Wandering Wellington Street

I had a wee whim to wander Wellington Street and to ponder a while what used to be here. Some elements remain and that's what tends to anchor anachronistic assumptions about what was, once upon a time. The Bajus Brewery basked in the afternoon sun (top photo) and I noticed that top-floor loading door has been turned into someone's balcony, though the barrels remain set into the wall!

Looking east to Anglin Bay, from the city parking lot I could see where oil tankers (left) and coal boats (right) would have docked to unload their combustible cargoes.

Those bollards! (above) The Dry Dock shares some signage:

And that 70-ton crane that was grounded from a Canadian Dredge & Dock vessel towers over two recent additions to the MetalCraft Marine fleet, built at CD&D's former site:

All derricks are not alike, and I don't think this Derrick No 7 matches the above one. Built at Kingston in 1939, she appears to be lifting the Bajus Brewery in this photo which is a panoramic view of where I was photographing the current scene:

The Imperial Oil warehouse is starting to take shape again, its roof gone but its walls and window openings looking more 'square'. Queen City Oil Co.'s limestone has some life left in it yet!

A Queen Street view of RMC's clock tower which I may be incorporating into a scenic backdrop on the layout!

At the Top of the Hanley Spur

There's a rather non-descript shed just off Montreal Street, south of what was Elliott Avenue. Used as a maintenance/storage building for the nearby Village on the River apartments, it has an interesting past. It used to be served by a trailing-point CN spur heading down the Hanley Spur, witness two CN boxcars spotted there in June, 1957, with a sign reading Chown Limited Warehouse No 3:

The lettering says Chown Limited - a downtown hardware store. This Don McQueen photo shows another building in the same area - east of Cassidy Street - once also served by a CN spur trailing-point CN spur heading up the Hanley Spur. It's 1959, and it's the A.McLean & Son Wholesale Grocers operation:

The building is referred to by other owners i.e. Canfor, I. Cohen on CN car control schematic diagram listings.This Googlemaps view shows the building (yellow star), the Hanley Spur's former alignment (yellow line, from which the Chown spur diverged) and pre-realignment Kingston Sub mainline (red line):

August 2021 UPDATE: I returned to the site on foot to get a few detail photos of the north side and doors. I later realized that the S-shaped entrance road to Village on the River is where the former Hanley Spur approached the mainline, having passed behind the line of houses on Montreal Street.

Anglin Coal Truck and CD&D Hull Projects

A trip to Dollarama yesterday had me looking for some modelling ideas. I've been looking for some coal trucks for my Anglin/Sowards coal dealership. This Hot Wheels 'Mooneyes' VW Beetle pickup caught my eye. It wasn't until I got it out of the box

I don't want you to think I'm cheap. Because I am. I just don't want you to think I am. But why pay more? First steps were removing the motorboat superstructure screws to release the hull, to which I added lots of styrene sprues and other under-construction might-have-beens. I'm no marine architect, as you can see. The Hot Wheels got a little less 'hot' with some primer, as well!

Two views of the finished product. A couple of Canadian Dredge & Dock workers are puzzling over my propulsion system. Hull number chalked on the bow:

Becoming a coal truck, the first thing was to apply correct Anglin colours. Red can and yellow box. But what about that under-part? I couldn't decide, so one side got black paint, the other red! I dug some less 'hot' wheels out of my Vehicle Wheels box. Much more truck-like!

Here's the passenger side with lettering made in Microsoft Word. Until I get a sophisticated printer or decals, these will do for now.

Driver side:

Box filled with coal. The rest of the coal fleet is at right - these are weathered Life-Like trucks.

And the boat is now in the dry-dock at CD&D!

Stern view!

On the Shoulders of Giants

While I don't intend to do a lot of blogging about my Kingston-based manuscript, while looking over some articles from the 70's (that's both the 1970's and the 1870's), I realized that there were two giants that had come to mind. (It was the great Isaac Newton who said that if he had seen farther than other men, it was due to standing on the shoulders of giants.)

In my case, it was Kingston's most illustrious citizen, one Sir John A Macdonald who served in the Frontenac Militia during the 1837 Rebellion, was instrumental in the establishment of Queen's University, championed local civic, religious and charitable causes and was successfully re-elected in ten consecutive provincial and federal elections. He was Kingston's most illustrious citizen, by far. In this morning's paper, I read about some misguided efforts to erase the man from our history. Sad!

Then there was this snippet about Mel Easton, Kingston's most ardent chronicler of the Kingston & Pembroke Railway. Clearly, it was from a time when downtown bookshops were flourishing, and I visited them regularly as a youngster. I took the snippet as a pinch of inspiration!

Manuscript!

Well, I've started work on my seventh book! Unlike the first four on VIA Rail, or the next two on my trips West, this one is in line with my Model & Railfan Local in 2020 initiative!

The manuscript for this book is now underway. Under some as-yet unknown title and format, it will combine all the things that make Kingston's railway operations so interesting!

After getting inspired reading about Sir John A. Macdonald's many contributions to Kingston last night, it seems like Canada Day is the perfect time to share this good news. 

Stay tuned for more!

