Saturday Convention Activities

Saturday sees the convention attendees getting up and heading to Kap for a tour of the paper mill.  Great tour, however, they did ask that we restrict the amount of photos and not post photos from inside the mill to the web.  Therefore in order to abide by this request, I have only posted photos of the rail power and views from the public streets.

Blue skies and a nice sunrise are always a good start. Some foreign power arrived in the middle of the night.

Some MOW action outside of Hearst

Tembec paper mill main gate at Kapuskasing

Ex-ONR 1600, now a leased unit serving the mill

#168 sitting out in the weeds

Old Spruce Falls switcher #108 in the shops

Sunset in Hearst

Demonstrating the latest in railfan technology, Mike gets his drone ready for a demo flight in the parking lot of the motel

After a sunset flight over the Hearst mill, master drone operator Mike Robins readies his drone for landing.

Visit to the Hearst Sawmill museum and interesting discussion of history and transportation politics in the north with our hosts.

Friday Convention Posting

2017 Hearst Convention - Officially Day 1

Waking up to a cloudy day that turns quickly into a great sunrise

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Tour of the Cochrane shops

Otter Rapids dome car

Re-building passenger car 650

Passenger car 650 interior

Engines 1603 and 1601

General view of the shop floor

Ever wonder what it takes to keep the maintenance are clean?

After returning to Hearst for dinner, the group got together for a presentation by Bram Bailey and discussion of some group business.  Bram's presentation was about railfanning in cottage country and showed a progression through time of various locations on the ONR, CPR and CN.  Bill Woods also brought some fantastic models that he has built, including the canoe car and a wood chip hopper.  There were several more but these were the only ones I got photos of.  Thanks for sharing Bill.

ONR Convention 2017 - Thursday

After arriving in Englehart yesterday, our plans were to railfan our way to Hearst, arriving just before the dinner with other convention attendees.  So were up early enough to catch the morning lineup, and meet with Peter Ross as he stopped by the station.  Our plan was to see what was moving in Englehart, and get to Cochrane in time to catch the 313 departing for Hearst.

Bill Woods, Bram Bailey and Peter Ross checking out the action in Englehart

Train 214 - departing 0900 for North Bay

The chase begins as 313 departs approximately 1130 for Hearst.  Some quick planning and were off.

Train 313 leaving Cochrane

While there are several great locations to catch 313, we plan our first for Poplar Rapids. Lots of growth at track level so Bram and I make our way through the brush to catch it close to water level.

#313 across the Poplar Rapids bridge

#313 crossing the Groundhog River bridge at Fauquier

#313 at Moonbeam

A little post production by Bram and we get a true flying saucer pacing the 313.  Those two green guys staring out the lower windows were railfanning as well.

New leased switcher at Tembec's Kapuskasing paper mill; ex-ONR 1600

#313 crossing the Kapuskasing River while switching

#313 departing Kapuskasing

         

Wednesday Activities

Wednesday - ONR Convention T-2 Days

This blog starts the travels of two Ohio railfans and one Niagara Falls fan as we head northward for the 2017 convention.  We start our trip early, let's just say 0-dark early on Wednesday.  Bram departs his Vermilion home at just about 0001 Wednesday and picks me up on the eastern side of Cleveland shortly after 0100. A quick load of the Prius and were headed east towards Buffalo and then Niagara Falls.  Bill Woods joins us at about 0430 from his home in Niagara Falls and we're again headed towards the traffic of Toronto and destinations northward.  Luckily even though the traffic is heavy, we sneak past all of those busy commuters as the Prius hugs the HOV lane and we hit the 400 northward just around 0600.  A quick bite at the McD in Barrie and we're again in the car and headed towards Washago and our first and really only train of the day.  Green light showing at Washago, although very overcast and no real shot to be had between the clouds and the overgrowth.  So we we watch CN 3101, a long stack train, rumble through on its way southward before we're back and heading north on Rt. 11.

A bit of a stop at Bracebridge for Bram to shoot some of the downtown businesses, the location of the old station and and old industry location.  All are for reference purposes and Bram will be glad to tell all of his new expansion plans for the layout.

Another stop at the former CP station and now hobby store in North Bay to admire all of the products on display before we make a quick lunch stop and head towards Englehart.   Of course, another stop is needed in Temagami to check out the station and art display that's on hand.  Unfortunately the Bee appears to be permanently closed, so it's a good thing we grabbed lunch in North Bay.

