Sault St. Marie

The layout ends in the city of Sault St. Marie. In real life, the city is in both Michigan and Ontario, Canada. On my layout, I am going to stick with the Michigan side, as my benchwork is not going to allow me to model the rail crossing near the Soo locks. Since this city will be directly over the city of FitzGerald, I am debating how busy to make it. I do not want operators to be bumping into each other as they try to work both levels. Essentially, I want to depict a few industries and three or four "staging tracks" for trains to hold while they wait for permission to cross the bridge from the U.S. into Canada. This will also allow a build-up of trains waiting to go back into the helix to staging at the end of their runs. From here trains enter the first helix again for their trip back down to the staging yard.

This shot shows the area I have for the city of Sault St. Marie. It is two feet by about twenty one feet. The photo does not include the corner behind the photographer, which will include the concrete plant mentioned below.

The first major industry on the south side of Sault Ste. Marie will be a concrete plant. Modeled with the Walther's kit, it fits nicely into the corner of the upper level.

I am tentatively planning on using this Walther's Champion Packing Plant kit to model a food service industry. My idea here is to make a candy/syrup packaging plant that will receive corn syrup cars and ship boxcars. The company is essentially using its Northern Michigan location to tout the authenticity of its "real maple syrup flavor".

A third industry, using the Walther's Peterson's Tool Specialties kit, will be just north of the candy/syrup plant. Its purpose and name is as yet unknown, but I'm leaning towards making it a recyling plant that will ship baled plastic and paper in boxcars, and baled metal in gons. Occassional gons of scrap metal may be loaded outside the building.

The last industry I have planned is going to be a supply depot for the US Coast Guard on the upper Great Lakes. It will receive various carloads of materials to support the vessels and aircraft that patrol the waters of Lake Superior, upper Lake Michigan, the Sault Locks area and upper Lake Huron.

I am thinking of including this old kit from my very first layout, a module on a local club layout. This model depicts a boarded up and abandoned station. I kind of like the way it fits into the scene, as it gives the idea that this was once a thriving passenger stop.