Extra 4104 East, the daily eastbound wayfreight, is grinding upgrade at Lafferty with chips and cut lumber from the mills of Grand Forks and Midway (left). Pusher Extra 4052 East pauses on the siding at Lafferty (above). On the Boundary Subdivision in 1970, Fair- banks-Morse opposed-piston engines reigned supreme and would for a few more years.
B.C. I steadily became more interested in modeling the Boundary as it existed in 1967-1974 when Nelson was home to Fairbanks-Morse C-Liners,
H-16-44’s
and Train Masters. In that period the lo- cos were a colorful mix of Action Red and Tuscan Red and gray paint schemes. In 2000 I began the design, gathering pro- totype track and bridge plans, but con- struction was still a half-decade away.
The design
I began the design by clarifying my personal objectives. First, I am a design- er at heart and enjoy solving problems and seeing people interact with the so- lutions. I wanted a layout which would
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
be very enjoyable for others to operate. Second, model railroading is a hobby for me and I want it to be relaxing. I want- ed a relaxed operating scheme where trains move at a leisurely pace, high- lighting the engineering and operating challenges caused by the geography. I listed the three mandatory design ele- ments as the climb up and down Farron Pass through the Monashee Mountains, the Slocan Lake rail barge operation, and the division point of Nelson on the shores of Kootenay Lake. The layout would occupy most of our two-car garage. After establishing a 36″ minimum aisle width, I began sketch- ing a double deck, around-the-walls- with-peninsula design, which would provide a “sincere”–once-through-every- scene–mainline.
This arrangement
would require a gate (no duck under) for entry into the layout, but Vancou- ver has a temperate climate so I rea- soned a gate, if well constructed, would be an acceptable risk for the significant improvement in run length.
Between 1967 and 1974 the Bound-
ary Sub principally served the wood products industry: wood chips hauled in chip gondolas and lumber and pulp transported in a sea of CP 40-foot box- cars. And, in this timeframe the rail barge was still used to reach the isolat- ed Kaslo Subdivision! I made a list of the prototype trains that ran in that pe- riod and was surprised by the operating diversity. In addition to daily way- freights on the Boundary,
“hotshot”
freights would run through Nelson and Castlegar to the giant Cominco smelter and fertilizer operations near Trail, B.C., a daily “Kraft Switcher” job ran to the Celgar Kraft mill complex west of Castlegar, and, of course, the Slocan/ Nakusp wayfreight would amble up the isolated Slocan and Kaslo branches us- ing the Slocan lake barge. Dr. Bruce Chubb’s book, How to Op- erate your Model Railroad, introduced me to stringline diagrams, and I often used them for arm chair designs. I cre- ated a stringline with a fast clock rate
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