Unfortunately our arrival in Englehart by mid-afternoon sees us finding no trains or action.  However, the 701 steam engine is looking fantastic since the last time I saw her, complete with new paint job. After walking around and shooting some photos of log cars, we find an ONR employee who tells us that the Rouyn-Norando train should be headed back later in the afternoon.  So we adapt and check into the motel and grab some Subway before heading to Kirkwood Lake and a previously done photo stop just at the Ontario-Quebec line.  After 90 minutes of so of battling the deer flies and lengthening shadows, we decide to call it and head back.  A check of our string marker near the crossing by the hospital confirms that somehow we missed that train.  It's been a long day, so we head back to the motel and shut-eye.  Hopefully tomorrow will see us finding some rail action.

2017 ONRH&TS Convention Preview

Follow along as the guys from Ohio (plus one Niagara Falls attendee) make the trek to northern Ontario and this years version of the ONRH&TS convention.  This blog will try to keep a running tab on railfanning and convention activities as we go through the week.

The Bailey Prius mobile departs Vermilion at 0001 dark Wednesday and travels eastward to pick me up around 0130 before we head towards the Peace Bridge and hopefully reach Toronto early enough to avoid the daily traffic snarls.  Along the way we will add Bill Woods in Niagara Falls to our Prius seating and depending on what is moving, probably will spend the night in Englehart.  A side trip to Bracebridge along the way may be in order if the weather cooperates, as Bram would like to get some building shots for a potential expansion project to the layout.  But I'l let Bram fill you in on those plans at the convention.  On Thursday we plan to chase our way to Hearst, making our arrival in time for the group dinner.

Current plans are:

Friday - tour the Cochrane shops
Satursday - tour the paper mill at Kap
Sunday/Monday - travel day home (although the OH car will be railfanning along the way so it takes us two days to get back)

So stay tuned to this blog for updates and some photos.  Photo bag is packed and batteries charged.  Extra radio is also in the bag and ready to catch some ONR action.  The weather forecast looks good and I'm really looking forward to touring the paper mill and maybe getting some new ideas so that I can finish my own paper mill modeling project.

Passenger Service comes to the KLR

I have thought about adding an RDC to the KLR ever since they were first introduced by Rapido.  But I held to my original thought that the KLR was simply too small a railroad to have need of such equipment.  Well several weeks ago, after running on Bram Bailey's Ontario Central, I decided that I also needed at least one RDC.  Bram has three OCR units running on a regular passenger train route, and those Rapido's just run so nicely that after hearing them spool up to speed, I was hooked.

RDC 9051 picks up passengers at the Peterborough station.

After some Internet searching, I found someone in Indiana (of all places) selling a CP Rail RDC-1 at a decent price. The treasury of the KLR was able to come up with the money and the purchase was made.  The unit arrived this week, and after a little break-in session and some tweaking of the DCC system, everything was working and the RDC has been placed into service.  I'm still working on the details of its service, but for now it's going to function similar to what some of the RDCs used in British Columbia were used for.  That is the transport of school children and workers.  So until more details are worked through, the RDC will run in the early morning and late afternoon to transport everyone to Pembroke.  These will be whistle stops and all are welcome to flag down the unit for pickup.

RDC 9051 begins to pass over Eels Creek on it's way to Pembroke

First Operations in 2017

The first operations of 2017 occurred on the 2nd day of the new year and saw the KLR delivering some empty Thrall boxcars and woodchip gondola to the Muskoka Timber operations in Bracebridge, ON.  Plant workers finished loading the order the last day of the year onto the centerbeam flatcar, just before the New Year's holiday kicked into gear. By mid-morning Tuesday, workers were ready to load another flatcar with finished lumber and were eagerly awaiting the arrival of KLR 1646, which consisted of two empty thrall boxcars and an empty wood chip gondola.  The KLR made quick work of the pickup and drop and was headed back to the yard in time to catch some more holiday football games.

Dropping its van, KLR 1646 begins to move empty thrall boxcars onto the loading track

While a truck driver bringing in a new set of trees waits to unload, KLR 1646 inches past the boiler house.

