New Westminster - Vancouver B.C

[Donny4472]

Hi there

 

Here is an introduction to my new layout. I purchased it from a fellow Scottish modeller after seeing it at Perth Model rail Show. Thanks to him for producing an excellent layout, and also for selling it to me. It was called Cascade Lakeside, and represented a ficticious area in the US. I have renamed it New Westminster, an area of Vancouver, which ties in with the stock i own. It has had very little exposure on the exhibition scene, so i'm looking forward to attending various show with it (if invited).

 

I have completed and fitted new legs on the layout, and lighting is next on the agenda. After this and a few wiring mods, it will be ready to exhibit.

 

It is a switching layout with several rail served industries, including a Grain Elevator and Warehousing. The layout can be operated DC or DCC, but i will be using DCC only. All switches (points) are operated by 'wire in tube' and i will keep it this way.

 

The area of New Westminster is served by various rail companies, and my operation with use power from mostly Canadian Pacific (CP) and Burlington Northern Santa-Fe (BNSF). Other companies will make appearance too.

 

Here are some photos of the layout. All comments are welcome.

 

 

Two general views of the layout.

 

 

 

BNSF SD40-2 & Dash8-40BW wait their next turn of duty.

 

 

Soo Line GP38-2 switches a tank car & BNSF SW1000 works the Grain Elevator

 

 

 

Visiting Norfolk Southern GP40-2 shunts a boxcar at a local industry.

 

 

CP GP38-2 sits at the local brewery.

 

 

As always, thanks for looking.

 

Ian D.

[stock_2007]

Nice looking layout you have there, don't know if its just me but are you going to dirty it up a little, give it the lived in look

[Donny4472]

Nice looking layout you have there, don't know if its just me but are you going to dirty it up a little, give it the lived in look

 

Hi there.

 

It's a good call. I plan to yeah. Only had it a couple of weeks, so slowly drawing up a list of stuff i'd like to do to it.

 

thanks

 

Ian

[bruced2]

Hi Ian,

Great looking layout there at last you can play trains again lol, It looks like there will be plenty of movement to keep the viewers amused and the operators on there toes. When you bringing it up to the club so we can all get a shot.

 

 

 

Bruce

 

 

[Dunmar]

Hi Ian

Welcome to the club. My airbrush is primed 'let's get dirty' Don't see any L/L 37's anywhere?

Bill.

[Craig Watson]

Looking good Ian:-)

 

Just about to leave Canada and head back to the UK, will catch up when I get back with some goodies in tow and a massive decision modelling wise too;-)

 

Cheers

 

Craig

[gridwatcher]

Ian. It could do with looking abit more modern. I will speak to you at St Andrews and get some photos of Burnaby/New Westminster from our hols out..... Graffiti for a starter! Good on you. Want a guest operator. Si

[pH]

Ian has suggested that I post these pictures here, on his layout thread. They were taken in New Westminster last weekend. Rather than putting them all together (I've got quite a few), I'm going to try to split them up by some kind of themes. First are pictures of industries around the tracks in New West.

 

In the triangle formed by tracks between Vancouver, Coquitlam and New Westminster there is a 'rip' track and small p-way storeyard:

 

Close to that, there is a yard where lumber cars are loaded. The three tracks to the left are BNSF tracks between New West and Vancouver. While BNSF still own them, but they have been leased to Canadian National. The single track on the right is the Canadian Pacific Coquitlam- New Westminster branch.

 

Next, a couple of pictures of Glacier Northwest Canadian Ltd. This handles cement brought in by rail, and trucked out.

 

I only took the next two photos because Ian has a brewery on his layout. The first one shows the roadbed of a short, steeply-graded siding off the BNSF tracks which, until about four years ago, went to a large brewery:

This is the view now, looking the other way from where the last picture was taken. The siding crossed the busy road in the photo below to the brewery which (as you can see) has been demolished and is being redeveloped as housing. The traffic was only inbound covered hoppers, a couple at a time - I don't know what they carried.

 

Fraser River Pile and Dredge, at the east end of New West. This isn't rail-connected, I've just included it to show the sort of businesses along the Fraser River shore:

 

Finally, a couple of boxcars along the loading dock at Kruger Products, who manufacture paper products - tissues, toilet roll etc. The tracks in the foreground, I believe, belong to Canadian Pacific and are used by SRY. However, the track the boxcars are on is Canadian National.

[pH]

Next ‘theme’ is the bridges over the Fraser River at New Westminster between New Westminster and Surrey. It’s hard to get a good shot of all of them, but the first picture, taken from upstream, is of all three. Closest, at the lowest level, is the railroad bridge; behind it is the Patullo road bridge, and furthest away is the cable-stayed Skytrain (rapid transit) bridge.

 

 

The railroad bridge is probably the tightest ‘choke-point’ in the whole railroad system of the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.

