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The following are photos from June to October 2007 of the construction of the Windsor & Midwestern layout. Other pages of photos from the W&M layout can be found on the following pages: Ian D. has been taking photos of the progress from day one. You can view his photos here
* NOTE: The larger images will not load until all the thumbnails have finished loading * |
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 30, 2007
It is official, the Windsor and Midwestern Railway Company is born. Geoff did some lettering and weathering on
the small bridge next to the Cement Plant. The scene is a long way from finished, but every small step forward
is great.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 30, 2007
The first building has made its appearence on the WMRC. This is the power plant that serves the cement plant and
nearby town. The raised section behind the plant is for the coal unloading chute.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 30, 2007
The spline is finished for the coal branch climb. Sanding and cork are next, with ties for hand laid track soon to
follow. You can see WMRC GP38-2 100 posed with a coal train on the helper siding in the background as well.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 30, 2007
The spline for the coal branch at the other end of the south wall is also in place and awaiting sanding. The area
between the corners will be flat and have a coal mine, small town, small yard and a wye. The sub-roadbed here
will be made of 1/2" plywood.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 30, 2007
This is WMRC GP38-2 #100 posing on the helper siding with a string of loaded coal hoppers. I look forward to the
day it can be Running instead of posing!
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 23, 2007
The spline is nearly finished for the coal branch climb. The clamps will soon come off and the sanding will begin.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 23, 2007
Some of the hard working Benchwork Crew taking a much deserved break. This is the fifth leg of the layout and is
main mountainous scenes. The main line has reached its summit and is starting back down gradually, while the coal
branch will start a gradual raise to meet the main at an interchange yard on the fourth leg. The benchwork for
phase 1 is basically finished now. The other teams have some catching up to do. Track work isn't far behind, as we
hope to have a functional loop before christmas.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 23, 2007
This is the coal branch bridge being test fit. The WMRC Main Line crosses over a large trestle here with this small
branch line bridge under it. There will be a small roadway bridge over the river here as well.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 23, 2007
The pink insulation foam is the beginnings of a coal ramp for the power plant. There will be a hopper for dumping
coal into under the tracks here with a conveyor into the power plant.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 23, 2007
The first section of backdrop has been put up. This is the divider between the north and south stagging yards. We
are starting to get the backdrop in place so we can begin some of the preliminary scenery work.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 20, 2007
The support brackets and risers are now in place for the coal branch as it climbs from its hidden stagging yard
to the first coal mine.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 17, 2007
The riverbed next to the cement plant is really starting to take shape now. The stone work on the bridge
abutments was carved into the plaster base and then given serveral washes of black paint. The river bed and
banks are also plaster with serveral washes of brown and black paint. This is only the base coats of paint,
there is still a lot of work to be done before this scene will be finished, but it is nice to see some colour
appearing on the layout!
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 17, 2007
The cork roadbed has been glued down and painted from the helper pocket at the bottom of the grade to almost the
top of the grade. We have also started laying track along this section. This is the mainline track in the helper
siding at the base of the grade. The siding track will be added soon.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 17, 2007
This shot is looking south up the 2.5% grade to Summit (actual place names have not been decided yet, but we
always refer to the top of the grade as Summit, go figure) This also shows the process of building sub-roadbed
using spline. At the top of the picture you can see bare spline, still clamped to let the glue dry, as you follow
the spline toward the bottom of the picture, you can see the sanded spline with no clamps, the painted cork glued
down, and finally, the track glued down. Track weathering, ballasting and scenery are still a long ways off.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 17, 2007
Welcome to 'Summit', the highest point on the railroad. This curve is about 6.5" above the staging yards and climbs
a 2.5% grade to get here. The grade south of here is a much more reasonable .75% and starts at about the fourth
clamp from the left. You'll notice we've used '7' shaped risers around this corner, this is to provide more room
for the coal branch track that runs through a tunel around this corner underneath the main line.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 17, 2007
This shot illustrates how we are creating super-elevated curves. For those of you un-sure what I mean by that,
a super-elevated curve is one where the rail on the outside of the curve is higher than the rail on the inside.
This is a prototype practice with a number of benefits including faster train speeds, more comfortable ride and
less track maintainance. The benefits to the model railroad are mainly cosmet, but those large three axle engines
are less likely to jump the track. We super-elevated the outside rail be glueing a piece of strip styrene between
the cork and ties under the rail. You can see the white styrene strip under the bottom rail in the picture. We
used .020" styrene, which is about 2" of elevation. Prototype super-elevation can be over 4" depending on train
speeds.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 9, 2007
Spline work on the Helper Grade along the south wall of the room is nearly done. We put in over 20' of risers and
spline in one evening. Using spline made it very easy to incorporate gental curves in the track work. The next
step is to screw the spline to the risers and then sand the top of it smooth. Cork and track will be going on
soon!
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 9, 2007
This shot shows the small bridge between the South Staging yard and the Cement Plant being test fit. More plaster
work and carving needs to be done before this section will be ready for paint.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 8, 2007
The first section of spline sub-roadbed leading from the branchline staging yard under the large bridge is now
in place. Part of the spline will be cutout to make room for a small bridge over the river but under the large
main bridge. We started this section of spline so that the scenery team could start creating the river bed and
gorge walls.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 8, 2007
This picture shows the spline for the siding track being added to the main line spline. We first glue the inside
pieces for spline in place and then glue more layers on working our way to the outside untill the sub-roadbed is
wide enough for the tracks. It is time consuming, but gives very nice curves and lots of flexability for scenery.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 2, 2007
We used cloth dipped in plaster to create the sides and bottom of the river bed. Wood blocks were positioned
to support the bridge. The wood blocks were then covered with plaster and will be shaped to look like the bridge
supports.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 2, 2007
This is the main line sub-roadbed extending north from the cement plant around the bend. After the spline was
completely dry, the clamps were removed and screws were put in to secure the spline to the risers. The top of the
spline is not very flat, so a handheld belt sander was used to smooth out the top. We ordered a large roll of
cork and cut it into strips to make roadbed. 2" wide strips are used on the straight sections of track and 1" wide
strips are used in the corners because they bend easier. The cork is glued to the spline.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 2, 2007
We put some of the risers in for the helper siding curve. First we roughly drew the track centerline on the
cross supports to have a general idea where the track would go. Next we attached the risers along the centerline.
We messured the run between risers and calculated how much rise was needed for our grade. Once the risers were
in place, we clamped some spline together to determine the actual curve. We put screws into the top of the risers
along the inside of the curve and build the spline out from that. One of the nice things about spline is that it
creates easments by it self. In this picture the mainline spline is glued, but the siding track is not done yet.
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 Photo By: Fred Jr. |
October 2, 2007
The tables and supports for the branch line staging yard are done and in place. The tables for the staging yard are
not attached yet so we can lay the track before putting them in. This will make doing the track work much easier
than trying to reach into that narrow gap. The branch line runs from this staging yard, under the WMRC main line
twice and will interchange with the WMRC on the fourth leg of the layout. The branch line is mainly a coal line.
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