I recently came across a quote in an online presentation on model railway layout design by Burr Stewart of Seattle, WA. Originally attributed to Scott Calvert, the quote spoke to how something simple can lead to something wider, grander and possibly life-changing!
The quote got me thinking about my own journey with Kingston's Hanley Spur and all the serendipitous surprises I've encountered along the way. I've endeavoured to capture the surprise-filled journey herein.
2018
This little sketch heralded what could be major change. Was it a bad idea, though? After a rapid progression through three varied modelled locales in a few years - Winnipeg, Vancouver, Vermont - should I 'move' the layout to another locale. Should I bring it home?
After all, I was still painting rolling stock in New England paint schemes - Boston & Maine, Bangor & Aroostook and the Rutland Railroad. Structures like feed mills and 19th-century brick factories dotted the layout. By contrast, I had next to no prototypically-correct Kingston structures, nor earlier CN and CP locomotives.
Undaunted, the first challenge was turning the schematic sketch into a track plan. In my modest 10x11-foot space, I would need to thread CN and CP lines between the downtown core and the Cataraqui River, incorporating signature scenes along the way. To paraphrase Bob Seger, 'What to leave in, what to leave out'? I made lists of possible eras, types of needed rolling stock, deciding on what CN and CP operations would look like, and which signature scenes I'd have to have.
In order to form a repository of prototype research and modelling projects, I started a Kingston's Hanley Spur blog in November. I'd used blogs this way before, first in 2008 with my first foray into the blogosphere with Trackside Treasure, then for each new book project that I completed in 2011, 2012, 2017 and earlier in 2018. At this time, I was definitely not planning this as a book project!
The first four posts on Hanley Spur history were transferred from Trackside Treasure, forming the first of over 300 that I've now published on Kingston's Hanley Spur.
Walking the K&P (Kingston & Pembroke) Urban Trail shortly thereafter, I felt a strong sense of living history that only helped me to envision the finished layout. Returning home, I spent some time visiting the city's Snapshot Kingston website, viewing aerial imagery of the trackage from the last 70 years. I came across some online 1924 fire-insurance map images of my area of interest.
By November 17, I'd drafted a proposal for the Associated Railroaders of Kingston (ARK), of which I was a newbie member. Members of the group had expressed interest in building a modular layout based on the Hanley Spur trackage I'd been blogging about. I was able to come up with many reasons why this would be a great group project.
I discovered the online Swamp Ward and Inner Harbour History Project (SWIHHP) that same month. Beginning three years previous, Dr. Laura Murray directed an eclectic group of photographers, oral history interviewers and student researchers. As a professor of English and Cultural Studies at Queen's University, Dr. Murray's forte was seeking out different interpretations of history using new research methodologies.
On November 25, I published my layout's trackplan. By the end of November, 21 blog posts had already been published.
My brother David's scan-a-thon resulted in a gift in my email inbox of employees' timetable pages from CN's Kingston Subdivision (as the Hanley Spur was known until the early-1960's) and CP's Kingston Subdivision from 1950 to 1978. I published posts with links to more sources of inspiration: Wilf Coombe's 1974 photos of CN's Outer Station, photos my Dad took while we waited for my grandmother's train to arrive from Dorval at the Outer Station in 1970, fire-insurance maps from 1908 in the Library and Archives Canada collection, and photos I'd taken of the K&P Urban Trail prior to its completion in the spring of 2017.
By early-December, I'd laid track and posted a Youtube video showing yes, trackwork, but no structures save for stand-ins still with a Vermont theme! Our ARK modular layout group had had two meetings by mid-December. We settled on HO scale, engaging in somewhat circular discussions on module construction standards, era, electronics and other preliminary topics. I should note that ARK members have been a constant source of support on my journey.
Early Kingston blog topics kept presenting themselves to me via the internet: postcard views from bygone days, Inner Harbour photos, early 20th-century passenger timetables, people photos (thanks for the inspiration, Dr. Murray!) and civic directory information from 1867 to 1918.
By December 20, I'd started operating the layout, posting a Youtube update showing one of the first trains operating on the completed CP trackage. On the 30th, I published a post on Hanley Spur structures. Each time I completed a prototype-based building thereafter, I'd publish a post showing how I modelled it, taking one or two photos of the completed structure to add to this 'living' post on structures.
