mine. If anybody reading this has additional information or clarifications, please share via the “comments” feature. Thanks in advance!

Last year, a friend asked me for some help with a design for an S scale CNR layout. I always like to design layouts – even freelanced ones – from prototypes, following the Layout Design Element principle that if it worked for the real railroad it must work in model form (we just need to figure out how it was used). So I turned to Ian Wilson‘s various books on CNR lines in Ontario and one of the LDEs I picked for this layout design was the small waterside terminal at Wiarton.

There’s a neat article about the Wiarton railway station (with several great photos) online at Postcards From The Bay. Click on the postcard, below, to read it:

Ian writes about Wiarton in Steam Over Palmerston and the book includes a track map – really useful when designing a layout!

(Wiarton is also well-covered in an earlier book, Two Divisions to Bluewater by Peter Bowers, published in the early 1980s by Boston Mills Press. Peter also includes a drawing of the track arrangement in Wiarton.)

The railway at Wiarton is confined to a long, narrow strip of land along Colpoy’s Bay – perfect for a long, narrow section of benchwork. That said, it’s a pretty long yard – especially in a larger scale such as 1:64. But I was able to work Wiarton into my friend’s layout space by wrapping the terminal into a spiral. I’m quite pleased with how the design turned out.

Here’s the plan for the Wiarton section of the layout, with notes below:

(Click for a larger version)

- Two squares = 12 inches. To save you counting the squares, this section of the layout plan is approximately 12 feet by 17.5 feet, including the squares to either side of the drawing. (Obviously, some access aisles would be necessary along the left, right and bottom edges of the plan.)

- Unless noted, minimum radius is 48 inches and switches are Number 8s. This will accommodate my friend’s stable of CNR steam power – up to 4-6-2s and 2-8-2s – as well as full-length passenger cars. That said, photos in Ian’s book show this to be the land of Moguls and 10-Wheelers.

- The Wiarton area is designed to be operated from the inside, but since there’s access to both sides of the peninsula it will be easy to install and service the turntable. (I’ve written many times on this blog about how I feel turntables are the fussiest piece of track work on any layout, so I always like to have them up front and easily accessible.)

- Since access to both sides of the peninsula is advantageous, it’s designed with no backdrop. (That said, one could hang a fabric backdrop, such as I’ve done on my layout.)

- The wharf area has a 42 inch radius curve, but this area will be switched by smaller steam power shoving a couple of freight cars at a time. I use 42″ radius curves on my layout and the 2-6-0s and 4-6-0s I run have no complaints. Customers here include the British American Oil Company (at the end of the spur), Wiarton Fish and Ice, and McNamara Construction. Other structures along the spur would include a boat repair shed, plus several tool and oil sheds.

- The post in the room is, well, unfortunate, but it does provide a solid place to anchor the far end of the peninsula. The fishing boat wharf will be a nice scenic element but will also help with stability for this long, narrow section of layout.

- If one is really pressed for space, a sector plate-style staging area could be built running up the left side of this plan, and Wiarton would work really well as a self-contained terminal-to-staging style layout.

- The terminal would require a variety of freight cars – from boxcars and stock cars, to coal hoppers and tank cars, to refrigerator cars for fish caught in Georgian Bay. At a minimum, a combine would take care of passenger equipment although Ian’s book includes photos of trains ranging from a single combine to a coach or combine plus baggage car.

- There’s a team track next to the turntable. Nearby structures/industries which could be moved closer to this track (but not adjacent to it – no point in losing the flexibility of the team track) include the Wiarton Co-op, a feed mill, a wood-working shop, and a power station. As with the wharf area, several sheds and storage buildings are not shown on the layout plan.

- There’s a section house located up-line from the station. It could be moved to the long curve between station and yard area, to add another railroad-y structure.

- The station should actually be closer to the yard, but that 48″ radius curve to get onto the spiral peninsula sure eats up space. If one is uncurling the plan, move the station closer.

- I have drawn some trees along the curve between station and yard. This is because we needed a soft screen to separate Wiarton from another scene on my friend’s layout. If being built as a stand-alone layout then I would scenic this area like a town park, rather than a forest. Add a band stand or picnic pavilion… walking paths… benches… playground equipment, and plenty of large, healthy trees to provide shade. And then make sure there’s a fence in good repair separating the park from the railway!

