Page 32 - NMRA Roundhouse September October 2020

Columbia & Western Railway
Mike Dobson
CP 4065 Fairbanks Morse C Liner CFA 16 4 prototype locomotive built in May 1951 - photos by Mike Dobson
MODELLING ARTICLE
Ihave my maternal grandparents to Returning to the UK, the usual reasons Canadian models, it became apparent
thank for initiating my fascination with Canadian railways and British Columbia in particular. They gave
me, then just a 7 year old with a circle of O gauge Hornby clockwork, a copy of Ian Allan’s Trains Annual for 1953, which I still have. On page 26 is a photo of three Canadian Pacific Railway Selkirk 2-10-4’s between the spiral tunnels, as they blasted up the 1 in 40 to Kicking Horse Pass and the Great Divide, at a summit of over 5,300 ft.
A few small OO model railways were attempted in my box-room in my child- hood years, but nothing reached much beyond bare track. My first interest in O scale was aroused when, having recent- ly married and emigrated to Canada,
we ‘accidentally’ stumbled across the 1970 Toronto model railroad exhibition where there was a layout featuring some recently released Rivarossi North Amer- ican O scale models. This was the first time I had witnessed a significant O scale layout that not only featured realistic couplers and operations, but was also relatively affordable. Their model range even included an FM C-Liner, often asso- ciated with the CPR in British Columbia. As we were only intending to stay for
3 years in small apartments, modelling continued to stay on the back-burner, but my interest in the CPR was fur-
ther enhanced by a surprise Christmas present from my wife of Pierre Berton’s magnificent 2 volumes about its epic construction, as of course was being surrounded on a daily basis by a contin- uous procession of seemingly endless freight trains.
(plus an additional 2 family members) again prevented any further significant modelling, but at last a chance sighting of a NMRA BR HO modular group (in a local car showroom of all places), result- ed in my then teenage son and I joining them and building our own module.
While Kicking Horse Pass itself was out of the question of course, CPR’s sec- ondary mainline through the Crowsnest looked promising. In particular their Boundary Sub-Division was home to most of CPR’s C-Liners in the 1950s, the period I was keen to model with still a lot of steam about generally.The Great Northern Railroad also featured promi- nently, particularly useful as GN O scale models were more numerous.
While waiting for a move to a more suitable house, a small 16’ switching layout was built, Kettle Landing, featuring a fictitious rail/barge operation, to test out some of the techniques planned
to be put to good use (or not) in the new home. It was shown at a couple of NMRA(BR) Annual Conventions, and helped clarify my thinking about many wishes for my new layout.
Over the years I had given much thought to this, and had devoured many books and magazines, from both sides of the Atlantic. John Armstrong’s book,Track Planning for Realistic Operation, in particular described in great detail many operational scenarios including Helpers, Head-End and Passenger Car Switching, etc, which further whetted my appetite. With the continuing scarcity of suitable
that a fictitious model would have to suf- fice, so the name Columbia & Western Railway was chosen, which was the first railway of any note in the Boundary area, but in my version of history it remained independent, supposedly using some of my ‘foreign’ models until more appropri- ate CPR models became available.
The search for a suitable room for me, with a property attached for the family, culminated in the inevitable compromise, in the shape of an aging bungalow back- ing onto a hillside, above a smallish, low basement at one end, and an attached garage at the other. Once the bungalow had been modernised, it was time to further excavate the downstairs accom- modation, resulting in a basement approx 42’ x 12’ (max) connected at one end to a garage approx 15’ x 15’.
ROUNDHOUSE - September/October 2020 - 75th Anniversary Issue
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