When I look back at these early efforts - videos and blog posts - I am struck by how little I really knew about my chosen modelled locale at that time. As part of this layout-designing-me process, I've made no attempt to go back in time to correct or revise these earlier efforts. Just like the perfectly-correct and up-to-date book that can never be produced, I viewed my research and learning as a work-in-progress.
2019
In January, I published 11 posts on completed structures - Sowards' coal trestle, Imperial Oil's limestone warehouse, Quattrocchi's Specialty Foods and boathouses that dotted the Inner Harbour shoreline. I started reading through source material that I'd been adding to a Kingston Waterfront file for over thirty years. An old glove-compartment map of Kingston that actually showed railway trackage, Gordon Smithson's At the Bend in the Road - Kingston book, newspaper clippings, and a December 3, 1990 letter from rail historian J.M. Harry Dodsworth of Ottawa. More blog posts followed: Canadian Dredge & Dock, ships on Kingston's waterfront, and a really intriguing one in March.
Dr. Laura Murray had sent me a message with a question about a photo she'd just seen. Sign painter and former Kingston mayor Bob Fray had a shoebox of old photos including one black & white image showing CN's Wellington Street freight sheds. Fellow ARK member Andrew Jeanes added some of his encyclopedic Kingston history knowledge to confirm that the photo showed the Royal Canadian Artillery's 4th Anti-Aircraft Battery. Based at Kingston, the photo depicted the unit's four guns and vehicles being entrained for shipment via CN to defend Halifax harbour. The same photo had appeared in the Whig-Standard on August 28, 1939 though not nearly as clear as Bob's original photo, and without the CN tender herald with its censored lettering!
Also in March, I made a presentation on Kingston's waterfront trackage to the monthly ARK meeting. Though my graphics skills are modest, graphics guru Randy O'Brien assisted me with professional-looking logo ideas for my layout. Using CN wafer/CP beaver-shield logo ideas, my favourite that Randy produced was a CP beaver sitting atop a CN untilted wafer with stacked yellow 'Kington's Hanley Spur' lettering on a red background.
On April 8, a few scant days after retiring, I paid the first of many visits to the Queen's University Archives. I became a card-carrying member, or at least researcher! Though I'd worked only a few hundred paces from their door for over three decades, I'd only made it there once or twice. My first visit found me viewing digitized images by local photographer George Lilley.
Also in April, I emailed Don McQueen - a Queen's alumnus and author of Constructed in Kingston - the definitive book on the Canadian Locomotive Company (CLC). Don kindly shared some photos he'd taken of CN and CP waterfront operations from 1959 to 1969.
Anytime I was downtown with time to spare, I'd drive around photographing remaining waterfront sites like the Bailey broom factory of the warehouses along Railway Street. I was still learning which building was which, based on archival photos and newspaper accounts.
I felt confident enough about the progress on my layout to invite Mike Shirlaw down to see it. As a fellow HO scale modeller, Mike had been to Kingston years ago, only remembering the City Hall environs as a dirty, grimy area during its industrial swan song.
A sunny June noon-hour was spent strolling Ontario Street on the Brewers, Bakers and Boilermakers waterfront walking tour, given by the Pumphouse Museum. Fellow participants and ARK members Bob Farquhar, Grant LeDrew and Kurt Vollenwyder had recommended our tour guide, Tom Riddolls.
Walking the outer reaches of the Urban K&P Trail on a humid August day, we extended our reach out past Division Street to Dalton Avenue, former site of CP's siding. Also in August, I began the trip back through time that was the Archives' George Lilley Fonds. During my first visit, I only managed to view two of the 50-plus boxes containing negatives capturing Kingston life from the 1940's to the 1960's!
Per the Archives' policy, researchers are allowed to photograph negatives and photos, and most of the Lilley Fonds were negatives. Each image I took of a negative atop a light-box required editing at home to render a positive image. Seeing the sharp images 'emerge' from their world of negativity was more than enlightening!
A waterfront walk in September took me to the site of oil-tanker unloading on Anglin Bay. Some of the unloading machinery is still in place.
Finally it was time to stop dragging my feet and complete my model of the Bailey broom factory. The impetus was the upcoming Railfair train show in November, sponsored by ARK. Interestingly, this was one of the central and beloved structures on the whole layout.
