About This Page

This website is devoted to documenting the progress towards construction and completion of my HO scale (1:87) rendition of CP Rail’s Esquimalt & Nanaimo division on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island from Nanaimo, British Columbia north to both Port Alberni and Courtenay in late 1988.

The trackage modelled will be the northern end of the Victoria Subdivision, starting at Mile 72.5 at Nanaimo and north through to Courtenay, Mile 139.7. In addition, the Port Alberni Subdivision, from Parksville, Mile 0 through to Port Alberni, mile 38.8 will be modelled as well. On account of the layout space being insufficient to model the entire thing, the layout will be selectively compressed to fit the planned three decks.

Operations will include VIA Rail‘s daily passenger train from Victoria to Courtenay, The Port Alberni Freight, the Alberni Pacific/Macmillan Bloedel switching movements in Port Alberni, the Nanaimo switch job, and as needed, the Parksville and/or Courtenay turns. The layout will be dispatched with radios per the Manual Block System, just as the prototype did back then.

Feel free to look around, and check back every now and then on the Updates page for progress reports on layout construction. If you have any comments or questions, please contact me via e-mail at jon@calon.ca, or feel free to leave a comment on the appropriate page.