Of course my ever wandering mind, in between waiting for other scenic details to set or dry, had to get into it with Hope. I was really excited about modelling Hope as it offered one of the few opportunities along the Coquihalla for a town setting. Tiny Brookmere had lots of railyard stuff but was not anywhere near the town Hope was. The rest of the Coquihalla line, being strung up a remote and forbidding canyon, featured litte in the way of humanity, apart from section houses.
You can see here how I’ve printed out a mosaic from Google Earth in scale and then laid it out. However at the time, being unaware of historical air photos, I was flying a bit blind. Again, some 50+ years had passed since the Coquihalla was ripped up, and it had been completely obliterated in Hope. Houses and roads were now where railbed once was. I did my best using Joe Smuin’s excellent Mileboards book.. but it wouldn’t be until I stumbled onto Canada’s National Air Photo Library that I finally got a period aerial shot showing the tracks and where everything was.