Dr. Laura Murray gave the 37th Annual Archives Lecture on October 30 at Queen's Stauffer Library - 'Counter-archive or Nostalgia Trip - the SWIHHP'. I was able to attend and take copious notes of the project's findings. Laura emailed me in November and asked about arranging a layout tour. The pandemic would intervene, though her visit finally took place in March, 2022.
The 100th blog post was published just as Railfair rolled around. Not only did our ARK modular layout group share a poster-board display and track layout mock-up, but ARK member Grant LeDrew also displayed his well-researched Kingston Shipyards site model. I picked up several needed hopper cars from ARK member Bob Farquhar. I'd learned that yes, there were lots of boxcars along the waterfront, but that I'd also need a plethora of hopper cars and tank cars.
2020
In January, I published a current list of industries served by CN (11) and CP (15) on my layout.
The pandemic beset us all in March. I used that strange season to build several needed structures: Bajus Brewery, C.E. MacPherson, CN Express, the Woolen Mill as a structural flat, CN's telegraph repeater station (former workplace of Gordon Smithson) and detailing the Outer Station scene and waterfront coalpiles. Some of these scenes were already in their second iteration, as I now had time to operate and fine-tune the layout.
I joined the Vintage Kingston group on Facebook in April. I was able to share information with several local experts like Marc Shaw and Wolfe Island ferry captain Brian Johnson. It continues to be a great group in which one never knows what will be shared next!
On June 21, I felt a familiar feeling - I got the itch to create another book. This would be my seventh, despite the complete lack of any intention to create another one. Though I believe it's bad form to lie to a member of the clergy, I'd told ARK member Andrew Chisholm that I had no plans for another book - certainly not one with Kingston as its theme! I was awaiting the printing of additional copies of my books on VIA Rail by Allan Graphics when the inspiration came to me. I set a self-imposed deadline of Canada Day to make a decision: go or no-go.
Without even a working title, I had already begun my manuscript by July 1. This book project was a go!
More waterfront wandering downtown in July and August coincided with work on the book. Our daughter Erika's wedding to Dustin had been rescheduled from June 13 to September 6. This bought me (and them!) three months. While flowers were being fluffed and bows bedazzled inside, I could be found in a front-patio chair with a stack of reference books and articles, gleaning facts.
In September, I wandered around the shipyards and Maple Street, formerly home of Frontenac Floor & Wall Tile and Monarch Battery. I got the idea to take some picture-in-picture photos along the lines of 'Dear Photograph'. Archival and present-day photos are blended in a foreground-background format - tricky to master, but often with captivating results. I'd printed off several archival images, and went out to hold them at arm's length framed by the current scene.
The blessed matrimonial event came and went, with work on my manuscript completed by the end of July. Don McQueen graciously agreed to write the foreword, allowing me to incorporate photos he'd previously shared with me, and proof-read the manuscript. At the end of October, the manuscript with photos and accompanying captions were transmitted electronically to Allan Graphics for graphic design.
I took several more 'Dear Photograph' streetscapes downtown in early November, mainly along Ontario, Rideau and Wellington Streets. In all cases, trying to avoid getting run over while standing on the street to make the photo! Within a few days of posting the photos, I heard from Matt Ierino of YGKNews. Matt wanted to include the photos in an online article while publicizing my upcoming book. This Hanley Spur layout change was indeed 'desigining me' and allowing me to make some neat connections.
Smoke on the Waterfront - The Trains, Ships and Industries of Kingston Harbour was launched on November 6. In four days, 27 copies had gone out the door. Not surprisingly, I launched another blog to host ordering information. With the pandemic still around, I shipped locally by mail or via front-porch pick-up. Many neighbours stopped by to pick up copies for Christmas presents.
I made a short presentation on the new book to our members' night November ARK meeting by Zoom. Fellow blogger Steve Boyko of Winnipeg published a book review on his blog on December 8, calling the book a deep dive into Kingston's history. Matt Ierino kindly published another story to mark the book's release.
