Caption: Back on Dan's model train layout of Union Station, circa 2007, we have VIA Rail train #60 departing eastbound from track 10 with a Rapido Trains DCC/Sound F40PH-2D 6412 and 5 stainless steel kitbashed Walthers HEP cars, waiting while VIA #53 with Athearn Genesis P42DC 918 arrives with four Rapido LRC cars in tow (the ones from the first run that roll like iron sleds) into track 9 under the train shed. As you can see, we maxed out our credit card buying all that Atlas flextrack and many, many PECO double throw slip switches (too many), and ballasting it all with Woodland Scenics products took forever.

There's some scratchbuilt buildings in the background including part of the Air Canada Centre (partially kitbashed from an old Bachmann post office kit), and our 3D-printed Skydome complete with working lights and dome action, fully open today for the miniature Blue Jays to win the Stanley Cup of Baseball. We got a good deal on Walthers Cornerstone cookie-cutter condos that were on deep discount at George's Trains when they closed their Mount Pleasant store (RIP 510 Mount Pleasant), so pretended we were a real estate developer and threw them in wherever there was some bare layout showing, blocking out Lake Ontario so we didn't have to scenic it (still need to add more condos in the future, might remove some other buildings from the layout here to make space). Our Bay Street parking lot was populated with a selection of late-model HO-scale Brenka and Walthers cars for the afternoon (good spot for a future condo, hmmmm). That old brown building to the left of the ACC is the former OPP headquarters, that I think I picked up at a swap-meet for 5 bucks off a used table (might replace that with condos too). Our layout lighting however, has the unfortunate effect of always being at the wrong angle for shooting from this side of the aisle. Oh, that billboard ad was cut out from the Sears catalogue and glued on a used Walthers billboard found at a Brampton train show, it previously had an ad for some company called Nortel.

Future updates include some Bachmann VIA Siemens Charger trainsets and a Northlander, many more condos, a little train museum somewhere nearby for the relics and inoperable models, yet more condos, and I may have to cut a giant hole in my train shed to put a large plexiglass ice cube on top. We won't run freights down here anymore since someone recently derailed their CN #435 over at Mimico and no GO trains could get out of the staging yard, messing up our entire operating session that one afternoon...