 

 

It’s a swing bridge and single track. Of the companies operating in the Lower Mainland, only Westcoast Express doesn’t operate across it. Companies which do cross it are BNSF, CN, CP, SRY, Amtrak and VIA. On the south end, tracks belonging to CN, BNSF and SRY converge. At the north end BNSF and SRY tracks actually join on the bridge – the BNSF is on the left here and the SRY joins from the right.

 

 

CN probably like it least of all the operating companies. They have to go west along the south bank of the river, climb a fairly steep grade and go round a sharp curve on to the bridge (you should hear the wheels squealing), leave the bridge on another sharp curve (more squealing), then go east along the north bank for another mile or so before they can turn again to go towards Vancouver. A bridge across the river at this last point would save CN so much in diesel and wheel wear each year!

 

No one railroad owns the bridge. It was built and is maintained by government.

 

 

Finally – a picture of the Skytrain bridge with a train on it for scale:

 

[pH]

Ian, you asked what types of freight cars would be found around New Westminster. Here’s a small selection from there last Sunday.

 

There were lots of boxcars around – I took pictures of a couple. First is a ‘Catalyst’ hi-cube car with SRY reporting marks. ‘Catalyst’ produce paper products such as newsprint.

 

 

And a CN hi-cube car with DWC (Duluth, Winnipeg and Pacific – a CN subsidiary) reporting marks:

 

 

A centrebeam flat for finished lumber with SRY marks. There are a lot of these (not all SRY) around the Lower Mainland of BC:

 

 

Next, a couple of tank cars. I can’t see what this UNVX car is carrying:

 

 

This TILX car is meant for transporting chlorine:

 

 

A GTW (Grand Trunk Western – CN subsidiary) steel coil car. The cover can be taken off completely for loading/unloading – you’ll see the numbers of the cars it will fit are shown on the end of the hood.

 

 

CSX 2-bay covered hopper. This was taken west of the Fraser River bridge. Covered hoppers in this part of New Westminster are not likely to be carrying grain. Loaded grain hoppers generally turn east off the bridge and head for the elevators on the Vancouver waterfront.

 

 

Finally, an autorack. These are very common in New West. There is a major facility on Annacis Island in the Fraser River for unloading new cars coming from Asia. Only SRY has access to this facility, so they haul long trains of racks off Annacis Island and into the New West yards. There, they are usually handed over to one of the bigger railroads for delivery across the country. If you look at this rack, you will see that the actual flatcar is owned by TTX (formerly TrailerTrain) – the reporting mark is TTGX. However, the structure built on the flat is owned by an individual railroad, in this case CSX. With the number of cars being unloaded on Annacis Island, a lot of autoracks are needed and they come from many railroads. In the same train as that CSX rack, there were racks belonging to CN, CP, UP and TFM.

 

[Donny4472]

Hi Peter

 

The photos are great, and will help me to detail the layout and run correct rolling stock to reflect the area, even though the layout is fictitious. It certainly seems to be a busy area.

 

thanks again

 

Ian D.

[Jon Gwinnett]

CSX 2-bay covered hopper. This was taken west of the Fraser River bridge. Covered hoppers in this part of New Westminster are not likely to be carrying grain. Loaded grain hoppers generally turn east off the bridge and head for the elevators on the Vancouver waterfront.

 

 

I think these shorty covhops are used for heavy high density materials - cement is the obvious example, but there are probably others.

[Jon Gwinnett]

How rude of me. I forgot to thank pH for the pictures - they're great!

[pH]

A few pictures of locomotives used by the freight railroads operating in New Westminster. In addition to these, there are VIA and Amtrak, but their trains don’t run at the time of day I was there. I posted a set of just SRY locomotive pictures above – there are a few more SRY in this set.

 

CN runs more trains here than any of the other railroads – their main transcontinental route passes through New West. Here’s grain empties eastbound behind two CN engines and two from CP. The lead engine is SD60F 5525.

 

 

Here’s a shot of the roof of 5525:

 

 

And another SD60F, 5556:

 

 

I could only get a very distant picture of BNSF power, at their New Westminster depot:

 

 

The other pictures were all of a pair of CP and SRY trains lined up at a fairly busy road crossing , waiting to cross together, so as to minimise inconvenience to road traffic. First is an overall view of the first two locomotives on each train (there was another SD38-2 on the SRY train). They are SD38AC 381 and SD38-2 382 on the SRY train with SD40-2 5914 and GP38AC 3003 on the CP train. An interesting detail is the row of holes on each side of the top of the long hood on 382. I have no idea what those are for – they were there on the other SD38-2 as well:

 

 

A picture of 3003:

 

 

A couple of shots of 381 and 5914. I didn’t realise until I was looking at the photos later, but both these engines have different number fonts in various number boards – an example of ‘prototype for everything’!

 

 

[pH]

The final batch of pictures from New Westminster last weekend. They are just general views of the tracks around New West and their surroundings.