As Kingston's Hanley Spur blog posts passed 165, connections were starting to form and polymerize. Customers would read the book and share memories awakened in doing so. In the ensuing winter months, I was back to structure modelling to fill in spaces on the layout: the River Street fuelling rack, the Provincial Tire Garage, City Steam Laundry, and another typical Swamp Ward house, plus vehicles lettered for Kingston businesses and the Whig-Standard newsprint warehouse.
One connection that failed to occur was with our historic, perhaps anachronistic local newspaper, the Kingston Whig-Standard. Having vacated its Woolen Mill offices during the pandemic, local coverage continued its contraction. Difficult to reach by phone or email, three inquiries to publicize my new book received no response or at best, mild indifference. One thing the Whig did right was Tim Gordanier's shared historic pages each Thursday. Taken from that week's newspaper coverage of events from years past, these got me interested in looking for local news articles, vintage advertisements and graphics in the vintage scans.
Having noticed the Hanley Spur blog, fellow railfan and Queen's alumnus Scott Haskill kindly emailed some photos he'd taken here in 1986-87. At the end of the waterfront trackage era, a lone CN boxcar was spotted at the Whig newsprint warehouse. Quite a find for me!
2021
In January, a porch pick-up customer unexpectedly left me with an unstamped CLC builder's plate that had been 'just gathering dust'. Stamped 1949, it was destined for an export steam locomotive for India. That got me digging into the history of CLC and publishing a two-part series of posts.
The Toronto Railway Supper Club invited me to give a Zoom presentation on the Hanley Spur for their February meeting. A club member, David Woodhead, subsequently shared some black & white waterfront industrial photos he'd taken while in Kingston in the 1970's! I made another presentation by Zoom to the Winnipeg Slide Night group in April.
Fellow Vintage Kingston group member Michael Peters had been blogging about the strangely-named Orange Meat product of the Frontenac Cereal Co. on Ontario Street. Also on Ontario Street, the mutual track switchman's shanty became a blog post subject, as did Canadian Dredge & Dock, ships in the drydock, coal dealers and the shipping by rail of large boilers and engines to the shipyards for wartime corvettes. I really enjoyed learning, and sharing what I'd learned, about these long-gone and under-appreciated facets of Kingston's industrial history.
A notable gravestone near my parents' Cataraqui Cemetery plot led me to three-time Antarctic voyage crew member Thomas McLeod, who for a time fished in the Cataraqui River off Belle Island.
For publication throughout the summer, John More-Curran, editor of Our Lakes e-magazine asked me to write a four-part series on CN and CP operations in the North country, linking Kingston to the hinterland. John was also helpful in publicizing my books and blogs.
In May I was selecting photos for my second book on Kingston. I'd got the itch again, just one month after my first book was released, about seven months previous. This companion volume would be titled Stories on the Waterfront - A Curated Collection of Memories and Photos of Kingston Harbour. The pandemic had been good to book creators like me who had all their research materials and photos accessible at home!
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This second book on Kingston told a more human story, augmenting the dates, facts and figures in the first. There were so many memories shared on the Vintage Kingston group, as well as personally with me, that I wanted to get them into book form. That's where the photo selection came in - supporting the street-centred text sections with relevant archival photos.
With a soft launch, Stories debuted in late-July. I used my 'Dear Photograph' imagery on the front cover, with layout photos in colour on the rear cover. To say thanks to the Queen's University Archives, I provided copies of both books for their library and for the Lilley family. I also donated one dollar per copy to the Archives' digitization fund.
Walking the K&P Trail north from Binnington Court and around Montreal and Rideau Streets in August gave me some more 'what if' memories and photos. In October, editor Tori Stafford of the local online news source Kingstonist.com requested an article on my efforts. She had journalist Terry Bursey conduct a COVID-safe phone interview. The local websites were filling the void that the Whig had left!
Another welcome request, this one from the Ontario Street Pumphouse Museum was not far behind. Putting together a spring exhibition on 400 years of Kingston's transportation history, Tom Riddolls and Jessika Tozer were looking for subject specialists for railway, marine and other modes of transport. After meeting with them, providing copies of both books for City Hall's Heritage Resource Centre, I wandered along Ontario Street that October for another 'Dear Photograph' tour.
In December, I received a very special letter, via the Queen's Archives, from a member of George Lilley's family. Now, things had really come full circle. From viewing his photos, to complimentary book copies, to receiving feedback from his family, I had quite the feeling of satisfaction!
