2014-June - Preparing the harbour

A major feature of these modules is a rail ferry, the connection to the outside world (also functions as staging and/or fiddle yard).  Since the layout is assumed to be based roughly on the Esquimalt & Nanaimo (but with the studied-but-never-pursued option of a bridge from northern Vancouver Island to the mainland and link up to the transcontinental mainlines) these modules will represent Nanaimo as the mid-point on the Vancouver Island line.

The real present-day rail ferry in Nanaimo can be seen on Google Maps (49.165,-123.929). It actually looks fairly similar to what I have on the layout, although that wasn't intentional (I hadn't decided this should be Nanaimo at the time of track planning).

I used the recently re-released Walthers Rail Barge (933-3152) and matching Car Float Apron (933-3068), and also the Railroad Tugboat (933-3153). The barge is large kit but easily assembled. And really needs a coat of paint, looks very plastic!

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(yes, that's a VHS tape, it's the perfect thickness to support the bridge during test fitting)

For the harbour section I cut out the Styrofoam at about a 45-degree angle before I glued it down. The rest of the foam I had glued the plywood with contact cement. Test-fitting the barge and apron on the layout:


Now to prepare the water area. I painted over with some primer and almost-black paint that were lying around, and that already made it look much better than bare plywood. A few more coats of paint in various shades of blue and green made it look a little more watery, but the overall effect is still of very dark water.


I wanted a rip-rap shoreline, and I had a bag of gravel that looked just about right.


It's a fairly laborious process since you have to place each stone individually for it to look right, but once done the effect is quite nice.


The holes you see above are for the wood pilings, which I made from 1/8" dowel, roughed up with a hacksaw blade to give some grain. Seven of them bundle together just perfectly to fit in a 3/8" hole. I used either my smallest spring clamps or rubber bands to hold them together while the glue dried.



With all the pilings and stone in place it's starting to look like a harbour


To make the water I simply dabbed ModPodge gloss medium over the whole area using a foam brush with a wedge tip. After spreading the ModPodge over the whole area I pushed the foam brush firmly into the wet medium and lifted off vertically, leaving a raised line from the centre of the brush where it last made contact with the surface. Just dab and repeat in lines parallel to the shoreline and you get the effect of waves and generally ripply surface. Very easy to do and looks good when dry.


I didn't put much coverage under where the barge would go because nobody will see it.




I ended up putting down probably 7 or 8 layers of ModPodge to build up the gloss and texture. I'm happy with how it turned out.

2014-May - Getting the track plan onto the layout

Now it's time to transfer the track plan to the layout.


I drew a grid on the Styrofoam, 12" grid in red and 3" grid in black.


I printed out the track plan from XtrkCAD full-size on regular letter-size paper, with the option of location markers selected. I laid the track plan pages onto the layout and stuck a straight pin in each location crosshair and made sure it lined up on the corresponding grid line on the styrofoam. It worked quite well.


Then came the painstaking process of poking the straight pin through the track centreline every centimeter or so to create a line of pinprick dots in the foam. After removing the paper track plan I put a dot with a blue Sharpie in every pinprick, and then connected all the dots to end up with all my track center lines readily visible.

2014-April - Benchwork

Once the track planning was done, it's time for benchwork. At the time I was a strong believer in heavy-duty construction, so everything is 3/4" plywood. As time went by and I had to move these around a little, I see weight can be a consideration. Check out the 2016 posts for updates on that front.


I got my local hardware store to cut the plywood to 70.5"x32" (add on a 3/4" end plate to each end and you have the 72" module length). From the leftovers I ripped the 4.25" longitudinals and 24"x6" end plates.


Everything is screw-assembled with angle brackets. Which is great if you need to disassemble it to move things, and did come in handy once, but it's a lot more work (and weight) than glue.


Add on a layer of 1" styrofoam on top and the basic table is complete

Catching Up

I have been traveling a lot in the last 5 years so not a whole lot of opportunity for model railroad progress. However, I have also been lax in my updates here, there has been a little more progress than 3 years of not-posting would indicate.

I have been taking photos along the way, and I will attempt to catch up current progress in with a number of photos and a few comments along the way.