In a previous post, I mentioned nearby industry in Port Dover, Ivey's Greenhouses. They were famous for growing roses for distribution to florists all over Ontario. Much of the time, these would be shipped express on the Lake Erie & Northern, cases of flowers filling up the baggage space of a combine, or overflowing to stack up on the seats of the passenger compartment. This last week I became aware of a Facebook site, "If you grew up in Port Dover- Remember When". I did a search for images of Ivey's.
In the photo above, you can see Silver Lake, two masses of greenhouses, two tall chimneys for heating, and two rail lines, the CNR coming in from the bottom right corner, and the LE&N curving in from the middle right side. This photo is from after 1946, because you can see the new LE&N station near the top left of Silver Lake with about 4 cars waiting. The CNR and LE&N no longer shared the harbour side station, though the CN still ran down to harbourside and its turntable at the beach.
The next photo shows more of a closeup of Ivey's, the retail store, both heating plants and coal piles, the LE&N curving off to the left top of the picture, and the town water tower. The building at the bottom still remains, is the Lion's Club today and an addition houses Tim Warris's Fast Tracks world headquarters.
As described, this photo shows details of the larger smoke stack being dismantled. The prominent name and the bands around the stack make a scene to be modelled.
Next, the details of piping from the smaller heating plant. These are supported overhead on brackets. This is the back side of the greenhouses toward Silver Lake. The concrete block and lap siding building still exists with its distinctive dormers. I think this was storage for triple mix type of bedding for the roses.
The last is a postcard view of the back of the greenhouses and heating plant.
Now I want to build some of these greenhouses as part of my Port Dover layout scene against the backdrop. The larger cluster shows two bigger glass houses at each end of ten smaller ones.
On my layout, I've bent geography (as we sometimes have to do). I'm having the CNR line go into staging through the backdrop. I plan to use the larger chimney and piping for heating to disguise the hole and frame it.
There are no large greenhouse kits suitable, so I'm going to scratch build a compressed version of the large cluster. I'll lead the heating piping across the front, (trackside) for interest.
I've started building the large greenhouse buildings using clear acrylic plastic, tacked together with CA cement, then reinforced with canopy glue. I drew the metal framework on with a chrome paint pen.
This photo gives an idea of what I'm aiming for. Still to come are the foundations and vertical walls.