- According to Ian’s book, two mixed trains ran daily except Sunday. Second Class train M341 arrived at Wiarton at 10:55am and left at 12:25pm as Second Class train M336. Later, Second Class train M337 arrived at Wiarton at 1:55pm and departed at 2:15pm as Third Class train M338. I’d be tempted to drop the passenger cars at the station for unloading/loading express, while the crew heads into the yard area to do any freight switching. With outbound freight assembled in the yard, I’d then back up to the station to collect the passenger cars, bring them into the yard to build the train, then turn the locomotive and finally pull ahead to the station to load passengers before departing Wiarton for Clavering, Hepworth, Parkhead and beyond.

I think this is another excellent example of how one can look to the prototype for an achievable layout in S scale. Even as a stand-alone layout, Wiarton has much to offer.

While it won’t support marathon operating sessions (something I no longer enjoy, anyway), there are two mixed trains to operate each day with switching to keep a couple of people entertained for a reasonable length of time.

For the craftsman, there are plenty of interesting structures to build, including the beautiful (and, fortunately, preserved!) Wiarton station and the wharves.

There’s even space for fishing boats – and an oil tanker.

The layout builder could even include Wiarton’s most famous resident!

Thorold is a town in the Niagara Peninsula. It’s directly south of St. Catharines, at the top of the Niagara Escarpment.

And at one time there was a great little rail-served industry in Thorold that would make a perfect, achievable layout – something along the lines of Mike Cougill‘s Indiana and Whitewater, Jack Hill‘s New Castle Industrial Railroad, or Greg Amer‘s Industrial Lead.

The industry was a paper mill on Pine Street – identified as “Fraser Inc” on a CNR Track Map and related Key to Customers. Look for JF30-JF35 in the lower left corner:

The mill is immediately recognizable as the white blob amid the general greenery near the top of this image:

The mill is quite substantial, but the neat thing from a hobbyist’s perspective is that all of the rail service came in on one side of it, so most of the mill could be built at a low-relief structure against a backdrop. The piece we want to see as hobbyists is the narrow strip or railroad between Pine Street and the mill buildings as illustrated in this image:

(Used with permission from and thanks to Paul Duncan at www.NiagaraRails.com)

This lends the Pine Street mill to a shelf layout – either for the home, or exhibition. In fact, one could almost take a rectangle representing the benchwork and drop it on the aerial photo, then sketch in the track work. Layout planning does not get any easier-peasier than this:

Sharp-eyed viewers will say, “that’s all well and good, but where did the track actually go? I don’t see any room for a spur to serve this mill!”

Well, that’s one of the things that makes this such an interesting subject for modelling. Pine Street is lined by houses, a shopping plaza, and a school… and at one time, had a track right up the middle of the street to serve the mill. (The spur ran north from a connection at Richmond Street, at the bottom of the overview aerial image.)

In this image, a switch job is heading south from the mill, part of which can be seen just to the left beyond the last boxcar:

If we move a little closer and look south from the mill, we see that there’s not much of a lead between the first switch and the street – certainly not enough room to work the mill without routinely fouling traffic. In the first image, below, the rails enter the road about where the third car is. The second image, from a similar perspective, shows the rails entering the road between snowbanks just ahead of the locomotives:

Note also in that image that there’s a pretty impressive stone building at the south end of the mill yard. Here are a couple of better photos of it, looking from the north and from the south:

I consider this to be a big bonus for the layout-builder: The stone will be a delightful, old-world contrast to the adjacent paper mill with its corrugated siding, safety cage ladders and other modern details:

The track arrangement is straight-forward. Compare the following images to the track map, above.

Two spurs – JF31 and JF32 – run alongside the low building at the south end of the mill, where boxcars are spotted:

These spurs terminate under a metal canopy. This area is fenced in since chlorine and other chemicals are obviously being unloaded in this area. A big sign on the gate warns of the danger:

Note also the small staircase in that last photo. If we have another look at this photo…

… we note that a third siding – JF33 – ascends a grade to enter the mill building through a roll-up door. The grade begins right at the mill yard throat – in the first image below, a driveway has to drop steeply to cross the two spurs against the mill building. Note also the interesting numbered ramp and security gates. The grade is quite apparent in the other two images as well:

There’s a fourth track at the very left of this image:

It scoots past the elevated, covered dock – with very little clearance between structure and street – to the north end of the mill. At one time, there were two tracks here JF34 and JF35. Note the switch buried in the pavement in the rightmost image. But only one spur enters the building here now:

