Building the Vehicle Fleet

Vehicles, figures, buildings and railway rolling stock are four types of modelling used to nail down the era being modelled. Today, it was time to build up the vehicle fleet. I was inspired by this George Lilley photo of an Abramsky delivery truck unloading from CN boxcar 534237 at the CN freight shed team track yard in December, 1954 (Queen's University Archives):

I zoomed in on the photo and printed out an image of the truck lettering. 

I picked up this amazing lot of vehicles from fellow rail enthusiast Jason Sailer back in 2015:

Four undecorated vehicles were lying fallow and I used this old one to represent the Abramsky truck:

A bit of signage sleight-of-hand was employed to turn this Matchbox truck into two trucks. it's a Rosen Fuels truck on this side:

And an S. Anglin truck on this side! The above lettering is printed off from a 1958 telephone book cover, and the lettering below is one I printed off with Paint software:

These two Minix vans were lettered for Anglin and Ubdegrove. Parked beside an Ubdegrove service van the other day, I took a quick photo and reformatted it, printed off and glued to the van side. Even though this is obviously 2020, the lettering looked 'retro' to me, and a larger version will soon become a local billboard.

I painted the tired from silver to black, adding pinpoints of paint for headlights and taillights. All four in front of the Cataraqui Street National Grocers warehouse:

Modelling Another Typical Swamp Ward House

In a previous post, I attempted to find a typical Swamp Ward house - actually a two-family house. This time, I went in search of the 'average' house. A standard design with three windows and doors at front, two stories and tough to find today in original condition without exterior modernization. But I found one on Stephen Street (top photo).

This was a troublesome structure. It stood between me and the main Outer Station yard, and it was within sweater-sleeve range so often uprooted and eventually inadvertently picked up like a Kansas farmhouse! The roof peak is a little steep, and the roof dormer, front porch (originally two level, modified for two earlier iterations in Manitoba and Vermont modelled locales!) and addition were problematic, not to mention the third storey attic. I planned to fix it and move it from Montreal Street over to Wellington Street.

Making some progress, I cut the panes out of all the windows, scrapped the full-width front porch, ended up keeping the dormer, and added a smaller porch with front step from a Life-Like kit. Now, to find the ideal colour.

Well, it turns out there is no ideal colour. There's tan, pink, grey, blue, and off-white prototypes. I tried a tan colour bit it didn't look right, so I went with Americana Silver Sage Green craft paint with white trim. The original kit had nice brick detailing, but I covered it over with printed limestone left over from my Outer Station kit.

I painted the shingles black. Overall black would look too much like new shingles, so I dry-brushed black on:

Down to the layout: I left the back wall and side addition (which I moved to the opposite side) painted brown. I need to scenick the back yard and driveway, still.

 Street view along Wellington Street, with Canadian Dredge & Dry Dock in the background:

Anglin coal delivery coming down the street, past my previous project house!

We are sitting out enjoying the early evening air. Perhaps the typical Kingston humidity is abating!

Looking back up Wellington Street:

There are only two houses on the whole layout. Most space is given over to track and industry, so while houses pay the tax bills for the city, they don't earn their keep on the layout! But it is nice to have two that at least represent typical Swamp Ward streetscapes! The original kit is now marketed by Walthers as part of  their Trainline entry-level kit range. It lists for $23.99, about $20 more than I would have paid for that kit years ago!

Here are four of the house kits shown on the Winnipeg Railway Museum layout.

Modelling the River Street Fuel Rack

The plethora of petroleum product tanks scattered along the Inner Harbour were a vital reason for the existence of CN and CP waterfront trackage. The tanks themselves would gobble up space if modelled to scale. With a maximum layout depth of two feet, I would rather devote that space to other uses! But I've been wanting to build a version of the River Street fuel loading rack that still stands.

Located beside the City of Kingston's Urban K&P Trail on River Street, this orphaned rack has no connection, except in memory, to the numerous oil tanks in the Rosen/Anglin tank farm nearby, demolished in the 1980's. A rack in model form makes the viewer think of nearby tanks, even if not modelled. In my case, I use cardstock semi-circles to represent four tanks along the wall.

It's interesting that this rack does not include any ground-to-truck ladders or walkways. Using a fence for support and various piping and structural steel pieces, I put together a loading rack (above) which I then painted black and weathered (below):

Installed on the layout. It may move to a new location, but I wanted it out of the way so I would not demolish it clumsily while switching nearby. 