Having dropper two thrall boxcars for loading, engine 1646 begins to back an empty woodchip gondola onto the chipper track

Woodchip Gondolas - Part 1

This update has become the companion piece to my recent Almost Completed ...Saw Mill entry.  While I had plenty of centerbeam hoppers to support the Muskoka Timber saw mill operation, one item I was lacking was an adequate number of woodchip cars.  So over the Christmas break, I decided to dig into some unbuilt woodchip car kits which have been sitting on my build shelf for several years. I should stop here and point out that while the manufacturer called them wood chip cars, in Canadian railroad terms they are correctly identified as gondolas. The resin kits, manufactured by Alpine Railway Shops of Kettleby, Ontario, were marketed as being representative of rolling stock used by CN and BCR for saw mills and paper mills. The gons were to become lettered for the KLR and be used in shuttle service between the Muskoka Timber mill and the Spruce Falls Pulp & Paper mill complex.

Researching sites such as the Canadian Freight Car Gallery, it appears that National Steel Car built this particular gondola for the Algoma Central, Canadian National (CN 879250-879749, Built 1975) and Pacific Great Eastern (PGE 90001-90140, built 1970). The Algoma Central received two groups of these cars. The first group, comprising 90 cars numbered ACIS 1401-1490 was built and delivered in 1974. The second group, delivered in 1981, were the 23 cars of series AC 1501-1523. About half of the 1500-series cars were sold off to Newaygo Forest Products in the early 1990s when the mill at Mead closed in 1985; some of the others were sold to Westar Timber (WESX) in British Columbia. Both series of ACR cars were built with one solid end, and one end that is a door, hinged at the top, for unloading the car using a hydraulic ramp. The car is tilted on end and emptied much like a dump truck. These cars were acquired for service for Newaygo Forest Products, shipping chips from the mill at Mead on the Northern subdivision to pulp mills in the USA.

Source: http://canadianfreightcargallery.caPhotographer: William Henderson , Location: Glen Valley, BC. 
Date: May 21, 2014

Source: http://canadianfreightcargallery.caPhotographer: George Widener 

Cars similar or identical to the 1500 series were also built in the 1980s for Quebec-Ontario Paper (QOPX) and Euro-Can Pulp & Paper (EURX).  The cars were 163 gross tons, with a 6,600 cubic foot-capacity, painted light green and numbered QOPX 100-204, with the reporting marks signifiying the Quebec & Ontario Paper Co. The cars were Leased from General Electric (GERSCO) by the Donohue Paper Company and used to service the newsprint mill in Thorold, ON, which received woodchips from northern Quebec and Ontario.

Woodchip cars were built as large pieces of rolling stock, due to the density and relative weight of the material that they were carrying.  As you can imagine, woodchips are very light and don't really compact bery well, meaning that cars can be overfilled without reaching the cars rated capacity.  Often loaded cars were tarped to help keep the contents from flying out of the rail car and to the surrounding landscape.  

Pine Trees

In keeping with the holiday spirit, I decided to sit down and create some trees for the layout, specifically some pine trees.  Several years ago, I acquired three boxes of Campbell Scale Model trees that a gentleman approached me about trading for several Athearn blue box kits that I had listed for sale.  I knew nothing about these trees except that they came five to a box, with all of the materials supplied in the box.  I couldn't recall seeing these at any shows, but decided to go ahead with the trade anyway based on the reputation Campbell has for kits.  So the kits arrived and I promptly placed them on nthe modeling shelf of projects to build down the road.

I needed some evergreen trees for a corner of the layout and decided to start building my first pine tree.  The first thing I noticed was that the pine tree "sticks" were much larger than I had anticipated and larger than any other pine tree that I have on the layout.  I think that the trees are more in keeping with some western pines this week, however, as I'm going to place them in a corner and they won't be a focal part of the scene, I'm hoping that they don't stand out too much.

The foliage consists of two bags of what I believe to be air ferns.  Air fern has a delicate, airy structure as the name implies and is available through florists or garden centers. The truck of the tree consists of a pre-stained wooden dowel, with pre-drilled tiny holes in the trunk of the tree.  So it's a simple matter to insert the air fern branches cut to shape into the hole after a small amount of white glue is placed on the trunk.  Branches can be re-trimmed with an X-Acto knife or scissors as you build your tree, and most branches need some amount of trimming as the air fern seems to twist quite a bit.  

