Switching the Vancouver Wharves Layout

CP switcher crews confer - both of these switch jobs on my Vancouver Wharves HO scale layout use Proto S-3 locomotives and True Line Trains end-cupola vans. SOOB in both cases - Straight Out Of Box! This area of my 1970-76 Vancouver waterfront-based layout (right side of overhead composite view - below) has spurs serving Dominion Bridge, Shell Oil, Fairbanks-Morse, Pacific Produce and Fisherman's Co-op Federation

Graphics guru Randy O'Brien kindly shared his unique version of my overhead composite photo of my layout. He added two things - a modern logo and look closely! The second thing...like brickwork! Thanks, Randy! Meanwhile, back trackside, workers on the loading dock of the Fisherman's Co-op plant are waiting for my spray-painted and decalled loaded CN eight Athearn four-hatch reefer to be lifted.

CP S-3 6528 arrives to work the spur.

Strangely-unmoved, the fellows seem non-plussed. They should be extremely excited that Expo 86-bedecked CN 557417 loaded with tin cans has just been spotted! Especially because this is the early 70's, not 1986!

Next door, sharing the lead with loads of fish are inbound loads of produce at Pacific Produce. Three Athearn 50- and 40-footers. An NADX weathered plug-door boxcar (spoiler alert - the other side is completely unweathered, depending on my mood I can turn the car to see the desired side - usually the weathered, rusted side)!

Now 6528 is here to lift the trio:

In their place, BN 751044 is spotted. This is my hommage to a Burlington Northern 7510xx-series mechanical reefer-turned-cryogenic car, lightly-weathered. (These cars will be the subject of an upcoming post.) Check out the office, trucks and trailers in the lot, and the generalized, grey colour of the retaining wall - intentionally colour-blended.

Proceeding past Fairbanks-Morse, 6528 brings a load of I-beams in an AC gon (subject of another upcoming post!) for Dominion Bridge, where a Burlington Northern gon of scrap gears and machinery are ready for lifting. Two DW&P/CN double-door boxcars of lumber tag along, heading to Overseas Commodities for export.

Two loads of coal are spotted to fuel Fairbanks-Morse's fiery furnaces. Now, 6528 passes the section gang with two loads of Shell oil.

Watch for an upcoming post on a new industrial spur I've added, finally making Maple Leaf rail-served!

Another visitor from the future - CN, ex-PC X72 series boxcar (subject of yet another upcoming post!) The taggers have struck:

Running extra...

Protoswitching - fast Facebook friend Shaun Hennessy caught CN's Belleville-Cobourg roadswitcher switching Cameco in Port Hope, plus the plastics and pallet plants in Cobourg on video. A centre-beam full of skid feedstock shows that the plant is not on the skids!

Mindheiming - my own business. Looking at these scenes through the LCD display, I was thinking of Lance Mindheim's tenets and traits of realistic layouts. But I realized I can't indulge myself or Trackside Treasure readers in the luxury of modelling someone else's layout. No, this is my version of Vancouver, presented in my own inimitable style. Realistic enough for me and fun to operate!

Televisioning - during Obama's final #SOTU last night I winced at the usual partisan applause; while Gervasing the Golden Globes I guffawed at Ferrell and Wahlberg; last weekend Wahlberg appeared with Clooney and Ice Cube in Three Kings; Ice Cube and Kevin Hart did a ride-along on the Bachelor. But Obama's hour-long address trumped all. Was it really 2009 when we had the slow roll?