Canadian Project: The Chester Sub...

I've been enjoying day dreaming about a larger model railway for some time, on and off this has been a UK based GWR Branchline or more recently an extensive Industrial setting. It's currently focused on what might be achieved with a Canadian focus...

This is the beginning of exploring just one of a few ideas I have, but I thought I would share the conceptual design stage, and some of the enjoyable, if sometimes frustrating research that goes into a 'proto-freelanced' project. So above, we have a Google Earth screen shot of Halifax today, well whenever they paid for the overhead photos, so recent. The Chester Sub, was the remains of the CN (well it can be traced right back even further than that to the Halifax and South Western) branch to Yarmouth down the rocky south easterly shore of Nova Scotia. This remained in place to serve customers at Lakeside and Bayers Lake industrial parks, and I've shown the route above. The line crossed a fair few busy roads as it meandered through the suburbs, and in the end was deemed for abandonment in the early noughties. An interesting comment I found in a book was that trains used to reverse from Rockingham Yard down to South Western junction before traversing the sub, although that was referencing when it was open down to Bridgewater and the Michelin tyre factory.

My concept for a short switching line ties the industries and customers at the end of the sub. I'm not sure yet whether the track plan will need adjustment, or whether indeed it may be straightened, shortened, or mixed about a bit, but it's getting ideas down on paper that can help the creative process, so it's very very much a first draft. These days though technology allows me to easily bring in screen shots of Google street view etc to help paint a picture of what I'm envisaging which going forwards helps to formulate the layout concept and move towards a 3D design sketch of various elements. If this does indeed progress, you can expect to read more on the idea, but in the meantime, this process is something I have done for customers the past, working with them to develop a plausible back story and layout design, illustrated with 3D sketches, and provided with an accurate scaled track plan. Get in touch if you're interested. In the meantime, more soon...