I'm very pleased with the results to date. Each tree takes about an hour to construct and trim. My only complaint is that whatever the air fern has been treated with, or maybe it's naturally like this, the smell tends to become annoying after about 30 minutes of working with them. It's some sort of moldy type of smell that I find to be distasteful. Fortunately the result is worth the temporary annoyance

Next step is to "plant" my trees.

Initial tree materials. Sorry for all of the background clutter but it's my active work bench.

Completed treet

Close up of the branch structure

Addressing a Lingering Mistake - Part 1

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had the opportunity to be part of the LDSIG tour during the 2014 NMRA National Convention held in Cleveland, OH.  As part of the tour, layout owners were asked to report on what they would have done differently during a discussion session after the tours.  While I didn't have the opportunity to participate in the discussion directly, it did get me thinking or maybe it actually solidified some thoughts I had been having while constructing and operating the KLR.  One of the last things that I wanted to admit was that my design on the south wall of the layout had to sharp a curve in place.  Sure it could handle 40 and 50 ft boxcars OK, but I knew that I would be running some larger woodchip cars and centerbeam flatcars, as well as the daily passenger train.  However, I didn't have a yard in this area as yet, so I kept telling myself it was OK and never tested the curve with larger equipment.  However, fast forward to present day and the small staging yard is complete, connections made to the adjoining track and I've been running trains.  Well, I thought I was running trains until I tried some of my longer cars, including my nice Rapido passenger cars.  So tonight I bit the bullet after many weeks of thought as to what I could do. Maybe it was trying to run my passenger train through the curve that finally got me to act.  So instead of the barely 22 degree curve that was in place, I opted to rip out track and scenery to accommodate a 30 degree curve.  The choice of the 32 deg was based on this was about the smallest curve I could handle without a major reconstruction of the model and use some of the existing trackage nearby to reasonably make a connection.

Ripping out the scenery from two modules was sort of bittersweet. I never really liked that corner, something always bugged me about the scenery. While I liked the rock outcroppings in the background, the lack of any clear way to get to the N scale cabin that I had placed there bugged me.  So with my handy multi-purpose tool and hammer, I removed everything to the base foam layer. Boy was that hydrocal that was used tough to remove. Even the adhesive glue I used back then was tough to remove, as pieces just didn't want to come off. But an hours work, and here's the result, a new canvas to work with. I was able to save all of the rock outcrops, as I had built them to be removable.

Next to be modified was the old Eel's Creek module, which is actually the lead to the curve. In order to accomodate the change in track radius, I needed to add some new real estate and the only way to do so was to modify the bridge and surrounding scenery.  I had originally used a resin material to create the water, and while the effect was good, it was never really deep enough and I wasn't quite satisfied with the bank edges.  So it had to go too, which was no big loss, although I did try to save the bridge piers to no avail.

Prototype bridge over the Otonabee River

Not to bore you with the details, but here's a quick recap of what changed after the tear-out was completed:

• Increased the track radius to 30 deg  
• Re-shaped the topography of the western bank of Eels Creek
• Carved a new river channel
• Added a new river base via adding several coats of ModPodge
• Added a new bridge section
• Re-routed my track as it came to the creek and immediately after the bridge
• Ripped out the area behind the curve; the final scene in this area as yet to be determined
• Added many more rock castings

Most important thing, the curve now accommodates larger rail cars although it still is a fairly sharp curve.

Loon Lake Country Store

One of my summer projects was to work on the placement of buildings and roads in the town of Pembroke, Ontario.  Pembroke is my only real town, but that I mean other industries are located in various spots on the layout and represent actual town or city locations, but I have made a conscious effort not to include any other buildings than the industry itself. My other towns are simply depicted by photo backdrops.  For a review of Pembroke, see my earlier discussion in a posting entitled Modeling Pembroke.

As I began to finish the Pembroke area, I still had several vacant spots which were marked with only a 3x5 card to tell the type of building to be placed.  One of those spots was reserved for a country general store, which can be found in various sizes and shapes throughout rural Ontario.  For this building, I chose to use the American Model Builders Corydon General Store/Post Office as my base building.  It's a very nice laser kit, which takes about an evening to build and with painting, was finished in about two evenings. Add some signs and decals, and you see the result.  While this is just a support structure, when I have the time, I'll add lighting and other details to make this a stand alone and make the structure really blend into the countryside. 

