July 2025

paddleriver
Jul 23
11 min read

July 17 2025

The first half of the month has been busy. Daniel was home for a little over a week, arriving June 28. Nicholas arrived the next day, for a 4 day stay. Their pace made my head spin. There is simply no way I could keep up with all the things they manage to cram into their day. It was a great visit and we were so happy to see them again.

Nicholas headed back to Ontario with 2 giant bags stuffed full, consisting of almost all the stuff he hadn’t been able to cram into his car.. It boggles the mind that it is cheaper to pay airline fees for oversize/over weight luggage than to ship using more traditional methods.

Shortly after Nicholas left, a number of Daniel's friends arrived for Stampede. Two of them were long time friends from McMurray, while a third was a former room mate from Austin. One evening added a handful of additional dinner companions, all friends from his university F1 team. It was a whirlwind of people coming and going, with so much going on it was hard to keep track, and then suddenly, it was just Marie and I again.

Christine successfully finished her spring studies, and then embarked on further exploration of Europe. She and several classmates started out in Croatia, then headed to Barcelona for a few days, then over to Portugal for another few days. After her friends headed back to Canada, she headed to Greece and joined a group tour. She had a wonderful time, meeting lots of new friends, before she came back all tanned to Calgary on July 15.

One of my nephews is getting married in the third week of August. Trying something different, Marie and I have been making their wedding presents. Marie is carrying the bulk of the work, making several stained glass bowls and a queen sized quilt. I made a maple and cherry cutting board. It probably took longer to retune my table saw than it did to make the cutting board.

July 23 2025

The weather was traditionally nice for stampede, but it has been miserable since. We have had a tremendous amount of rain this month, almost double the normal for July, and the month isn’t over yet. Two main storms, both with more than 50mm total rain, have left things soggy. It is nice enough today to site on the patio to write this, but after tomorrow, there are 5 more days of rain forecast.

Marie’s birthday was the 21st. She had originally planned to golf with girlfriends, and then we would go out for dinner. Early Sunday, she got a call from an old friend from McMurray. They had returned to Quebec when they retired, and were driving across the country to see their kids, all of which have settled around Vancouver. They were planning to be in Calgary the evening of the 21st, so Marie invited them for dinner. Instead of going out, Marie ended up cooking dinner for 6, and I think we all had a more enjoyable evening because of it.

Airfix 1/24 Spitfire

My Modelling tends to proceed in streaks, and I have spent most of this month’s modelling time on the Spitfire. With airframe painting complete, it was time to focus on the engine.

The engine is a model all by itself, comprising half the kit’s total parts count, needing 71 instruction steps! The bulk of the engine block was constructed and then painted as a unit. Dry brushing with a light grey enamel helped to pop out all the details (Photo 2).

Having three hands would have helped assemble the engine bearers. The main bearer structure consists of three parts. These are supposed to be held together, against the engine assembly, to establish alignment before applying glued. After several unsuccessful attempts, thin strips of masking tape were used to hold the bearer parts together, before being taped to the engine. With things loosely in position, final adjustments could be made, the engine removed, and glue applied (Photo 3).

Details and piping were then added to the bearer structure. There must have been a mistake in design as the instructions require part of the bearer structure to be cut to allow the radiator piping to be threaded through the supports (Photo 4). With piping complete, the bearer assembly was test fit to the airframe (Photo 5).

Test fitting the engine into the bearer assembly went surprisingly well, literally dropping into place, with the installed engine looked very impressive, mounted inside the bearers (Photo 6). If you look very carefully, you may be able to see the red "ROLLS ROYCE" lettering on the engine manifold. The first attempt to create this, by painting the engine black, then the letters red, and then gently sanding to remove inevitable mistakes, was a complete failure. The letters were stripped, and a second attempt made by painting the letters red and dry brushing black over them. This was moderately more successful but still found lacking. So the letters were striped again, and the engine repainted black, before a very thin red paint mix was flowed into the recessed letters. It took four coats of red paint to get half decent colour saturation. Some very careful touch ups with black paint was made before declaring the lettering complete.

Photo 1 - The massive engine, ready for paint

Photo 2 - The finished engine

Photo 3 - Test fitting the engine bearer frame.

