An Idea - CPR North Toronto Team Tracks

After quite a while thinking over numerous aspects of the hobby, and spending a while on layout design, both in terms of type of layout and location to be modeled, I've finally arrived at a plan that I think will work and serve my purposes for a layout quite well. This location modeled, the North Toronto CP Rail team tracks, will allow me to have some limited operation and an interesting layout, while the layout design is practical to fit in what space I have, thanks to the Model Railroad to Go concept. Over the last week or so, I've drawn up plans of the prototype location in google maps, made a track plan on my online prototype map, and most recently, I've drafted a paper plan for the actual layout as I plan to construct it.

Before I elaborate on the aforementioned layout plan, there have been some rather noticeable changes made to this blog. I had grown somewhat frustrated with the typical blogger layout that this blog has used for over a year now, which I've found to be rather an awkward blog design to work with and somewhat prone to failures of the blog sidebar. I have now updated the blog to a different design that will hopefully work better than the previous design. I also updated the blog description to better coincide with my current projects, as the previous blog description was from about seven months ago and had become rather out of date. However, the current blog design is certainly not set in stone, and if you, the reader, don't like the changes, feel free to comment and say so, and I might change it back.

As described two posts ago, my focus for the layout that I have been planning was big-city switching operations in the late 1970's on CP Rail. The primary candidate for a city to model was, in my opinion, Toronto, in large part because of the copious amount of information and photographs available online about the CPR Toronto terminals on the Old Time Trains website. Not living in Canada, the availability of information online was a deciding factor in choosing a location to model, and as Toronto was well documented, it was the logical choice to base a layout off of.

Once I had decided on a city to model, the next task was to find a suitable specific location to model. In the end, a narrowed my options down to two areas of Toronto - first, the CPR's facilities at the end of Bathurst Street near Lake Ontario, or a set of team tracks located near Yonge Street and the Summerhill TTC Subway station. I eventually decided on the North Toronto team tracks as the best prototype location to model. Perhaps the main reason that I decided on this location is this photo, an overview of the team track area circa 1959. The entire prototype is fairly compact and concentrated - so a layout based on this location could be near scale size and still be a manageable layout to construct and store. Later, after making an online map of the prototype track arrangements overlaid on an actual map of the area, I determined that the main part of the layout - the team tracks themselves - could be modeled at eighty percent of full length - a relatively small compression of the actual length, at least by model railroad standards.

 The above, at least to the best of my knowledge, is the track arrangement of the North Toronto team tracks, as they were in the mid to late 1970's. I also labeled a few important features on the map, and boxed in the area that will be built as part of my layout. (You can also view the original map here). Typically, I only work on layout design on paper, but in this case it was helpful to work on the computer off of an actual map of the area.

As you can see, the layout will be divided into two sections with a dog-leg shape, as well as a short, detachable staging section. The entire layout is meant to be portable - and fairly close to full scale. On the actual layout, the section labelled as the 'B' section will be 54 inches long, while the ' section will be roughly 42 inches long, making the total length of the scenicked layout sections eight feet long. The staging area will serve as a switching lead for the layout and will be three feet long. The reasoning behind these section lengths is mostly a result of the fact that I already have constructed a 54 inch long benchwork section - so it makes little sense to take that apart, especially considering that 54 inches of real length scales out fairy close to the length of the prototype area.

(While working on the online map of the North Toronto team tracks, my cat decided that I urgently needed help. How we mange to get anything done with pets around always amazes me.)

Two days ago, I finally drafted a paper version of the plan for my next layout. The width of the layout sections is 14 inches, while the dog-leg between the two main sections is set at an angle of ten degrees. This feature isn't there to match prototype track arrangements - as the whole prototype area was made up of straight, parallel, tracks - but rather to provide some sort of strength to what would otherwise be a long and narrow, and not very stable layout. This feature takes on more importance as the layout is designed to be portable, and thus taken down and set up fairly often. I also plan to operate the layout mostly as an island, rather than pushed up against a wall, which takes away another source of support for the layout.

The layout would have nothing particularly of note in terms of scenery. Most of the 'B' module (that is, the one further away from the staging area) would be covered in pavement in the around the tracks for loading and unloading freight, while the tracks themselves would be covered with a mix of dirt and cinder ballast, as well as weeds. There is also a brick warehouse at the end of the tracks, which is, as far as I can tell, the only building in the modeled area. I'm planning to scratchbuild that structure so that it can easily be removed from the layout when the layout is being transported or stored. As of yet, I don't know what the ownership of this building was, though I would guess it was either owned by Canada Builders Material, a frequent customer at the team tracks, or owned by the railway itself. The other layout section would likely consist of more pavement and some scrub area. I don't know if there were any other buildings located in that area on the prototype, though on my layout I will probably add a railway owned shed or two.

Operations on the layout would be fairly simple - an ALCO switcher would leave staging with a few cars, switch the team tracks, and depart. By the modeled era, there would not be a great deal of operational action, which is fine, in my opinion, as I don't have many freight cars appropriate to the era and I'm not a fan of complex operations anyway. One would most likely use one of the team tracks as a storage track during operations, given the limited space and trackage available to work with.

Now that I have a plan for my next layout, I'd like to start working on it fairly soon. Next weekend, as I have Monday off from school, seems like a fairly good time to start working on benchwork for this layout. Other than that, I have no immediate plans for the hobby, though it's quite nice to finally have a usable plan to work with - a situation I haven't found myself in for eight months or so.