SEPTEMBER 2006

School’s back in, visiting friends and family have gone home and the big old house down by the station seems a little empty. Kids and grown-ups tore up the grass out front and so the lawn sure won’t need cutting ‘til spring. The days are noticeably shorter too and the frost in the fresh morning air just adds to the feeling that somehow all things are coming to an end. So the cars rushing by on the busy little street went unheard as I mindlessly tended the garden and thought ahead to Thanksgiving. Only a car door shut with some enthusiasm and brought me back to this time and place.

Krista wasn’t really a cousin at all but had been a treasured friend for so long now that, well, she simply belonged. Her welcomed visit would get me out of the garden, out of my melancholy, and into a few beer. Great stuff.

Station Street, as are all paved streets in Winter Valley, is cut from a piece of ¾ inch MDF and then placed on top of the rough 3/8 th inch plywood bench surface. This raises the surface of the road just enough to create an easily discernable ditch during scenery making. They are painted quite a bit lighter than you’ll usually see on a model layout and then darkened up with coloured chalks in all the appropriate places (lane centers and intersections). Road signs are usually downloaded from the Internet. Try your local state or provincial highways department or an on line drivers exam. The cars are dicast but it’s very hard to get period pieces for the 70’s unless they’re muscle cars and just how many of those can a small town tolerate? John Green has installed LED headlights, tail lights and turn signals in all of the vehicles and that really brings them, and the layout, to life.

The Fall trees are Sage from my neighbourhood and the ground cover is Woodland Scenics with a very little sawdust tossed in to make it go farther.

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Nothing happening this time of night - except crickets. Many years ago this may have been a thriving town center. The hub of local commerce. The meeting place. I guess it still is in some ways but what with big trucks, cheap gas and good highways this all seems kind of quaint somehow. Perhaps we’ll go inside and have strong coffee with the agent .

The CNR 3 rd class depot is nearly 7 years old now. It was the very first structure I built. I had plans and photos from books and magazines as well as a goodly store of my own information so once I decided on a scale it was three months in the making. It stayed outside on the Mountain Division for two years and retired into my basement in May 2001.

The poles are common Bachmann products that I can pick up on ebay for about a dollar each. They’re painted and weathered to get rid of that shiny brown colour and some are cut up to provide four way service at road intersections and local industries. I often add transformers and support wires in places where they are part of a major scene.

The baggage cart is built from rough measurements taken off a photo of an NAR/CN station platform. I think the wheels were intended for an O scale stage coach but they scaled out just about right.

Farther down, near the yard limits, one of the few remaining CN stock cars still in active service had found a temporary home in front of the local C0-0P elevator. If cars are left out on the stock spur for two long they become party houses for the local kids. Although what they’d find inviting about an old ‘cow car’ is hard to imagine. This will have to be moved out of here in the morning, along with those five COALSPUR hoppers, in order to load grain.

But it’s getting chilly now. Sweater weather. So we have to wander back to my place. Tomorrow, if all goes well, Krista and I will have lunch and laughs with old friends at the engine shop in Grand Prairie.

I really wish I’d started this silliness about three years later than I did just so I could have laid my hands on a good, cheap supply of stainless steel track. It was pretty expensive in those days, or so it seemed, and I sadly settled for brass. It’s been very serviceable, and I have never cleaned it in 5 years, but it just drives me crazy. Perhaps I should have painted it.

The single track, two siding, one spur yard at Winter Valley is 30 feet long. I though it would be quite long when I started but I hadn’t intended to run 15 or 16 car trains. Now it’s a real job switching the yard and I’d like another 10 feet. Wouldn’t we all eh? The main line turnouts are powered. The sidings are manual.

It was a ‘sleep in, make your own coffee’ kind’a morning.

The day was going to be perfect and we had plenty of time to enjoy it but the first item of business was getting ourselves down to the station and onto that Railiner. My well used pass worked for both of us and we were soon clipping along at a steady 60 mph reviving for the moment those days when this was ‘the only way to go’.

The car was only ½ full. A few business types; suits, ties and brief cases, a few working stiffs; jean jackets and lunch boxes, a few mums and kids off to the mall and Sister Somebody alone at the back with a very heavy canvas suitcase. Bibles? I remember when this car was full - every day.