-Eric

Got the Itch

While reprinting, perusing, ordering, day-dreaming and anticipating yet another printing of my VIA Rail books, I got the itch to write again. Well, not so much write as create. 'Writing a book' always sounds like a novel. And I don't read nor write 'em.

No, this creative process would involve local railway and industrial history in an as-yet-unknown format. 

I'll be digging out the Post-it notes and a final decision will be made and shared here on Canada Day. If it's a yes, you heard it here first!

-Eric

Telegraph Poles into the Distance

Having worked on that backdrop for the eastward view from the Outer Station, the top photo taken by my Dad back in summer, 1970 caught my eye. What leads our eye to the horizon but those telegraph poles at right. I tried to use this visual trick to force the viewer's vision into the distance and suspend disbelief that this is only a two-dimensional view.

Out came the scissors and some dark grey cardstock. I snipped a few telegraph poles with a perspective line to give me pole heights to portray a visually acceptable perspective. That prototype seemed to work. I took a plastic telegraph pole and placed it at the east end of the station. 

Light brown cardstock seemed a better choice, so I snipped crossarms and poles then glued and taped them together. I used strips of Scotch tape to hold the top of the poles in place while judging the perspective. Though I need to work on the track/background transition a bit, I think these poles are going to do their job! It's all a matter of perspective!

Outer Station Backdrop Eliminates the Great White Wall

A particularly unsightly corner of my Hanley Spur layout is the point at which the Outer Station yard 'runs into' my wife's craft storage cabinet. This stub-end yard technically carries on east of Montreal Street. I've long wanted to 'complete' the layout with a suitable backdrop extension. Not only for more fulfilling photography, but also to make viewing the layout more believable. Before photo (above) in which I've tried to minimize the view of the cabinet - its large expanse of Great White Wall and the gap between the cabinet and the room wall are just visible. During photo (below). 

You can't miss Peter Macdonald's photo of a CNR steam excursion stopped at the Outer Station in the mid-60's - taped there half as inspiration and half as protest! I've covered the end of the cabinet with three sheets of appropriately-coloured, taped-together blue cardstock out of another craft cabinet located nearby! The shade closely approximated the painted room wall colour. I gently curved the left-handmost piece to cover the gap. It'll still be 'in the dark' but more believable. I printed a couple of track photo backgrounds and test-fitted them:

Most often, there will be cars spotted here in the yard, so the track background will not be that visible. I trimmed around the foliage in the printed photos:

Every backdrop has a silver lining - once I add some cloud stickers, anyway. This will heighten the illusion of a distance and sky.

Some more trimming has taken place to visually soften and link the backdrop the the stick-on lichen at left:

Finished, for now, with foreground cars removed for visibility. The Great White Wall is no more! The Athearn Geep is sitting on what would be the north main track, though on my layout it's an electrically-isolated locomotive track. Flick of a light switch and it's off to do some switching, like returning those cars that the 0-5-0 switcher has just moved out of the way!

More prototype inspiration. A platform view looking east, taken by my Dad in the summer of 1970. Notice the generally flat topography in the distance. This itself would have made an excellent backdrop if I'd just removed that westbound passenger train! Notice how many telegraph and power poles are in the photo....hmmmm....as we know, one's layout is never truly finished!

Aerial View of Outer Station - Prototype vs. Model

Now that I've added several key structures to my Outer Station area, I decided to compare my layout with the prototype. If it is not anatomically correct, I wanted to assess whether I was at least incorporating these structures that 'make' the scene?

To do so, I stood on a chair, camera in hand, producing a composite photo of that two-foot-wide section of the layout turning it into black & white. I labelled a similar black & white 1970 aerial view from the Snapshot Kingston page with letters to represent the following that you might compare and contrast:

• Outer Station (A)
• CN Express (B)
• MoW garage (C)
• CN Telegraph repeater station (D)
• Montreal Street (E)
• Hanley Spur trackage (F)
• Presland Steel/station area industry (G)
• and the Yard 
Based on the space constraints I face, I'm not representing the exact layout, but at least I've been able to incorporate the important elements. It's unlikely I'll include the stock pens or Cassidy Street houses, but I am working now on the background of the Kingston Sub trackage to the east of Montreal Street. Watch for an upcoming post.

Muddle in the Middle of Montreal Street

I have a corner of my anatomically-incorrect Hanley Spur layout that will be a little bit of Division Street and a little bit of Montreal Street. And Railway Street and Rideau Street? So I'm attempting for represent some more signature industries. This fine Don Helsby 1986 aerial view from Cataraqui Street, up Rideau to the Outer Station shows some of them:

 I zoomed in on some industries - C.E.Macpherson on Rideau just before Montreal Street:

 Rosen Fuels, scrap yard(!) on Cataraqui Street and woolen mill:

I'd like to include Gus Marker Cement and K-D in this corner. I have some previous ready-mix cement plant structures I can incorporate.

K-D had characteristically rounded rooflines:

From a 1937 city directory:

Speaking of Montreal Street, Andre Gerow shared these aerial views of the Montreal Street-CN subway. Mid-60's to 70's with the zig-zag subway under the CN Kingston Sub::

 And after the realignment of the Kingston Sub, no longer a bendy road: