Smaller Businesses along the KLR

When I started to design the KLR, the two primary considerations were size of the layout and what industries were key that I wanted to capture.  Keeping with the northern Ontario theme, the primary consideration was having enough business centered around the forest products industries that were common to the area.  And by area, I meant quite a large area, since the modeled area was essentially starting at the northern portion of southern Ontario and extending northward.  For those who have not visited Ontario, it is quite a large province, geographically speaking , comprising slightly over 10 percent of Canada's land mass.  And while the population is generally centered around the southern portion of the province, I wanted to capture the look and feel of the province along the Ottawa River Valley and northward.

Courtesy of www.trailcanada.com

My objective for the KLR was to create an impression of  an active short line that runs between 4 to 6 trains per day, excluding passenger operations.  Occasional run through traffic coming from the ONR provides additional train operations.  While the focus of my railroad changed as I was building it from a run-through operation to more of a switching operation, certain elements were kept the same.  I have a number of businesses along the KLR that can accept 1-3 carloads.  These include (in no particular order):

Quaker Oats Company of Canada Limited - The Quaker Oats plant in Peterborough produces cases of cereal and cake mixes at their facility.  Raw materials, including various grains, oils, are transported to the facility by rail.  It is quite common to see the yard filled with colorful grain hoppers of different sizes.  Finished goods are transported by boxcar or truck.

United Canadian Malt is Canada's largest manufacturer of a wide variety of liquid and dry, diastatic and non-diastatic extracts of malted barley, wheat, oats and rice.  This plant was modeled after the plant located in Peterborough, Ontario.  The plant was served by a spur to accommodate boxcars and hoppers.

Pembroke is the home of several forest products businesses, including Commonwealth Plywood, MacMillan Bathurst Inc (corrugated containers), and Temple Inland (Medium Density Fibreboard).  While not all of these industries are modeled due to space limitations, the KLR does service the Commonwealth Plywood facility.

A Beaver Lumber yard and hardware center is also present in the town of Pembroke.  I think that the old style Thrall all-door box cars were a really interesting design of rolling stock, so I took some modeling license and incorporated a business which could readily use this type of car to transport finished goods. 

Canada Bread Company Limited, is a leading manufacturer and marketer of value-added and nutritious fresh bakery products, including white, whole wheat and whole grain bread, rolls, bagels, and artisan breads..

One of the buildings left over from an initial layout was the Walther’s Cornerstone Sunrise Feed Mill.  I spent many of my summers on the Kawartha Lakes, near Lakefield, Ontario.  One of my favorite places to check out each year was the feed mill as you entered town.  While long gone, this was one of the first buildings that I ever purchased, with hopes that some day I would model the operation.  However, I could never seem to find the space for the structures.  However, this was a lit that I couldn’t bear to get rid of, so it became the Little’s Feed Mill, named after some friends of the family.   It sees maybe 1-2 cars per month.

Algonquin Forest Products is another forest products business along the KLR.  Algonquin obtains low-grade lumber and converts that raw material into premium quality finger joint lumber.

Muskoka Timber Mills offers a complete service - from cutting the tree to milling to produce top quality Canadian timber and lumber. Timber is available in any size, with lengths up to 32'.  While the Bracebridge location is actually bordered by rail (ONR) but doesn’t get rail shipments, I elected to add a rail siding to further enhance the business of shipping Ontario lumber.