After three years of blogging and realizing Blogger software's limited ability to list and search specific topics, I copied and pasted blog titles and links in an index post, divided into Prototype, Model and Other categories. I hoped this would make finding a particular post easier for me, as well as for others.
An email from local writer Lawrence Scanlan indicated interest from yet another local news outlet, The Skeleton Press. On-schedule for an Issue Nine deadline the following March, Lawrence and I met outside the lakefront Juniper Cafe to discuss model railroading, our shared memories of trains, and how these elements combined with the paper's constituency of Swamp Ward to produce my Hanley Spur layout and books.
Following a free trial period of Newspapers.com in late-December, I subscribed to the service that now included the Kingston Whig-Standard. This gave me access to every issue of the Whig. I could type in the date of an archival Whig news photo from the Archives and find the accompanying news story. Correlating the photos I'd photographed with the coverage saved hours with an Archives microfiche viewer, and all from the comfort of home! The results could be moribund or morbid, though always informative and interesting. The online photos were printed on newsprint then scanned (thank you, mind-numb scanner operator, whoever you are) though the Archives' versions were much, much clearer original negatives.
2022
In January, I made a trip to Books on Main in Bath. They were keen to stock my books. Despite a 'no thanks' from the Ontario Street tourist office (in the former K&P station, no less) and absolutely sterling support from Novel Idea on Princess Street, where my books are instantly visible on the local history shelf just inside the door, I was proud to augment my dining-room table sales with the help of these local merchants. Long-time activist and naturalist Mary Farrar included my books in her Friends of Kingston Inner Harbour newsletters.
The subscription to Newspapers.com gave me so much access to historical information on local industries that I was able to build on profiles I'd already written on industries ranging from the very visible to the long-gone: Davis Tannery, McKelvey & Birch, Millard & Lumb, National Grocers, wartime shipbulding, smelters, the Woolen Mill, Reliance Moulding, Monarch Battery and Bajus Brewery. John Davis Duerkop generously shared his manuscript on tanneries and smelters, and it was useful in correlating what I'd found.
It was fun to flesh out some marine mysteries: a U-boat (only passing through) in Kingston, the SA Queen, Corps of Engineers in drydock, and the corvette that was scrapped here.
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On March 15, our long-anticipated visit by Dr. Laura Murray finally took place, albeit with pandemic precautions. Laura brought with her colleague Vince Perez, Art Director for The Skeleton Press. Vince kindly delivered complimentary copies of the Spring, 2022 issue with Lawrence Scanlan's interview article. Great to have more home-grown publicity! The Skeleton Press is 'neighbourhood focused, pulp-based journalism" with scanned issues available online. Unique and distributed for free in the Swamp Ward and beyond. A third guest? Sure! None other than Public Service/Private Records Archivist Heather Home from the Queen's University Archives. Heather had been instrumental with clearance for my use of archival materials, and her colleagues at the Archives were always very helpful - finding the materials I requested and answering my questions.
On April 12, I was photographing Wellington, Cataraqui and Orchard Streets, and the day after, when classes ended and pandemic restrictions easing at Queen's, it was once again time to get back to the Archives! Coming full circle, I came across the two copies I'd donated to the Archives on their Kingston history bookshelf! My stuff is on the table just past the glass in the main reading room:
My diorama was delivered to the Pumphouse Museum in time for the exhibition opening on April 22. I'd been working on it for a bit each night since January. Showing the nexus of road and rail transportation in the Rideau and Cataraqui Streets area, several notable buildings from the area are represented in HO scale.
Looking back now, I have received so much support and positive feedback via email, blog comments, Facebook and directly from book customers. Each of these contacts served to illustrate the reach of what I was doing. Far more than if I'd simply been toiling away on a basement model railway layout, keeping it to myself, and just minding my own business.
So, in many ways, my layout had not only designed me, it has also defined me. It had driven my interests and activities. Another analogy - unlike peeling back the layers of an onion, I was adding layers to the onion of my understanding and my knowledge base. Looking back on this three-and-a-half year (so-far) journey, I am still amazed at the connections it has helped me make. The layout is mostly complete, the books created and sold, but the layout and blog are still living and growing!
