That’s a mess but I’m still working on it. All of this has been done in under two weeks. Read on to learn about the scenes along each of the walls in this portion of the layout room, which I call the blob. I’ll discuss the peninsula in the centre of this photo once I get the roadbed installed on it.
March has been a frustrating month so far. The anxiety and anger about having one’s country’s sovereignty repeatedly threatened has been exhausting, and I desperately needed to do something constructive. Meantime, an unexpected repair meant I was without a vehicle for two weeks.
I decided this was a sign that I needed to take advantage of the space in our attached garage, which has direct access to the workshop and layout room. So I set up the track saw where my vehicle normally lives and prepared to build more benchwork for my S scale Niagara St. Catharines & Toronto Railway.
I called the lumber yard at 8:20 am and ordered materials. The delivery guy arrived at 8:40 am and unloaded six sheets of Canadian-sourced G1S 3/4″ plywood into my garage. I reduced these to a big stack of 1×3 equivalents, some wider boards, and six 2×8 sheets to use for subroadbed.
Then I got to work in what I call the “blob” – a principle-bedroom-sized space that the previous owner used for a home theatre. I have not been able to model every scene exactly or in accurate order, but I’m happy with the compromises I’ve made to balance faithful adherence to the prototype with the practical limitations of my space and a desire for engaging operation.
I started by moving the NS&T car barn scene and setting it up against the north wall of the blob:
The car barn scene is angled out a bit from the wall to provide easy access to a light switch at the near end of this photo. I added some backdrop supports to the brackets that support this scene. I’ll paint a styrene backdrop and slide it in behind this scene. I’ll use the track in the street at left – which did not exist in reality – to spot cars for the east side of McKinnon’s.
On the prototype, the car barn is at the end of a very short spur along Welland Avenue in St. Catharines. It’s a signature scene, but awkward to fit into a layout space. So I’ve relocated it to what would be Carlton Street in real life. The NS&T ran north up Ontario Street then turned east on Carlton to access the back of one of the plants that made up McKinnon’s (later GM):
Looking west: The curve from Ontario St to Carlton can be seen beyond the car barn.
Looking north. Ontario Street is at left, with the curve from Ontario to Carlton clearly visible. I will add an angled bit of benchwork in front of the curve. I will have to disguise the back wall of the car barn, which is plain styrene since I thought it would go against a backdrop – but that’s easy enough to do with trees and buildings.
Ontario Street was a couple of blocks from the house I lived in as a teenager and I’ve wanted to model McKinnon’s (later, GM) for decades. So this wall will represent the track up Ontario Street with McKinnon’s to either side:
Looking North on Ontario Street. The main track is in the middle. The turnouts in the distance are in the street. The spur at right represents a spur into the McKinnon’s building on the east side of Ontario Street. The spurs in the distance, to the left of the main track, represent the McKinnon’s foundry. A long building – the west building of McKinnon’s will run along the left side of the main track and hide a couple of stagings track seen at lower left.
Ontario Street continues in to the southeast corner of the room then turns 90 degrees:
Looking south on Ontario Street. The east plant of McKinnon’s is served by the spur at left. The narrow strip to the left of the turnout template is to support the poles for the overhead wire. This is something that only traction modellers must consider. Two staging tracks – representing other subdivisions of the NS&T – are slightly elevated and will be hidden inside the west building of McKinnon’s.
Turning the corner, we’re magically back on Welland Avenue, in the block between Geneva Street and Niagara Street. The NS&T build a big passenger terminal here in the 1920s. In hindsight, it was a bad decision – it was not centrally located – and the terminal tracks ended up being used for storage. Still, it’s another signature scene and I’ll use it to store MoW vehicles such as sweepers and line cars, plus cabooses.
Looking east along the south wall of the blob. The curved roadbed at right is the track from Ontario Street. I’ll add a short runaround here, representing Woodruff’s siding. The wide roadbed to the left of the Ontario Street curve is for the two staging tracks representing other subdivisions of the NS&T. The turnouts here are the start of the fan of tracks into the Geneva Street terminal. I’ll add an angled bit of benchwork under the Ontario Street curve.
The real Geneva Street terminal had a half-dozen tracks but I only have room for three, stub tracks plus a short double-ended track that was tight against Welland Avenue:
Looking east on the prototype, from the roof of the Geneva Street terminal. I’ve drawn the terminal’s canopy-covered platforms in red. Welland Avenue runs up the right side of this scene, and most of these turnouts will be in the pavement. The roadbed at extreme left is for a staging track to represent the NS&T’s Grantham Subdivision, which ran past the north edge of the terminal building.
Looking north from Welland Avenue. The Terminal building is drawn in red. The Grantham Subdivision staging hugs the wall of the blob. I’ll leave an access opening in this corner, which allows me to make the terminal scene deeper than would be practical otherwise.
Looking west along Welland Avenue from Niagara Street. The Grantham Sub staging hugs the wall at right. At left, I’ll use the open space between the terminal building and the front edge of the benchwork to sneak in the Woodruff’s runaround from the Ontario Street line. This line will then connect with the main track out of the Geneva scene in the distance. In reality, we’d be looking west along Welland towards the car barn, and then continue west to Ontario Street. This is a major compromise but one I can live with in order to model both Geneva and Ontario.
Today, end of track is just beyond Geneva Street – but I have lots more wood in the garage and will continue to build more benchwork and roadbed while I’m in the mood:
Looking east along Welland Avenue towards Geneva Street. The main track leaves the Geneva Street scene and runs a short distance in the middle of Welland Avenue before curving to the left. It’ll leave the street and run behind some houses and trees as it heads to the next scene – still to be built. Woodruff’s runaround will be to the right of this scene. It will run out the lower edge of the photo then link up with the main track from the Geneva scene. I have roughly defined the edges of the benchwork here, but need to go back and add more cross braces to the right, plus some more depth to the left.
Those who know the prototype NS&T (or St Catharines) as well as I do might find that my juggling of the order of scenes will break their brains a little. Frankly, I struggled with it – so much so, that I suffered from analysis paralysis over the past 4+ years as I tried to make the NS&T fit my basement.
Finally, I decided that capturing specific, signature scenes from the prototype was a priority for me, and that to make this work I’ve had to mess with the order in which they appear. Furthermore, I live 3000km west of the Niagara Region and none of my locals will be bothered by the discrepancies. Once I accepted that, I was able to forge ahead – and I’m having a great time.
In short: Building a layout is better than not building a layout.
Lifelong model railway enthusiast and retired amateur shepherd who trained a border collie to work sheep. Professional writer and editor, with some podcasting and Internet TV presenting work thrown in for good measure.
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