As shown in various photos, the paper mill requires a variety of car types, including boxcars, covered hoppers and tank cars. There’s a small sorting yard on private RoW near the start of the spur – several blocks south of the mill. This is identified as the Fonthill Spur Support Yard (JF11-JF15) on the CN track map. I imagine the crews switch cars into spot order at that location to minimize the amount of backing-and-forthing required at the mill, which would’ve increased the risk of an accident involving an automobile. Another thing going for this location as a layout subject is that the railway used a pair of switchers on this job:

Two switchers were needed because the mill is at the top of the Niagara Escarpment and cars had to be brought up from down below. That’s a lot of horsepower for switching the mill, but is a boon those of us who like locomotives: It doubles our fun.

A layout based on this mill would be entertaining to switch and a lot of fun to detail. There are stairs, fences, docks, pipes, signs, street details such as sewer grates and fire hydrants – and, of course, weeds and trash. And while this would be easiest to build in HO – the locomotives are available, for starters – it should be noted that the mill’s location in-town means the footprint is pretty compact, so it would be possible to build the layout in one of the larger scales such as S or O. The SW1200RS units shown in the photos would be the biggest hurdle, but they would be satisfying kitbashing projects starting with an SW-9 from Atlas (O) or S Helper Service (S).

Meantime, I have my HO CNR switchers in the display case. If I’m ever lured back to the exhibition circuit, this mill is near the top of my list as the subject for a display layout!

I’ve always been fascinated by interurban lines – for a couple of reasons.

I grew up in a city that has an extensive streetcar and subway system, so my earliest impressions of railroading are closely associated with electric-powered trains.

But I also must credit the late, great Bob Hegge, who wrote extensively about his O scale Crooked Mountain Lines for the popular hobby press:

While many of my contemporaries were going gooey over Appalachian coal-hauling railroads, my imagination was sparked by Hegge’s beautiful models working their way – under wire – through spectacular mountain passes in Oregon and Washington.

Apparently, many others were similarly influenced, as Hegge’s CML is honoured as NMRA Heritage Car #14:

(Those looking for more information should seek out the October 1977 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman magazine, which includes a layout plan and tour. But I digress…)

I’ve considered building an electric empire but have never felt up to tackling the catenary. That said, I do have an extensive collection of books on interurban lines, and one of my favourites is California’s Sacramento Northern. I even have a pair of O scale SN steeple cabs, imported several years ago by The Car Works, which I had converted to Proto:48:

Some day, I might tackle the SN project. And if I do, I already know what area I’d like model: The line from Walnut Creek north to Concord in California’s Contra Costa County.

Since somebody else might also be interested, I’ve drawn up three track maps based on info from various sources.

For a manageable layout in O scale, the Sacramento Northern at Walnut Creek offers interesting modelling and operating possibilities. There’s a depot, an express shed, and four industries – including several spotting locations at the Walnut Growers Association and a switchback spur to serve a cannery. The passing track is nice and short, too – a reflection of the line’s interurban heritage, and the short passenger trains the SN would’ve operated. And the numerous road crossings would require careful switching:

With more space – or, by working in S – one could choose instead to model the Sacramento Northern at Concord. Here again, we find a short passing track in front of the depot, plus some related railroad buildings like MoW sheds and a substation (a nice touch on an electric line). There’s a fair bit of switching, too, with nine customers. These include many of the rail customers one found just about everywhere in the early part of the 20th Century – such as fuel dealers, lumber yards and stock pens:

Note that five customers are strung along a long spur that parallels (then enters) a street to the southeast of the depot. This is a common arrangement, but one that’s rarely modelled it seems. That’s too bad because it would be great fun to switch, as a cut of cars would have to be sorted into spot order before shoved into this spur. I think it would be fun to put this spur on a peninsula jutting into one’s layout room…

As with Walnut Creek, there are a fair number of road crossings to contend with in Concord.

Of course, if one had sufficient space or was working HO, one could model both Walnut Creek and Concord on a layout. For a bit of variety, one could even include the Sacramento Northern’s crossing and interchange with the Southern Pacific at Sparkle (Las Juntas on the SP) – located just a couple of miles north of Walnut Creek on the way to Concord:

Those big GE steeple cabs would look right at home on a layout like this, and with only a modest amount of track to build one could focus on getting the overhead wires just right…