The Niagara St. Catharines & Toronto Railway had two vans (the term for caboose often used by the CNR in eastern Canada). Numbers 33 and 34 appear to have been built along the same lines as the wooden vans common to its CNR parent company, and I definitely wanted models of them.
Fortunately, several years ago Ridgehill Scale Models commissioned a series of resin kits for CNR wooden vans, and I had a couple of unbuilt examples in my stash. These are excellent kits and when I modelled the CNR Simcoe Sub to Port Rowan, I commissioned my friend Pierre Oliver to build three of them for me. Given that he knew the kits backwards and forwards, it made sense to send them through his shop while I focussed on building a layout for them. Pierre and I worked with Al Ferguson at Black Cat Publishing to produce the decals for the NS&T’s minimalist lettering.
The built and painted models arrived home a couple of weeks ago, and I set about finishing them. I added wooden roof walks, brush painted some details, and weathered them. I noticed that NS&T 33 had a smoke jack for an oil stove – and since nobody makes a detail part for this, I scratch-built one out of brass tube.
Interestingly, despite having just two vans, the NS&T didn’t appear to have a standard for painting them. My colour photos show NS&T 34 in the CNR’s standard Morency Orange paint scheme, while NS&T 33 appeared to use the same red deployed on some of the line’s passenger equipment.
Another interesting variation is the reporting marks, which are under the cupola on both sides of NS&T 33, but to the left end of the body when viewing each side on NS&T 34.
Based on my reading of various sources, the Niagara St. Catharines & Toronto Railway used vans only on assignments on the Welland Subdivision – covering Thorold, Fonthill, Welland, and Port Colborne. Assignments in St. Catharines did not warrant a van (although in the late 1980s, a derailment on Louisa Street in The Garden City resulted in the CNR adding a van to that operation).
The NS&T didn’t keep its vans at the car barn. Instead, they tended to be stored closer to the Niagara Street freight shed. But for the time being, the two outdoor storage tracks in the Welland Avenue yard have been converted into van central:
The Model Railway Show 