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.