Photo 4 - The radiator piping proved complex and extremely challenging to paint and assemble

Photo 5 - Several extra hands would have helped when installing the motor support and piping.

Photo 6 - Engine installed. Pretty much a drop in fit!

Installing the cowling supports was a bear. The supports seemed to fit well, dropping into slots around the engine exhaust manifold, and then attaching back to the firewall. It seemed almost magical until the cowling panels were test fit. Recesses in the panels were supposed to drop over slots in the cowling supports. No matter what was tried, the panels absolutely refused to cooperate. They would either drop into the recesses, or align with the fuselage, but there was no way they would do both. After much testing, and a lot of disassembly, it was realized that the bottom of the cowling supports were not seating properly into the firewall, leaving the supports with a nose up attitude. Trimming the supports allowed them to seat properly and now everything lined up.

I had refrained from gluing the engine to the engine bearers, and the engine bearers to the plane’s firewall. I wasn’t certain if it would need to be removed to support any other assembly or painting steps, so left it all loose. That proved a costly mistake. While making final adjustments to the cowling supports, the engine bearers and engine popped free. In disbelieve, it was decided best to put everything down and walk away. It took a good two hours the next day to gently piece everything back together. This time it was all glued.

The kit doesn't have any provision to make the cowling panels removable. It is intended to either leave all four off, or glue them to the cowling supports. I thought to try and see if magnets could be used to create removeable panels, but some test fitting suggested that it would not be possible to achieve realistic panel gaps. I am therefore leaning towards displaying the plane with all the cowling panels removed.

The kit tires included "DUNLOP" as raised lettering on the treadwall (Photo 1 below). This was very carefully painted with the the finest brush I own, before a thinned black mixture was flowed around the letters to clean up any mistakes. I was happy with the result.

The propellor blades are two parts, with a small insert at the base Photo 2 below). I am not sure why it was designed this way, as the insert didn't fit very well. Filler was needed to fill gaps. The blades were first painted silver before being painted black. A fiberglass pen, and some very light sanding, was used to "chip" the black paint to represent paint wear.

The propellor hub is nicely detailed, and consists of five separate pieces but will be covered by the propellor nose cap. I may decide to leave the cap off to show off the hub detail (Photo 3 below).

Photo 1 - Painting the letter is guaranteed to make you cross-eyed

Photo 2 - Prop blades ready for paint

Photo 3 - The finished prop. It is huge.

Here is a picture of the nearly complete plane. Physical construction is essentially done, with only details pieces left to install. The main markings have been painted, leaving only the stencil decals to be placed. Top side stencils are completed, and can be read on the wing, the cowling, and the sky colour band at the tail.

Magic Factory A-4N Skyhawk

No work has taken place on the Skyhawk since the last update. I got rolling on the Spitfire and haven't gotten back to this one.

The Railway

The railway was assembled about 10 months ago, and has since been mostly ignored. More correctly, the physical layout has been mostly ignored. Mental layout planning has been actively taking place, and a track plan has slowly mentally evolving. This needs to be committed to paper somehow to test the design and sort out the required benchwork. I have started experimenting with the free versions of several railway design programs to see how they work.

The photo above shows the old Fort McMurray railway, now assembled in a different configuration. The center piece - the one missing the front facia - was last installed at Ball Place as the far right section. It was never installed at Woodward Lane as there wasn't space for it. The section has now been set up in the middle, to add length to the yard. The cork roadbed and track, temporarily installed over 25 years ago, has been removed to allow new track to be laid.

Time for some background. The layout my father built when we lived in Camrose was a freelance design based around the fictional Paddle River Railway. The railway was named after the actual river that ran through Barrhead, the small town where my maternal grandparents lived. The Paddle River Railway was resurrected on the new layout built when we moved to Calgary. The layout mainline represented the CP Rail mainline, somewhere west of Calgary. A branchline, representing the Paddle River, connect to the CP at the main yard. Over the years, my dad worked on the CP section while I worked on the Paddle River section, coming to adopt it as my own.