Uncoupler Tools - a modification worth stealing

I’ve had the chance to operate on layouts which used both magnetic uncouplers as well as some sort of physical uncoupling tool.  For my money, a simple and cheap tool is better than investing in pre-made plastic or metal tools, or installing magnetic uncouplers in multiple spots.  A wooden skewer, poked between the couplers and twisted to uncouple your cars, is the easiest, simplest and cheapest method available in my opinion.  Wooden skewers are easy to pickup at the grocery or craft store, cheap (my bag of 100+ cost a little less than a dollar), easy to use, and if someone accidentally walks off with your uncoupling tool, you have an entire bag still waiting for you.

The other advantage I found with wooden skewers is that they are long enough to make it easier to work with and they are cheap.  I can locate them all around the layout so there's always one within easy reach, and if one gets damaged I don't care if it needs to be discarded and replaced.

Recently I was watching a YouTube video of an operating sessions and I noticed that the Bamboo skewer was enhanced with a Twist-on wire connector screwed onto the blunt end. This allows for better grip.  In order to keep the wire connector from accidentally falling off and onto your layout, I simply fill the cap with hot glue and twist it onto the skewer, thereby making it a permanent attachment.  The cost for the caps, about $1.50 for 14 at the local hardware store.

Almost Completed ...Sawmill Module

With the coming of fall and colder temps here in NE Ohio, it's time once again to head to the basement and put some serious modeling efforts into the layout.  Throughout the year, I keep a notebook of potential projects and what particular work and details may be needed to get the project started and more importantly, move it towards being finished.  So this fall, I looked at the sawmill area and decided that it would become my major effort for November.  The sawmill is a 2-ft by 6-ft module located along the backside of my paper mill and connects to the Niagara Distribution scene.

Starting the project meant I had to put away all of the other diversions on my work bench, such as weathering some rolling stock and assembly of some vehicles, so that I could concentrate on the module and what was needed to complete the scene. I had already assembled the walls of the various buildings and laid out the track, so I had a decent start on what I thought it would look like. Here's the way the project went:

Man down..looks like all of the workers have been overwhelmed by something toxic (or I'm trying to find out where to place them). I'm really happy with the way the weathering of the roofs turned out. An evening with three colrs of Pan Pastels was all it took.

View looking towards the log conveyor.  This will be where trucks are unloaded and logs placed into the yard or onto the conveyor.

Week 1 - finished assembly of each of the buildings and began the painting process. Only problem with using water based colors from the craft paint department is that it requires several coats of paint (3 in my case) to get full coverage.

Week 2 - all structures built and painted, now comes the time to test fit them into place.  I usually like to place buildings and look at the potential rail traffic patterns for off-loading as well as truck movement on the scene.  After several nights of looking at buildings and just not happy with their placement, I decided to consult some photos I had taken from Bob Mitchell's Algoma Central layout from this years HOMES tour in Hamilton, ON.  Bob's scene is similar to mine, as it is located at the end of his layout room and takes up a far amount of space along his wall.  I'm not sure what the length of his scene actually is, but it's a little deeper than my module, as he has a mainline running behind it.

Week 3 - opted to remove the log pond and tepee burner due to space restrictions. I had roughed both of these features into the scene but decided that they just were too much clutter.  Decided that the space previously occupied by my control tower could be altered to hold the wood chip truck equipment.  This means ripping up all of the previous scenery and starting new.

Week 4 - home stretch.  Buildings are in place and completed installing the concrete pavement around the planer building, including the truck loading area.  Began to weather the rooflines of all buildings with Pan Pastels.  Installed piping runs from the planning mill building out to the sawdust collector for rail and truck. Scavenged the back yard for small pieces of branches, which will become my log piles.  Still need to place the workers, cut dozens and dozens of twigs to represent the logs and then add some of the smaller detail parts.  But that's another day when the snow is flying and I have a few evenings to catch up.  Now it's on to the Niagara Distribution and paper mill modules for some intensive work. Maybe hold an operating session or two to check my car card system.

View looking bottom part of module. Left track is for loading centerbeam and other cars while right track is for chip loading. The lumber piles are there to show that logs will be dropped and stacked alongside the rail.  Still need to take the vacuum and remove excess scenery and other materials

Over the next few months I'll continue to add scenery elements, such as workers, lumber piles, finished goods, etc.