Click on each image for a closer look! . Continuing with our coverage of the opening weekend of the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre which of course was also part of the Toronto-wide Doors Open event, we turn our attention to the activities surrounding our miniature railway operation. In the image at upper left, we capture our Sweet Creek locomotive pulling passengers past our massive CNR 4-8-4 Northern Steam Locomotive #6213 on the Friday before Doors Open. In the middle image above, the F7 "Park Diesel" relives a role that it likely played decades ago providing train travel to visitors of amusement parks as it pulls away from the recently restored Don Station. In the upper right image, we find our miniature version of our full size Whitcomb centre cab diesel also pulling passengers past #6213. . In the picture at the lower left, we find the Whitcomb pulling a full load of passengers as it passes by its full-size prototype. The middle photo below gives us a close-up view of the Park Diesel and its passengers. Finally in the lower right image, we have a more panoramic view of the park and the miniature railway. . Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Lance Gleich, Stephen Gardiner & Wilson Lau .
Click on each image for a closer look! . Continuing with our coverage of the Doors Open event at the TRHC, today we feature Cabin D. In the middle picture above, we find Tom Murison describing the Cabin and its restoration. Tom was responsible for the restoration of Cabin D and its accompanying tool shed. In the image at upper right, we find Orin Krivel, President of the Toronto Railway Historical Association, taking his turn at explaining the system to visitors. In the remaining images, we get a closer view of the colourful restored switching mechanism which is the highlight of Cabin D. . Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Stephen Gardiner and Lance Gleich . .
Click on each image for a closer look! . Continuing our coverage of the Doors Open weekend, this post focusses on the equipment on display throughout Roundhosue Park. We can now raise the boom on the Pyke Crane. In the upper left images, we find the crane being used to display a large Doors Open banner during the event. In the next image we find the vinegar car being placed on display beside Cabin D for the event. . Below we see the velocipede from the Walmsley Collection on display beside our Fowler Boxcar (during the Opening Ceremonies). In the middle picture below we find a great shot of our miniature Whticomb diesel passing our full size Whitcomb. Finally, in the last image, our Whitcomb pulls a train considting of our Fowler Boxcar and our TH&B Caboose off the turntable onto the radial track beside the Steam Whistle Brewery where the complete trainset was a popular exhibit all weekend. Many a visitor toured the caboose. . Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Thomas Blampied, David Flinn, Lance Gleich & Stephen Gardiner .
Click on each link for a closer look! . Finally, Friday, May 28th arrived! At about 9:45 a.m., the band began to entertain us all with some spirited music. At 10:00 a.m. the Opening Ceremonies were launched by Glenn Garwood, who is the City of Toronto's project manager responsible for the development of the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre. Mayor David Miller then addressed us and shared some of his early experiences with railways in his youth. The Mayor also made a point of acknowledging the tremendous effort made by volunteers and other stakeholders to the success of the Centre. Orin Krivel, the president of the TRHA, then presented his views on the Centre and reinforced many of the points made by the mayor in recognizing those who made this day a reality. Derek Boles, the TRHA's historian then gave us an overview of the history of the Toronto Rail Lands and described many of the major artefacts now on exhibit. Finally, Don Loucks spoke to us. Don is the Heritage Architect with the IBI Group who worked closely with us on the project to provide their expertise in the management of heritage properties and to especially help facilitate the planning and design phases. . All of the speakers then simultaneously cut the one long ribbon to officially open the TRHC. The Mayor then received a set of train orders from John Mellow, the former operator of Don Station. The Mayor then took over the controls of a train pulled by our Sweet Creek locomotive and proceeded to take his fellow presenters on a short trip out of the station to complete the first train operation. The Mayor then toured Cabin D to admire the restoration effort and learn about its history. . Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Thomas Blampied & Stephen Gardiner . .
Click on each image for a closer look! . As the day before the grand opening came to a close, last minute preparations were being completed in readiness for the Official Opening on Friday! Above we see the interior of the caboose being painted now that the tongue and groove siding has been applied to the interior. In the next picture, we see our GP7 #4803 parked next to CNR Northern #6213 providing an interesting contrast between steam and diesel-electric motive power. On the turntable, Cape Race has been uncovered and rests awaiting movement into the roundhouse where the Jackman and Cape Race passenger cars will occupy the two outside stalls with the full size simulators positioned at the end of the middle track. . In the images below, we find the Pyke Crane positioned outside the roundhouse beside #7020 to allow for expanded visitor access to the three stalls inside. The vinegar tank car was also unwrapped and put on display outside on one of the approach tacks to the roundhouse. Finally, we find the U33C diesel cab simulator positioned in front of the F7 Cab (not visible) ready to greet visitors to the museum. . Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Lance Gleich .
