Geographically Correct

[CharlesH.]

Normally I like to do plenty of reasearch on my prototypes, but on this occasion I'll spend that time scratchbuilding, so I'll ask you folks:

What are the major aspects of early 40's southwest Canada railroads, scenery, etc.? What are the major commodities (besides lumber)? Did steamers run on Coal or oil? What was the leading gasoline brandname? that kind of stuff.

What I'd like to do with my layout is set it in 1941 northwestern U.S. but give it a certain Canadian flavor.. That reminds me, what can you tell me about border facilites from back then?

 

[Glen Haasdyk]

It sounds like you are intrested in the Crownest pass and Kettle Valley divisions of the CPR. Mostly the CPR ran on coal, since there were fairly large resources of it where they laid tracks. A few good books for research on the KVR are :Steel Rails and Iron Men and Mulloch's Wonder both by Barrie Sanford. I believe the CPR's line through southern BC was mainly for transporting minerals, but in the summer the Kettle valley line was kept busy running fruit fron the Okanagan Valley (where I live) to Vancouver. There were also the typical passenger trains of the Day, like the Kootenay express. I'm not sure about border facilites. Any other questions?

 

[60103]

BRMNA (alberta) publishes a series of picture books, the initial series being "Canadian Pacific in the Rockies". These concentrate on trains, but there's lot of detail. It covers the entire period to the limit of where they can get pictures.
One Canadian brand of gas is 'White Rose". Not sure how far west it went. Disappeared into Shell in the 60s.

 

[Glen Haasdyk]

That's right, I've got a number of those books. I think they concentrate mostly on the CPR mainline through lake louise, field, golden and revelstoke don't they?

 

[60103]

They also have books on CN, various locations from BC, Alberta, Southern Ontario. Some of the other ones drift in and out of print.
The first few certainly grabbed the most scenic photos from CPR's collection. After going through them, my wife knew her way around the rockies.
I'll see if there's anything in them that might help.