Switching Sowards Coal Trestle

When I modelled the Sowards coal yard on Place d'Armes for a second time I didn't even photograph the track leading to the unloading trestle. Mainly because I wanted to do a better job on it. Now it's more camera-ready! The challenge to modelling this unique structure effectively is to deal with the height of the track, its curvature, what it's built on, and the dearth of prototype photos. (Gordon Smithson's book includes two, taken in 1973 and 1979.) Also, the dynamics of a full-sized locomotive pushing a loaded hopper car up the trestle do not match the space available on my layout. Compromises!

I'm pleased with the results so far. Smithson's photos show the piers quite well: poured concrete. So, I used the Atlas trestle set and covered in the wooden detail to represent concrete. But there was still the track. I had simply shoved some lichen pieces under it to fill it in visually and look like some modicum of support underneath. A little more effort was expended on the 'inside' of the curved track - it's more reachable and more visible.

I picked up a pack of plasticene at Dollarama, filling in the embankment with it, then adding scenic material. I also painted the rails brown, and touched up the ties as well. My arrangement differs from the prototype location, but it abuts Anglin's yard here:

Finishing off the track, I filled in the spaces between ties with loose ballast - it's actually real Kingston gravel, collected at the VIA station parking lot! A loaded car is visible inside the shed:

It's challenging to correlate just what part of the track was covered. It seems that loaded cars were tied down with their handbrake on a grade. The track seems to go past Sowards office on the level, so it's likely that most of the grade was covered. In either case, some of the cars were level, up on the trestle, and my HO-scale hoppers need to be. That's because they don't have handbrakes, of course! The prototype shed was also longer - of course the layout is space-challenged.