Click on the image for a closer look! . Given the workload that we are under at Roundhouse Park, preparing for our grand opening weekend for the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre, we are going to suspend publishing news items until the Opening happens. . So or everyone's benefit, we are reposting this news item to remind everyone of our upcoming opening wekened. . To access a high resolution PDF version of this poster and to hopefully send it off to others who might be interested, access the PDF on this TRHA web page. . Posting by Russ Milland; Poster by James Rasor
Weekend Report: Sunday saw Visitors, Unveilings and a Wedding!
Click on each image for a closer look! . About twelve volunteers appeared on Sunday eager to further progress on many projects. In addition to continuing on the caboose, the F7, the U33C and the fine tuning of our miniature railway through ongoing track testing, we began to uncover the cars that were shrink-wrapped and to move rolling stock and engines in preparation for their final positioning for our opening weekend. As a result, you will now find:
The vinegar tank car is uncovered and washed
The Jackman passenger car is uncovered
The #4803 has been washed and parked next to 6213
The caboose, box car and the tank car are lined up (uncoupled) in stall #17 and the #17 patio
The Pyke is in stall #15 temporarily
The Whitcomb #1 and the Jackman are on the turntable.
…. And we hosted a group of railway fans from the Canadian Association of Railway Modellers' Convention being held this weekend in Toronto. Our TRHA historian, Derek Boles, both presented at the convention and led the tour. We also witnessed (from our train, of course!) a wedding in late afternoon in the patio area outside of the Steam Whistle Brewery. . Posting and Pictures by Russ Milland .
Weekend Report: Saturday saw the U33C Cab Assembled into One Unit!
Click on each image for a closer look! . We had a grand day on Saturday with only a little light rain to dampen the proceedings. It was a long day too. Some of us didn't arrive home until mid-evening. Here is a partial list of what happened today:
The TH&B caboose had more new wood, care and paint lavished on it
Much clean-up of the stalls and service pits occurred
The Pyke has fresh aluminum paint applied to the intakes and exhausts up on top
Over in the mini depot, the little Romulus steam loco underwent further boiler maintenance followed by a late day test steam-up that went well.
The major project for the day was the U33C simulator. The new steel underframe for the cab arrived. It was unloaded, assembled and rolled from the coaling tower track to stall sixteen where we spent several hours lifting the cab and hood into place. This was complicated by the need to rotate the cab 90 degrees before lifting it a little higher than Elwell-the-Crane was capable of doing. The solution was to finally place it with two forklifts, one from each side after rotating it with Elwell the Crane. . Break time was greatly enhanced due to the mother of one of our greatest young enthusiasts, Bennett, once again bringing down a brace of coffee cakes! . All of the images today are of the day-long project to assemble the U33C Cab. The group picture at the lower right captures most of the crew remaining at the end of day. Our thanks for a great day's effort to them and the other volunteers who had to leave earlier. . Posting by Michael Guy; Pictures by Thomas Blampied & Russ Milland .
Milestone: The Electronic Sign is Now Under our Control!
The vendor of our electronic sign finally managed to get our access to the signage working properly last week. The TRHA can now communicate to the public through yet another communications channel. In this You Tube video, out first message is shown. It simply says: "Toronto Railway Heritage Centre Opening on May 29th and May 30th". Once we have the time to master the software for the signage we will be able to create more colourful messages as well. . Posting by Russ Milland; Video by Wilson lau .
Click on each image for a closer look! . Continuing our report on activities during this past week, we first see at the upper right that Cabin D and Don Station are nearing completion. In the right hand picture above, we see that #1 and our #4803 have been positioned on the turntable this week for the public to admire. . In the picture at the lower left, we see that the exteriors of the U33C Cab components have been painted in white primer. In the middle picture we find two young men from Leon's staff hard at work. They have been generously loaned to us by Leon's this week to help us expedite our work. Tim and Carl painted the exterior of the cab in Tremclad Grey for the time being until such time that we can get the proper piant for a Delaware and Hudson diesel. Tim returned for a second day to help us sand newly delivered stairs. In the last image at the lower left, one of the two 13 foot long stairs to the lofty perch in the F7 Cab is being sanded after having being delivered to the Roundhouse early on Thursday. . Posting and Pictures by Russ Milland .
Click on each image for a closer look! . As we get closer and closer to our opening event, many of our volunteers are turning up during the week to help expedite completion on a number of fronts. . In the above images at the upper left and middle, we see two of our engines out on track patrol as we continue to tweak and refine our trackage to assure reliable running of all of our equipment. At the upper right above, holes in the F7 Cab's nose are being patched with welded in steel plates. At the left below, we find the posts (already primed in white) in the three bays being painted black up to the four foot level. . As seen in the middle image below, not to be out done by Dan's bringing his mother and father down on Mother's Day to work on our equipment, I brought my daughter (who built and maintains our TRHA website), my son-in-law, Jay (who was oneof the team who built the Toronto Rail lands Simulation), and my granddaughter, Sephie to help expedite the completion of the U33C Simulator which is seen in the image at the lower right with one of the many steel plates installed which are required to complete the cab's structure.
Click on each image for a closer look!
