The Hudson Bay Railway in HO Scale

I wasn't sure how to title this post without seeming too self congratulatory.  I took part in my first NMRA regional convention (actually I was part of the organizing committee) and entered a few of my models in the contests and AP (Achievement Program) judging program. I have only ever had my models on display at the various local meets over the years.   The  models did pretty well.  I entered six models in the AP and got five merit awards for my CN GP9 4243, CN snow plows, VIA Rail combine and the CN Fowler/Dominion work service boxcar, all of which I have blogged about previously here.  I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to get the merit awards.   On the last day of the show I had a moment to swing by the display/contest room and found out that my CN lightweight GP9 had won 1st place in the Diesel & Other category.  I was given a nicely framed certificate for this.  I promise I won't let it go to my head. June 7, 2024 updat...

  I have previously covered my lightweight GP9 build on this blog.  One notable (at least to me) missing item was the plow between the footboards on the CN GP9 fleet.  As the models come from Athearn and Proto 2000 they lack this feature, although Athearn has apparently remedied this on later models.   I wanted to complete my models as close to the prototype as I could so I needed these plows.  I gave thought to scratchbuilding them for each model, but making reproduceable parts would be a challenge with that approach.  What about 3D printing? I lack a printer myself, but my friend Mike M. has one.  I broached the idea to him and he was receptive to the idea.  I sent him a bunch of photos and based on those and some measurements from the model he quickly created a 3D model and got them printing on his printer.  Being conservative I asked for 30 plows for my current and future fleet... I'm quite happy with the result and my GP9 fleet is n...

The lightweight trio leads 4 standard GP9 into the smelter in Flin Flon.  The 70T waits for them to yard the train so it can start its work. I've been working on a trio of lightweight GP9 for the Hudson Bay Railway.  These were common power on the northern network from the 1960's through 1980's.  They are a bit of a challenge to model as most rode on Flexicoil trucks and had other modifications from standard Geeps.   I used Rapido trucks from their GMD-1 model along with Athearn Genesis GP9 to build two of my units, while a third kept its factory Blomberg trucks to represent a unit that had its Flexicoils removed. I substituted a P2K shell for one unit as I had already started modifying it.  I decided it would be easier to use the Athearn drive instead of the P2K drive as it was pretty much a swap out.  I have an extra Athearn CN GP9 for future use.  Maybe I'll put it on a P2K drive.   I am planning a future post about the details of thi...