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Alton

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I had this nice spot against the wall that was begging for something to fill it.  So I created a siding with three industries and called the location Alton because it is between Cataract and Orangeville.  There was a town of that name on that part of the line, but it did not look as I currently have it, there just is not the room to do it as it was.

I took two standard grain elevator kits and made one grain elevator with twin towers.  Looks impressive.  I scratch built, out of scale lumber, the two stall cattle pen.  The station was also scratch built.

I decided to do the first station at Alton, as built by the Credit Valley Railway as opposed to the second station built by the CPR after the first one burn down.  All I had to go on was one photo in Steam Trains to the Bruce.  There is someone standing on the platform in that picture.  So I scanned the photo, imported into Corel Draw and proceeded to make measurements of the building with the person as a scale.  Once I had it built it looked too big, too out of proportion.  On one of the railroad trade shows I saw the Hamilton Works Meadowvale station kit.  Same building, but with a shorter freight section.  From looking at the finished kit, again I mused about my version being too damn big.  So I bought the kit.  Once I got it home I took one of the kit's side walls and compared it to mine.  PERFECT FIT!!  Right down to the angle of the roof.  So the Meadowvale kit is now a shed at the Marl pit.

There is no passing siding on my layout for Alton (there was one the prototype, and is still there!) but I did include a "hide" track to put a train in while waiting for another to pass.

Principle Industries:

Station Small freight
Team Track  
Cattle Pen  
H. White and Co. Elevators Grain and cattle feeds

Shipments outbound from this town include:

From Industry To Industry Load Frequency
Cattle Ramp Cattle Transfer, Orangeville 1 CT of Beaf Cows Fridays (All Year)
H. White & Co. Elevators Lambton Yard, Lambton 1 BX of Oats Fridays (All Year)
H. White & Co. Elevators Lambton Yard, Lambton 1 BX of Corn Fridays (All Year)
H. White & Co. Elevators Lambton Yard, Lambton 1 BX of Corn Mondays (All Year)
Station Freight CPR Freight Shed, Orangeville 1 BX of Freight Fridays (All Year)
Team Track Lambton Yard, Lambton 1 BX of Alton Foundry Co. Daily (All Year)
Team Track Lambton Yard, Lambton 1 BX of Alton Knitting Mill Mondays (All Year)
Team Track Lambton Yard, Lambton 1 BX of Boxes of Turnips Wednesdays (Fall)

Shipments inbound into this town include:

From Industry To Industry Load Frequency
Lambton Yard, Lambton H. White & Co. Elevators 1 BX of Live Stock Feed Mondays (All Year)
Lambton Yard, Lambton Team Track 1 RF of Foods (National Grocers) Wednesdays (All Year)

Layout Photos


Alton from north end looking south.  Spur track runs in from the right.  Station at that location.  Visible is the team track, 2 cars in length, the cattle ramp and the grain elevator share the same track.  There is another track behind that lead.  The cattle ramp was scratch built from scale lumber.  The grain elevator was build with two Corner Stone kits to make one large facility. 

South end looking north.
Alton station as it was before it burned in the 1930's.  Main line track heads up the hill to Orangeville.  Track down the right heads to Cataract Junction.   That's the end of the Waldermar bridge there too.


Swampy area the line runs through.  The culverts I made by creating them with styrene plastic, molding them in rubber and casting them in plaster.  Then painted and weathered.  The larger one even has a date on it.  The swamp area was done with sand for the base with some limestone rocks, then various Woodland Scenics material glued in place. Trees and shrubs added.  Envrotex was then poured into place.  Two coats were needed.  Once set, more Woodland material was glued to the top of the resin.  In the next picture below you can see stumps added.

Close up of one of the culverts: