Another Forest Products Industry for the KLR

I'm fortunate that my job allows me to travel to some interesting locations within North America. So whenever I'm traveling, I can usually be found toting a camera in hopes of finding a train, or at the very least, an interesting business to photograph. If the business is supported by rail, so much the better.

While working in Shawinigan, Quebec (approximately 90 miles SW of Quebec City), I came across an interesting forest products company operating under the name of Commonwealth Plywood Company (or Compagnie Commonwealth Plywood Ltée for any French readers). A review of their business on the web suggested that they were producers of lumber, plywood, millwork and wood panels. Now I don’t know if they do all of the above at this location, but I thought the buildings would make a great addition to my layout for several reasons. First and foremost was that all the buildings were all painted a bright red color. As you look down the street, all you could see was a very red building.  Always interesting to bring something to stand out on the layout.  The other aspect that peaked my interest was that they had a relatively small wood yard, complete with sorting table, truck mounted log loader and plenty of log piles being sprayed with water. Lots of interesting details that I wanted to capture and would fit into the layout.  While the operation was not directly supported by rail at this location, I was able to find that their Pembroke, Ontario location does have rail present.  So a little prototypical transformation and the industry now finds a home on the KLR.

Most of the buildings were scratch built, using sheet styrene and left over parts from other structures. I wasn't trying to model the scene exactly as it is present in Shawinigan, rather, my focus was to get the essence of the industry and fill in with some of the site specific details. The main factor was to have another business that requires the railroad to get their goods to the customer.  The roof lines are drastically different in my model, and I also opted to add some truck bays for the large height building. Of course, the biggest change is that I added rail loading doors in the far building, when there are none at the Shawinigan complex. Although you can't see it in the photo, future plans will have the right side of the photo becoming the yard area. Maybe some time in the future I will decide to model it truer to the prototype. However, at this time, it's an active business for the KLR. Modeled Area

Prototype, Shawinigan, Quebec