We stopped along the way to pick up a hitch-hiker and let another guy off near the trail to his fishing cabin. You can do this around here. No one seems to mind as long as the train isn’t real late.

The Aristocraft RDC1 (Can’t wait for that RDC3) was ‘CNized’ as much as possible with what was on hand. I removed the white opaque glass and replaced it with an opaque blue material I found at Staples. It’s actually an inexpensive plastic document protector. I also removed the center screens from the roof and added exhausts. The new three chime horns and the radio antenna are from Miniatures by Eric. (Get them while you can. He’s not making large scale stuff any more.) The number plates on the sides are being fabricated now.

We just sat back and watched the world slip by for most of the way. Just yaking on and on about where who was, did they stay out of jail and what were they doing now. The mines at Colder were busy and the first skiff of snow was in the shadows. The mill at Hudson was already in full operation and the grain terminal had a long string of full hoppers waiting to be moved out.

Engineer Ed <grin> was up front and he asked Krista if she would like to sit in the left hand seat going into Pearson. “Sure thing. And I’ll take my camera.”

Mid morning and the cities lights were still on. The platform was active and we even caught a young railfan taking our picture. The lad would dream of –9’s tonight as others had dreamt of Big Boys and Royal Hudsons. There was movement up in Pearson Tower and the second main was fully occupied by an eastbound freight.

Once again, I would have made the sidings at Pearson longer had I known the railroad would grow like it has but there is just so much space down here. New, much more realistic and interesting figures are becoming available in 1/29 th scale – or close enough – so we’re not stuck with clowns and cowboys any more. The rather plane ‘sky’ background will be gone before Christmas because I’ll have the lighted skyline feature finished by then. Hopefully it will produce enough light that, except for maintenance, I won’t need overhead fixtures in that area at all.

We had about a half-hour to stretch our legs so I showed Krista around downtown for a while. She hadn’t been back this way for a few years and while some things may change, some things clearly remain the same. She told me that switch tower once afforded some timely protection from a sudden downpour. Her and her friends had first taken shelter under those very steps before being invited inside. It was already to late for some as the impromptu wet T-shirt contest had kept the boys talking for weeks.

All those years and it hadn’t even been repainted.

A small town atmosphere still prevails though and if things are quiet a railfan can still get invited upstairs to watch the show and get that once in a lifetime picture.

As with all the structures on the Winter Valley, the tower at Pearson was built based on photos and plans of a prototype building. In Toronto. Or Winnipeg. Perhaps both, because it looks pretty generic to me and that’s exactly the look I was after. When the interior lights are on you can just make out human forms on the inside. What a great place to stick those darn cowboys.

Home St. hasn’t changed either. Well, the prices have gone up at the neighbourhood supermarket, and their ice cream is more milk – less cream, but all in all it can still be a trip back in time. And time is something folks may need a lot of right now because that eastbound freight is still stopping traffic. There’s a 10 minute limit on that sort of thing but…….

I used the excuse that I was going to get us some of that ice cream but I’m really wandering over to that ’57 Chevy. Krista’s not fooled. I had one. Nearly new. Wish that guy would’ve looked after his a bit better. It could be a classic some day.

I’m trying to keep the number of those Piko building kits down to a very minimum. True, they’re designed to be generic, early century storefronts, and I’ve seen a thousand 1:1 scale examples, but I’ve seen a large number on layouts as well. So when I do get one I try to change it as much as I can or simply start from scratch like the IGA store. It’s really very easy to start with a nice piece of MDF, cut out windows and doors, and build up decorative exterior features with photoboard or plastic. Course this won’t work as well outside but the wise substitution of materials should take care of that.

Max Hailstones built all my ‘modern’ streetlights. I just had to thread the lamps and turn them on. Thanks Max.

We arrived in Grand Prairie around noon. Just in time to see a small crowd gathering outside the old engine house.

There’s plenty of time for Krista to share memories with high school friends before we both head back. Me to the front yard and her to the home and office. She runs her own business at www.lynkswebservices.com and she even suggested we build a great website around the Winter Valley and all it’s wonderful comings and goings. I said, “Sure, someday”.

That building still stands, less proudly perhaps, as a boat repair shop on Clement Ave. in Kelowna BC. The colour of the tin roof and wood siding remain true to prototype though and it works well as a small engine facility. This too spent a year or so outside on the early Mountain Division before retirement and is none the worse for wear.