Late last summer I was able to be on the road for a few days. While there’s nothing left of railroading in the Okanagan there are main line rails just 2 or three hours out. One place captured my interest right away. There were plenty of trains, about 30 a day, amazing scenery, easy access… Continue reading »

Seen today from the same location you can see two tracks of very much heavier rail.   The ‘down hill’ track on the right is, not unsurprisingly, well warn. Evidence of the tremendous braking action needed to maintain control of today’s long, heavy trains as they make their way into Revelstoke 750 feet below. The tool… Continue reading »

I’ve made a point of mentioning the most western leg of the Y in what’s left of the working yard at Albert Canyon. Standing here, looking at the crest of the hill, you can just make out the sides of the plate girder bridges over the creek. There are three. One noticeable older than the… Continue reading »

Of course there is always another side to a Y and that is here as well. The narrow road in the center of the photo heads off into the homesteader property but it hasn’t quite covered the evidence of the ties laid down a hundred years ago. Barely visible, from the lower left to the… Continue reading »

On the first morning, and after my best nights sleep in years, I walked down to the bottom of the resort and across the broad curve in the tracks that lead to Revelstoke and on to the coast. Much has changed since this was a ‘stop along the way’ and passengers were let off to… Continue reading »

In Part 1 of this visit I spoke about the small bridges that crossed a steam that emptied into the Illecillewaet River just a few hundred meters away.   This scene is looking east. The tracks off in the distance turn north and then quickly east again towards Glacier and on up to Rogers Pass. These… Continue reading »

The Rocky Mountaineer is everywhere I go. There may even be a song title there but for a once a day railroad it sure follows me about. It had been at Craigellachie the previous day just as drove by. My first experience with it, apart from the nice brochures and the seasonal full-page newspaper ads,… Continue reading »

And how could I not show at least one clean, hard working Canadian Pacific train, with the Selkirk’s looming high in the sky in the background, as it attacked the grade up to Glacier and then to Rogers Pass.   As you can see though, this is not the rocky cliff side view of the travel… Continue reading »

East, by railroad standards, of the former Albert Canyon station, the tracks enter the middle portion of a broad S curve and head on back to the edge of the Illecillewaet River and the Trans Canada Highway. The “back door” of my cabin was less that 30 meters from the tracks but protected by an… Continue reading »

The same train as it passed my perfect location. No, they don’t all look the same these days as some suggest. Each is interesting and different in it’s own way. This one is moving empties, as suggested by the horsepower on the front end and its direction of travel, over the top into Golden where… Continue reading »

The coal was there all right and so was the potash and the grain and the oil but the ‘really big show’ in the canyon was the show put on by the seemingly endless trains of containers. Stack trains. Wal-Mart Trains. Don’t we build anything any more trains. East and west. Day and night.   It’s… Continue reading »

On tracks recently inhabited by a huge bear another stack train brakes down hill into Albert Canyon.   The sound from these is completely different. Best described as a single note high pitch scream backed up by a mechanical chorus and a Stanley Steamer. Anyway, there’s no mistaking what it is and it flies by my… Continue reading »

Face it! I’d really have little understanding about passenger trains. They’re just not my cup of tea. Not that I don’t have a great little passenger train on my layout. I sometimes tie CN combine 7210 on the back of a freight train powered by a pair of SW1200rs and move it between Pearson, Winter… Continue reading »

On the other side of the bridge. Same spring day. This short bullet didn’t stop at Belleville but raced west towards Toronto. I love Toronto. Is it ok if I say that? Anyway the LRC and four cars were not me primary interest at this particular time either but rather it was the old GTW… Continue reading »

Somewhere near Brighton. I may have mentioned this before but there is a stretch of double track between Trenton Ontario and Brighton that cries out to train watchers. Did me anyway. CPRail and CN side by side in relatively open country broken up by highway overpasses and railway bridges. Just wish I were in the… Continue reading »

Crossing the Lachine Canal in down town Montreal. This is a favourate spot for train watching because Place Bonaventure and the VIA/CN Central Station are just around the bend and only 2 KM up the track. But I like this photo because my favourate locomotives are working away moving people in and out of the… Continue reading »

Now you see back in the day when shareholders were NOT the only reason railroads existed and when railroads still had a modicum of “class’ efforts were made to offer both a high level of service AND project a modern progressive image – at some cost. In what became the final days of trans-Canada passenger… Continue reading »

The tracks that served a unique and beautiful passenger station are long gone as are the engine facilities and the spider web of service to packinghouses, warehouses and mills.  Only recently the yards were reduced even further and rebuilt to service the last sawmill in town, a rip track/scrap yard and SunRype Products. It continues… Continue reading »

