Great Canadian Model Railroad in Northern Ireland: The Killigan Valley Sub.

So far, I’ve featured two Great Canadian Model Railroads in Australia (Andreas Keller's Fergus Sub., and the Thompson River Canyon down under) and one in the United Kingdom (Chris Round's Stoney Hill). 

Now here’s one in Northern Ireland: Gareth McLaughlin's Killigan Valley Sub.

The 17 by 12 foot around-the-walls layout is named after the area where Gareth lives. 

It features CP, SOO, CN and VIA, although BC Rail, Grant Trunk, GO Transit and Cape Breton & Nova Scotia units, along with locomotives and rolling stock from Irish railways, also make appearances.

Freight cars come from many manufacturers, but the main source of locomotives are Rapido, Bowser and Intermountain.

Gareth's favourite train is Rapido's "The Canadian" in Via Rail. He uses Lenz DCC to run the trains.

The layout can be run as a loop, if Gareth just wants to relax and watch the trains, or he can do switching in the yard as trains drop off or pick up cars from or to local customers.

The entire layout is scenicked. Gareth says he’s not that good at scenery, but I think he’s done a good job.

Gareth got hooked on Canadian railways during a visit to relatives Vancouver in 1996. He tries to get back to Canada every five years or so to see a few trains and keep motivated.

He also built a 17 by 2 foot O scale layout he can take to shows. Called Avonlea, it takes its name from a visit he made to Prince Edward Island. It is based on the classic John Allen timesaver plan.

I’ve always wanted to visit Ireland; now I have another reason to go—the Killigan Valley Sub.!

You can see more photos of Gareth's Killigan Valley Sub. on his Flickr page.

Photo of a VIA Rail High-Speed Train? I Wish.

I was visiting OKthePK—one of my favourite Canadian railway news websites—when I spotted this photo.

The image, Photoshopped by an anonymous designer from a photo of a Hitachi class 395 at London's St. Pancras Station, accompanied a story about a dedicated passenger rail line in Quebec City-Windsor corridor.

The article quoted VIA Rail CEO Yves Desjardins-Siciliano as saying that "it's a definite possibility, meaning that we are acquiring track as it becomes available in the corridor."

He went on to say that he believes he can raise private capital to fund the purchase of track.

Currently, 98 percent of VIA's trains run on CN or CPR tracks, meaning that passenger trains take second place to freight trains.

As a result, VIA’s on-time performance declined last year to about 77 percent because of increased freight traffic, Desjardins-Siciliano said.

Desjardins-Siciliano estimated that a high-speed train in the corridor would require upwards of $3.5 billion for the track and right-of-way alone. 

A full high-speed network with trainsets like the ones in the photo above would cost three times as much—something that isn't in the cards.

Which means that the only thing we Canadians can do is look at the photo and dream.

Forest Products Train on the Manitoba & Minnesota Sub.

It's a pretty common sight here on the prairies: Long trains of bulkhead flatcars and boxcars headed east loaded with lumber from B.C.

Since I model a line which features trains running from western Canada down to the U.S. heartland (based on the historic Duluth, Winnipeg & Pacific, now CN), I needed to have a train like that on the M & M Sub.

My unit forest products train is in keeping with my overall philosophy of simplicity and plausibility. That's why it doesn't bother me to use MDC 60 foot flats (not prototypically correct, I know) or lumber loads with the loads painted on them.

(Darned if I can remember who made those loads, though. There is no name on them. They were pretty easy to find up here in Canada in the 1990s. Anyone know the manufacturer?)

The train also contains Proto 1000 and Walthers Thrall All-Door boxcars, and one or two from other makers, too.

On the M & M Sub., the train comes from Winnipeg (upper level staging) and winds its way down to Duluth/Superior on the lower level.

Upon arrival, the loads are removed and its ready to head back to B.C. to get more lumber for those home-hungry Americans.

Which is a good thing; when loaded, the 18-car train is heavy. It's much easier for it to go down that way than up.

The forest products train is one of five unit trains that operate on the M & M Sub.: Forest products plus a double-stack, two grain trains, and a coal train.

To me, it looks fine. For anyone who is bothered, I can only say: Stand back three feet and enjoy the view!

Jim Hediger's Ohio Southern: 35th Anniversary of a Landmark Layout

2015 marks the 35th anniversary of one of North America’s seminal layouts: Jim Hediger’s Ohio Southern.

Today, when double-deck layouts are so common, it’s hard to remember a time before anyone thought they were possible—much less building them.

Hediger was the first, as far as anyone knows, to build a double-deck layout. 

He started construction of the OS in 1980. Many of the techniques we take for granted today were developed by him.

When I was planning the Manitoba & Minnesota Sub., the OS was my inspiration. I read and re-read articles about it. 

So it is only fitting to highlight and celebrate this pioneering and landmark layout on my blog.

The OS has been featured several times in Model Railroader magazine, where Hediger worked as an editor for many years, most recently in 2005 on the occasion of the 25th anniversary.

The layout doesn’t have a website. The photos in this post were lifted from back issues of Model Railroader, a few were found on the Web.

As for the layout itself, it is in an 22 by 28 foot L-shaped room and modelled after the real-life Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railroad. The locale is southern Ohio, and the era is the early 1970s.

The mainline run is 220 feet, and the two levels are connected by a helix (also a novel thing 35 years ago) and staging yards (probably also novel back then). 

Of special note for me is that Hediger still uses DC to power the layout, with walk-around throttles—just like on the M & M Sub.!

So thanks, Jim, for the inspiration and the ideas. The M & M Sub. wouldn’t exist if not for you.

More photos of the Ohio Southern can be found on this Model Railroader layout tour page.

An Interesting Way to Use the CP Rail Multimark

So here’s an interesting way to use the CP Rail Multimark, also known colloquially as the “Pacman.”

It was developed by a model railroader named Lance who operates a blog called Northwest to Southern Cross. 

In a blog post in 2009, he wrote that he started a new freelance model railroad called the Cascade Railway.

The fictitious line was a bridge road located in the Pacific Northwest, connecting western Washington with south central Oregon. Like Montana Rail Link, the Cascade Railway would operate it's own freight trains and locals, but would also host long distance trains of the Burlington Northern.

Home road power had two paint schemes. The first was a version of the Canadian Pacific grey & maroon (the original scheme).

The second was a modern scheme, a bright red and black with a modern logo—similar to how the CPR became CP Rail. The logo represented a volcanic mountain in front of a full moon—the well-known Multimark on its side.

The layout was completed to a stage where operating sessions were held every month or two. Just before scenery stage, he tore it down. Now he's working on a new layout featuring Australian railways (the "southern cross" in the blog title.) 

I don't know; for this CP Rail modeller, seeing the Multimark used this way takes a little getting used to. But it looks good, and conveys the idea Lance was trying to communicate. Maybe the real CP Rail should have thought of doing it that way!

Click here to learn more about the history and uses of the Multimark.