The New, New Project

Wall showing faux finish and blue paint

Having moved out of my apartment within the last year (I write about it here), I have now embarked upon a new model railroading project. The Love of my Life, not only gave me a bedroom to use but redecorated it as well. She redid the walls in a faux finish and painted them in a nice blue shade for a sky backdrop. You can see an example on the right.

This is a wonderful space in which to build a layout, a blank canvas on which to create. I made several plans using the Goderich concept that I was using at the apartment but I found the space did not lend itself to that idea very well. So I thought about what kind of layout I would like to build. I’ve always liked the concept of an urban layout, built in a big city. I’ve also been attracted to Toronto’s Union Station with its busy schedule of trains arriving and departing from under the train shed.

I drew some designs using RailModeller Pro for the Mac and they worked. I went through several revisions and came up with one that I really liked. I’m using the same era from my earlier projects, the early 1960s, since I like the diesels and colour schemes from that era. It also allows a nice mix of railways since Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, Ontario Northland and New York Central/Toronto Hamilton & Buffalo, all had trains which used Union Station. I also included some freight switching of the Toronto harbour area, plus express freight and trucks-on-flatcars (aka piggyback) operations.

Then I planned out what I would need for tables. My IKEA shelving units wouldn’t serve for this project so they will be repurposed for storage (after all, that’s what they’re designed for). I designed all new tables for this project.

I will be detailing the construction in future posts so stay tuned.

Finished room with my supervisors Tolkien and Dave the Minion