It’s that time of year again, our layout will be open to the public this coming Saturday, 28 March 2026, in participation with the annual Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge-Guelph and area layout tour, organized by the Doubleheaders Model Railway Club. This is a self-guided tour of a large number of club and private home layouts in the area.

If you are new to the Doubleheaders tour there are approximately 20 different layouts you can visit, varying from modular displays, large club setups to small N-scale pikes. You can see everything from tinplate trains to scratch-built prototype models. However the layouts are spread over a large area, and that makes it difficult to see them all in a day. So you should prepare for a full day of layout touring, and also maybe consider making this an annual, or at least semi-annual event to frequent over the years.

Please note; some layout are open until 9PM, however the CP Sudbury Division closes early at 5PM. If you are taking this year’s tour, please plan accordingly.

As usual we’ve been working on an number of layout projects over the winter in anticipation of the tour, at least as best as this year’s weather would permit. To start, we’ve completed the base scenery at our INCO – Crean Hill mine scene (photo above). If anything says ‘CP Rail in Sudbury’, it’s nickel ore trains; and not only do we have a large fleet of appropriate ore gons in service, but we now have a nicely sceniced mine for them to operate in. Well, as nice as an industrialized hole in the ground can look.

We also have a lot more carpentry happening upstairs as our layout expands to the second floor. The above photo shows what we’ve named the Verner helix, though like many of our helices it is actually connecting many different sections of the layout together. If you want the details, you’ll need to visit us and ask one of our friendly club members to find out. You will also see the new rails being laid at Levack, the benchwork at Sturgeon Falls along with the associated trackage at the Abitibi Paper mill located there, and much more.

Of course the feature attraction is seeing the fully operational portions of our CP Sudbury Division layout in action, with long sound-equipped freights running smoothly under DCC control. This is your chance to interact with us; to swap stories, exchange ideas, share techniques, and to celebrate the art of railway modelling, because that is always the best part of the world’s greatest hobby.

Hope to see you on the tour.