While I wondered around this car I wondered just how many of these 8 hatch refrigerator cars were preserved in Canada.  They were unique in North America, designed to move meet, vegetables and fruit at controlled temperatures over much longer distances than those required in the United States.  This does not suggest that the run… Continue reading »

Building an “end of the line” scene or better perhaps, a scene where the track has been torn up, there are many little ways that you can make it an interesting, less modeled, effect. My friends would have a fit if they say a long, flat space on the benchwork where there was no track, even… Continue reading »

Those Beautiful Streamliners I think I’ll speak to my MP. See if he’ll put forward a privet members bill making it mandatory for all diesel locomotives in Canada to look like these ones. It may not go far but….. You don’t see a lot of them any more and none at all around these parts…. Continue reading »

Speaking of the 70’s. We were at CFS Lowther in 1977. It no longer exists of course, apart from a patch of tall grass and Black Flies. but I often went down to the ATC center in North Bay and to visit friends in “the hole.” Most days, even on cold and rainy ones, I… Continue reading »

Now you see back in the day when shareholders were NOT the only reason railroads existed and when railroads still had a modicum of “class’ efforts were made to offer both a high level of service AND project a modern progressive image – at some cost. In what became the final days of trans-Canada passenger… Continue reading »

On a sunny, late summers day in 1981 we took the gang on a trip up to Saskatoon and back.  We drove, dogs and all, but at least a few people took the train.  Riding in single car, air-conditioned style behind a full baggage and 1750 horses. The Regina – Saskatoon line would be high… Continue reading »

Back in the late 70’s and up to at least 1983 you could walk around the small CN yard in western Regina pretty much unimpeded.  Of course needles paranoia took hold later on, costing us a trillion dollars, and solving nothing.  So this is back to that time and place again to pay small homage… Continue reading »

Resplendent in the red cab scheme GMD1 1009 sits waiting for work at the Regina yard.  In the previous photo, old 1045 ran long end forward but I think these were rebuilt for short end running.  Thus the red nose as per the rest of the fleet although my pictures from Moose Jaw at https://wvrr.ca/prototype/photo_28.htm… Continue reading »

Now see?  This is what they really look like. Maybe the wear and tear on the long hood is a bit over done.  You shouldn’t actually have the primer showing through but I do like the treatment applied to the trucks.  All that great detail shouldn’t be covered over and hidden with a coat of… Continue reading »

And away from Regina for the last photo.  A trip to Melville is well worth the drive from anywhere in SK or even western MB.  There are/were lots of local switchers and big road engines on hand and plenty of action coming and going.  On the day I was there the west bound Canadian showed… Continue reading »

A short trip to the Cisco Bridges in BC’s Fraser Canyon For those unfamiliar, the Cisco Bridges (Canadian Pacific’s lower truss and the Canadian National’s upper steel arch) span the Fraser River in a rocky narrowing of the canyon approximately 12 Km south of Lytton BC on the Trans Canada Highway and just a few… Continue reading »

Oh sorry.  These pages are supposed to be dedicated to seeing the prototype and modelling the prototype so I’ll try to put my Gee-Whiz aside for now, stand back, and take a look at what is really there to model.  Something might be easy to simulate in miniature. Well, Canadian Pacific’s contribution to the scene… Continue reading »

I wasn’t going to suggest models for the CN’s contribution to the show at Cisco but if cost is no object, you might try http://micro-scale.com/product/ho-scale-400-cantilever-canyon-bridge.  I’m paying someone at Mainline Bridges in AZ to build one for my large-scale layout and it will cost ½ of that.   But then, mine won’t be over 50 feet… Continue reading »

Story time. I have a favourate place for taking photos in the Thompson Canyon.  There is a rest stop off the westbound lanes 14km south of Spences Bridge.  Give or take ‘cause SB itself snakes along the river.  Easy to get at for me.  The Connector from Peachland and then Hwy 8.  Both great roads… Continue reading »

I had no plans on finally seeing the Museum in Revelstoke. It just happened. No telling how many times I had driven past while going to and from Calgary. Usually about 9AM for breakfast on the way east and near 4PM for a beer and finger food on the way back. Although I never did… Continue reading »

Back at the museum the wedge plow doesn’t look in any worse shape than the ones down town in the unemployment line.  Course I couldn’t get inside (Didn’t really try) but I expect this old girl is pretty much gutted for parts and only the shell remains.  Perhaps they come and go as parts are… Continue reading »

Ever walk into some small, country museum and be the only person in your group who knows how that ’thingy’ over there really works?  So how simply awful is it then that you find your all time favourate locomotive retired to a railway museum – and looking not to fresh either?  Such is seeing an… Continue reading »