Sometimes you get lucky and stumble across shots like this, available via bcarchives.  I’m only showing this as an example – unfortunately for my purposes it was not at a resolution where I could make much out, and at an angle, and too far away from the KV to really see it.  But, looking very closely, there were some details it helped with.

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.

Even before I had really gotten into the tunnels, I finally figured I’d learned enough about paper mache to take a run at it.  I also wanted to test to see if the 12" of space I’d left between levels was enough to get the visual effects I wanted without compromising too much.  So I decided to work on ‘Iago’ station.  

Here, I got a bit more ‘clever’.  Rather than merely finding it on Google Earth and sketching it out, I devised a way to print, with my inkjet, a mosaic of photos, which when printed were in n-scale size.  This allowed me to accurately align the roadbed and mountains.  I was so pleased with figuring out how to do that – it would make life a lot easier, esp. when it came to modelling Hope BC.

In the event, I was pleased with the way the second level came out.  12 inches left just enough detail.  Of course, by now I had accepted that for some items, like bridges and rivers, they would have to cut into the scene below.  There was no way around that.  Some of the bridges in scale were into canyons upwards of 7-8 inches deep.  Oh well.  At least now I knew.

I have a restless mind.  As Othello got into a condition that was acceptable, I began planning how to do the misnamed Quintette tunnels downstream.  

This was the scene I was most enthusiastic about and eager to get to.  I visited the site (now a park), taking photos, video.  But when I got home, I realized just how little a photograph could tell you.  Owing to the extreme heights and closed in nature of the river canyon, looking at the photos was almost useless – they distorted features and it was hard to get a sense of context.  Google Earth was no help either – the extreme terrain messes up the satellite pictures, taking what should be a straight line of bridges, open spaces and tunnels and twisting them all over the place.  I had to go back again (and again) and each time got better at taking notes.  Unfortunately, having gotten started, I would have to revise this scene over and over again as new information came in.  

Most sane people would use a foam base, and build the mountains out of wire (usually chicken wire) and papier mache.  But I didn’t feel confident enough in my skills at that point.  I thought it’d be easier for me to ‘simply’ stack 7 or 8 pieces of 2 inch foam together, and then carve my way out of that.  And it worked, kind of.  But man, was it heavy – and that was *before* applying spackling and scenic details.  It was also awkward – all four tunnels were present in an 8 foot section.  Carving them out made a HELL of a mess.  Foam bits everywhere!  But I was determined…

As I figured things out, I decided to work on a backdrop for the ultimate location of ‘Othello’ on my layout.  Now, I had been really interested in art back in highschool and had done lots of painting.  But after 20 years, I had forgotten almost all of it.  My first mountains were a disaster, but one evening I got lucky and started to remember some tricks.  What I ended up with (and did not complete for years) was what you see above.  

You’ll note above this top level is the crown moulding and shelf the original model was supposed to run on.  I even painted it somewhat sky blue up there.  It ended up instead becoming a storage place for keepsakes.  And yeah, I accidentally painted blue on parts of the crown moulding.  Whoops.  Will fix that.

I was also fortunate to come across plans for a CPR No. 3 Section house on the CPSIG website, as well as a kit form produced by a fellow named Geoff, which was available for a time at Central Hobbies in Vancouver.  I made a few more houses out of styrene, mocked them up using plasticine, and placed them to help get a sense of direction.  Over time I would take photos to try and match scenes from Steel Rails or other historical photographs, to check for accuracy.

As I said before, it was my intent to keep Othello to scale and as accurate as possible.  This ought not to have been too hard – the original section house still exists, and the former railbed is now a road leading to the provincial park where the tunnels are.  I figured setting things up would be as easy as using Google Earth.

However, I was utterly unaware of just how dramatically a place can change over time.  In the 50+ years since the Coquihalla sub was abandoned, the Coquihalla river had changed course, flowing further south.  Thus, when looking at the aerials, I was presented with a forest where river should be, and could not figure out where exactly the Othello facilities had been, briefly mistaking them for a part of the river further east that looked more like what I was seeing in the photos. It took quite a bit of consultation, and an aerial photo purchased later for Hope, to appreciate just how much things change on the ground in a few short decades.

Gradually, I started to figure out ground cover techniques and began to get something I was happy with.  I also applied the first few coats of the WS water, and it began to come together.

The only problem – the WS water, although it dries to a hard surface, *is* a liquid when you first pour it.  Since I had essentially bisected the river, placing it to the facing edge of my Othello scene, I had to do something to stop the water from simply running over the side before it dried.  This resulted in using caulk, but even that wasn’t enough – there were always places the water found to drip out of, requiring many applications of caulk, toilet paper, or anything else I could find to plug leaks. 🙂

Sort of getting the idea, a little bit.  Still didn’t know how to do ground cover correctly, but I was figuring out fast how to paint my river somewhat to mimic the Coquihalla’s emerald appearance.  This is prior to applying Woodland Scenic’s water product overtop.