When I moved into my second apartment, I constructed a portable layout based on John Allen's famous timesaver switching design. I had a two bedroom apartment, and the railroad occupied the second bedroom. A 12 foot long design, broken into 3 sections, each 4 foot long, was constructed. In a classic measure twice and cut once situation, the assembled sections proved 1 inch to long and wouldn't fit in the bedroom. The easy way out was taken and the layout was shrunk to 2 sections. This layout then followed my around for the next 40 years, moving to the apartment Marie and I first had in Calgary, then to the apartment in Fort McMurray, and on to both McMurrray houses. At Ball Place, the unused third section was attached to the right end, and track temporarily added to extend the design. The third section was removed when it was reassemble at Woodward Lane, and the layout was operated as a 2 section layout for the next 20 years.

Over the years, I have slowly built an interest in the Northern Alberta Railways, fanned by the fact the NAR served both Fort McMurray and Barrhead. Information, books and models were slowly collected with with the thought of someday building a NAR themed layout. My current mental design is based on the NAR, but will include an interchange with the Paddle River. The actual NAR was owned by the Alberta government, and jointly operated by CP and CN. CN outright bought the railway in 1985, and it was subsequently absorbed into the CN. The line to Fort McMurray was later sold to a series of private operators, who each unsuccessfully tried to make of go of it. Just al it looked like the Athabasca Northern would make a go of it, CN stepped in and repurchase the line. It was then upgraded to handle heavier traffic, with CN operating it as the Waterways subdivision. The NAR's old Barrhead branch was never overly successful, and there were several unsuccessful attempts to abandon it. A government grant was used to upgrade the track, but only delayed the inevitable, as traffic continued to decrease. The line was finally abandoned after no trains ran over the line in over two years, and CN removed the rails. The mental layout plan will assume that the NAR wasn’t absorbed into the CN, but continued to operate. Further, it has been assumed that the old Barrhead branch was sold to the Paddle River Railway, a shortline operator, that was able to successfully restore operation. Timelines isn’t set, but I want to run the ubiquitous Government of Canada/Alberta grain cars, making it somewhere between about 1975 and 2005.

I wanted to test a number of concepts and shake some rust off before finalizing the design. The intent is that the existing layout will become the main yard, but needs to be altered to better represent a typical NAR three track yard. The original track and ballast was attached using diluted white glue. A quick test has confirmed that the glue can be dissolve by soaking with water. This will allow sections of the existing ballast and track to be removed and cleaned to support the new design.

The other major change wanted is to replace the existing #4 turnouts. These are quite sharp, and were a compromise to allow everything to fit into 8 feet. This worked well with the shorter locomotives and rolling stock used initially, but bigger grain cars and locomotives don't look very good rolling through them. Using #6 turnouts would be ideal, but #5 turnouts would be an acceptable compromise. Another reason that the design needs to be committed to paper so I can see what fits.

A conversion to #5 turnouts will require all the existing turnouts to be removed. Soaking ballast with water softens the glue enough to remove the ballast, but removing ties proved more difficult. Two turnouts (Photo 3 below) became the test case. The first attempt to remove ties proved so difficult that it eventually resulted in the ties and the cork roadbed being pulled up (Photo 4 below). The second attempt used more water, soaking the ties four separate times, over most of the afternoon. The ties still didn’t budge (Photo 4 below), but could be scraped off the cork using a knife (Photo 6 below). This proved much more difficult and labour intensive than expected, and didn’t bode well for the left end module and its 6 turnouts. After some thought, it was thought it would be easier to salvage the rail, then remove and flip the plywood over. Famous last words. The screws were removed but the plywood didn’t budge. That’s went it was realized that the section was actually two pieces of plywood, with the seam running lengthwise under the cork. In total, there proved to be six screws under the cork, needed a crow bar to pry the cork free. Eventually the plywood was freed, flipped over and screwed back into place, ready for new cork to be laid.

One thing that has become very obvious is that the existing basement lighting desparately needs upgrading. It is no where near bright enough to work, let alone operate a layout. Track lighting seems the best option but will wait until the layout design is finalized and I know where everything will go.

The free layout design software trial quickly evolved from experiment to a full layout design completed. This has been sent out to Dave, Nicholas and Daniel for comments. A copy can be sent if anyone else wants to provide feedback.