 

First of all, the west end of the town, as far east as the bridge over the Fraser River. Here’s the CP New Westminster branch at the lower level, with the BNSF track climbing above it on the way up to the bridge:

 

 

The BNSF track then curves over the road on a pretty substantial bridge, while the CP track continues at the lower level:

 

 

The BNSF track then curves back over the CP track, onto the bridge. Through the BNSF bridge, you can see the SRY track, coming from downtown New West, curving to join the BNSF track on the bridge:

 

 

Further towards downtown, the SRY track coming down off the bridge (on the left) and the CP branch (on the right):

 

 

Now, the town planning disaster on the New Westminster waterfront. It appears in many pictures of trains in New West:

 

 

It’s a multi-storey carpark that was intended to take parked cars off the main street. However, people prefer to pay for parking meters on the street, and the carpark stays almost empty. It completely overshadows the shops in the street nearest the river:

 

 

Here’s the old CP station, now converted to a restaurant – the main door is on the other side, facing the main street:

 

 

The Southern Railway of British Columbia (SRY) was originally the BC Electric Railway (BCER), an interurban with overhead electrification. This came into (in effect) government ownership under BC Hydro (the local electricity company), and the right-of –way was used in the 1980s to build Skytrain, an elevated, automated light rapid transit system. This followed the Central Park branch of the BC Hydro railway, part of which remained in use into this century. As you can see from this photo, the branch is now out of use. The elevated Skytrain track is on the left.

 

 

Further up the hill, the branch has been paved over, though some rails remain in place:

 

 

Here is the CP yard in New Westminster. It’s very unusual to see it completely empty like this. An SRY trip had taken the last few cars out about 30 minutes earlier, and a CN train arrived in the yard about 30 minutes after I took this picture:

 

 

In the descriptions of an earlier set of pictures, I said that SRY ran long trains of autoracks off Annacis Island into the New West yards. They come over this swing bridge. A barge hit it last month but it seems to be OK. Notice the gradients on to the bridge from either side:

 

 

 

Finally, a couple of general shots to show the background to the tracks – fairly steep hills and lots of trees:

 

 

[Jon Gwinnett]

So inspirational. Must seem odd that the mundane stuff is what gets us modelers going, but its what makes a model convincing. Thank you!

[Donny4472]

Hi Peter

 

Thanks very much for the time and effort to take, and post all these pictures. They are a great reference for giving my layout the feel of the New Westminster area. Not easy when i've never been to Canada. Nice to see others are appreciating your efforts too. Plenty prototypes for smallish layouts there, which is the attraction of Modern US / Canadian modelling for me. So little rail served industry in the UK these days. Pity!

 

much appreciated.

 

Ian D.

[Hugh Flynn]

Hi

Great layout and some great photo,s

Hugh

[G46208]

Hi Ian,

Just back from hols, a very quick 6 weeks , obviously my first views of your pics and may I say looking really good . I think you have saved yourself a lot of time by going ahead with this layout , as we had already said it will give you an excellent basis for further ideas , proves a point , being in the right place at the right time :locomotive: . See you soon, Geo.

[gridwatcher]

Ian. I have some more images that I can dig out for you. Suffice to say that my location for new project is about a mile away from Burnaby.....!? The great thing is lots of overbridges, freeways, Skytrain stuff so you CAN have scenic breaks on a Canadian outline layout. Not sure how we squeeze the SD90MACs in to a small space yet but there will be a way. As it is my CP GPs might fancy a visit.....

[Craig Watson]

Paid Donny4472 a visit today to see his progress on rewiring the layout, also took along my latest project which I'm now trying to get ready for the layout's upcoming outing!

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/23117-craigs-canadian-project/page__st__25

 

Cheers

 

Craig

[Donny4472]

Layout Update

 

As Craig touched upon, the layout is having it's 1st public outing as New Westminster at our club exhibition (Bonnybridge & District MRC) on 1st / 2nd October.

In preparation for this i've carried out various wiring mods so the layout is now DCC only. It could previous run both DC & DCC. I've almost complete new lighting, with just a coat of paint to go. See photos.

 

 

 

 

I've used 30W strip lights with diffusers, as i wanted a subtle lighting for the layout. It looks very bright in the photos, but isn't in reality. Very enegy efficient too, for us environmentally minded types.

 

Once all work is complete i'll post some shots of layout at the exhibition.

 

thanks

 

Donny

[Craig Watson]

The lights look good, having seen them in the flesh they're not to bright either.

 

Had an enjoyable running session on the layout this afternoon which has flagged up a few issues such as kadee's needing slight adjustment and no overheight boxcars allowed in one siding!!

 

Some pics from today,

 

CP MP15AC Switching the grain siding.

 

Another CP switch job delivering boxcars, no excess height cars allowed!!

 

Cross town transfer job.

 

Two boxcars await their next job in the brewery siding.

 

Cheers

 

Craig

[bruced2]

Hi Ian, Looking good there nice to see some stock shunting about cant wait to see it in the flesh.

 

Bruce

[Craig Watson]

With the layout being exhibited at Bonnybridge this weekend I've been working on a few locos which will be appearing over the weekend, Ian has also been busy chipping various locos!

 

My stuff can be seen on my own thread, http://www.rmweb.co....__gopid__495161

 

Cheers

 

Craig