Letter full of waterfront memories

Eric Potter kindly sent this letter along with his order for my new book. It is chock full o' memories. In one page, it captures so much of what made Kingston's waterfront interesting, and what no longer exists. Without such memories, encapsulated in such a letter as this, there is precious little left to see with our own eyes. Thank you, Eric!

From Dream to Blog to Book

What a journey this has been! Sitting atop the beautiful lakeview of Elevator Bay at the city's Lake Ontario Park, I first dreamed about changing the modelled locale of my HO scale layout to reflect Kingston's waterfront trackage - what I have termed the Hanley Spur.

Little did I know at the time that my research efforts would lead to this day. As I learned more about the waterfront trackage, complemented by photographs and documents in the Queen's University Archives, I continued modelling the prototype, while also deciding mid-summer to create my seventh book. 

The timeline:

• November, 2018 - Hanley Spur blog created to chronicle research and layout progress.
• November, 2018 - Planning for home Kingston's Hanley Spur layout construction.
• November, 2018 - Modular layout proposal for Associated Railroaders of Kingston (ARK)
• December, 2018 - Construction of home layout begins.
• December, 2018 - First meeting of ARK modular layout group.
• March, 2019 - ARK presentation on the Kingston's waterfront trackage.
• April, 2019 - First visit to the Queen's University Archives.
• October, 2019 - Planning meeting for ARK modular layout group.
• November, 2019 - One year anniversary of this blog.
• March, 2020 - Visits to Queen's University Archives curtailed due to pandemic.
• July, 2020 - Manuscript begun.
• August, 2020 - Manuscript completed.
• September, 2020 - Graphic design of Smoke on the Waterfront.
• September, 2020 - Smoke on the Waterfront blog created.
• October, 2020 - Printing of Smoke on the Waterfront.
• November, 2020 - Book launch and 165th Hanley Spur blog post published.

You can find more information on ordering my new book on the Smoke on the Waterfront blog. The book officially launches next week.

There will be more research in the future, especially once the pandemic is at bay and freer access to the archives is possible. There is always more to learn!

In terms of a life journey, consider these photos of our family's visit to Kingston on August 18, 1967. CPR 1095 has been dedicated, Centennial celebrations are in full swing. The Centennial logo is even visible on the park bench in front of City Hall:

One track remains on the waterfront to allow shipping of Canadian Locomotive Company's final export locomotives.

I'm the little knuckle-height blonde haired fellow:

Thanks to my brother David J. Gagnon for scanning these slides, taken by various family members!

'Dear Photograph' Tour of the Waterfront

I recently had a morning of chauffeur service downtown, and while waiting for my rendez-vous, I took the opportunity, and a handful of photo prints, to do some 'Dear Photograph' photography. (I subsequently posted another 'Dear Photograph' post here.) Well, my version of the 'Dear Photograph' methodology - mixing then and now. The photos are various archival views from the Queen's University Archives. Top photo - Confederation Train, at the start of my tour. Then, along Ontario Street:

Ontario at William (above), where once locomotives care to life, now condos! Another view, produced when I got home, with a different CLC photo:

Kingston Shipyards launch, using the marine railway:

Different view of the same vessel, taken nearer the former Marine Museum site:

A little farther west on Ontario Street, another home view showing shipyard gantries across Ontario Street:

The Grand Trunk Inner Station, 1970 photo added at home (above), and current photo superimposed on 1970 photo (below). Note dual gauge track, foot of Johnson Street:

Where CLC trackage one was, over the railing along Ontario Street, with Fairbanks Morse lettering then on the building.:

Trying not to get run over at Queen and Ontario Streets. Memories of the arrival of the LNER Flying Scotsman in 1970. The biggest LVEC at the time was the Memorial Centre over on York Street:

Looking west at the same site, I had my photos in order and a route in mind! Those curiously angled building backs and S&R department store. Note the crossing crossbuck!

One of my (many) favourite spots - the Anglin city parking lot along Wellington Street at Anglin Bay, with Bayswater coal boats:

The Imperial Oil warehouse at the foot of North Street:

Tricky to re-create this view of a load of scrap oil drums approaching the original KIMCO on Rideau Street. Imperial Oil's agency was at right, notice the fence?

My 'Ground Zero' for the Hanley Spur. Cataraqui at Rideau Streets:

River Street fuel rack, sans tanks!

Another view - tough to get the right balance of foreground and background. Also, no more bridge, from which the archival photo was taken.

I even had time left over, so that gave me time for some other random fall foliage photos!