So, with a layout centered on “Windsor St Yard”, it only makes sense that I include the actual Windsor St crossing. Windsor St is the small road that crosses the tracks just south of the yard. I wanted to make sure to do the crossing justice, but also had to fight with the actual layout infrastructure to fit things in, since it’s got to pass right through CP Windsor.

Even though I’m only about 45 minutes away, and have taken a bunch of photos at the location, I’ve found that Google Streetview and Bing Maps’s Birds Eye views have been incredibly helpful. Here are two photos of the spot to see what it really looks like.

 

You’ll notice that it’s mostly just pavement and some grass with a nondescript AT&T building. That made building out the space pretty easy, but I HAD to do that building right.

Luckily, I had a stash of scratchbuilding supplies, so I got to work.

Except, after I put it on the layout, I realized it just didn’t look right. The proportions were all wrong. So much for guesstimating.

I realized I needed to give this the attention it deserved (and not just guess at dimensions after a few beers), so I pulled the Streetview image into Photoshop, squared it up, and reduced it to N scale.

That let me do a quick and dirty drawing of it in Indesign (which you can download here, if you want to play along at home).

 

I printed that out, cut it out, and used it for making the actual cuts on the styrene sheet. After some assembly and painting, she looked MUCH better.

It still needs to be “planted” into the gravel, and to have the various details added (like the AC unit and protective posts), but I’m pretty happy. Yes, it differs a bit from the real structure (specifically the doors and brick area), but it’s good enough for the girls I go out with.

I still have quite a bit of work to do here landscaping and detail wise (including mounting up the NJ International crossing protection), but I figured this amount of progress was finally worth sharing.

Here are a few more pics of the area (with the structure in various states of completion).