Click on each page for a closer look! . Many of our volunteers have taken a well deserved rest and are away with their friends and family enjoying the holiday season. But some have taken advantage of this week to continue to work on projects at the Roundhouse. . This week a number of projects were moved forward.
A re-manufactured rear axle assembly is now back in place under Romulus miniature steam locomotive. Romulus was successfully run on compressed air, auguring well for a planned test run on New Year's Day.
Our teams also now have all of the power outlets in Don Station working with full lighting as well in all of the rooms except the power closet.
Our volunteers were also at work continuing to restore the windows on the U33C Simulator as well.
Tom Murison and his crew have finished stripping the Cape Race's old roof and are now working on rebuilding the wooden roof components while our volunteers worked at disposing of the old roofing materials and began the job of painting the steel infrastructure. Tom showed us the redwood that was used in the original roof construction. Redwood is very susceptible to dry rot if moisture gets into the wood. Over the years, this moisture resulted in extensive damage to the roof of the Cape Race forcing us to replace almost all of it.
Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Russ Milland and Michael Guy .
Click on each image for a closer look! . David Flinn is a stalwart supporter of the TRHA who lives Lansing, New York, which is ten miles north of Ithaca in the Finger Lakes region. He has visited us several times over the years. This past November, he participated in our work teams during the week that he was here. In the photo above, Dave is enjoying operating the U33C diesel-electric locomotive simulator. . While he was here, David donated to the TRHA two framed prints by the famed painter of railway scenes, Hoaward Fogg. . The first print is titled ”C.P.R. Diesel-Electric Locomotive in Coquihalla Pass. B.C. #8441”. As reported on the CPR diesel roster on the Internet, this locomotive was built by the Montreal Locomotive Works in 1954 as serial number 81006 and was part of the DRS-16a class. It was painted in the Maroon and Grey “Script” colour scheme. . The second print is titled “C.N.R. Diesel-Electric Locomotive at Morrissy Tunnel, N. B. in Coquihalla Pass. B.C. #9414”. The locomotive in this print is an FA2 built in 1951 again by the Montreal Locomotive Works. . During his career, Howard Fogg produced over 1,200 paintings - at least 800 of these by commission. He illustrated approximately 100 books and 70 different Leanin' Tree cards. Fogg was considered by many to be America's finest railroad artist. At this website , they write about Howard Fogg as follows:
“As the diesel locomotives rolled out of the American Locomotive Company plant in Schenectady, New York in the 1940's, 50's and early 60's, Howard Fogg was commissioned to paint locomotive after locomotive. Of these numerous paintings, Alco had some forty-eight reproduced. Without doubt, Fogg was the outstanding artist painting trains. His capture of rolling stock as it passed through its native environment presents sheer beauty of both locomotive and background to the viewer.” There is more information about Howard Fogg to be found at these websites by clicking here or here: . Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Russ Milland & Stephen Gardiner . If you click on the video below, you will experience a tour of over 200 Howard Fogg prints in a fast paced slide show: .
Trip Report: Locomotion – The National Railway Museum at Shildon, County Durham
Click on each image for a closer look!
When people think of railway museums in the UK, they immediately think of the National Railway Museum in York, which is said to be the largest in the world and one of the UK’s most popular tourist attractions. However, what many people do not know is that since 2004, the museum has also had a second location, offering a variety of different exhibits and a different perspective on the railways. . This new site is in Shildon, a small town to the west of Darlington. This is the heart of the North-East’s coal country and also central to the birth of the railways as Shildon was on the Stockton and Darlington Railway. At one time, it was claimed that Shildon had the largest goods yard in the world, serving the coal industry. By the 1990s, all the yard track had been removed and nature reclaimed the land trackside. The main collections building at the museum is built on top of the former yard. . The site is spread along a mile-long strip beside the railway, featuring various displays and exhibits, such as a goods shed, coal drop and the main collections building. For rail photographers, the modern collections building is better-lit than the York site, making photography easier. The collection is split into themes, such as passenger, freight and track maintenance, with various specimens including locomotives, freight cars and track machines. . In 2010, the Mallard was transferred from York to its new home at Shildon. Because both sites are part of the same museum, the collection items tend to rotate so it is best to check ahead to find out where an item is. . The photos show (clockwise from the upper left):
A North Eastern Railway snow plough, perfect for the snowy weather in the UK right now;
DB 74007, the first track machine to be used by British Rail;
A passenger coach from the Stockton and Darlington Railway;
The remains of the coal drop;
Two generations of high-speed train, the ill-fated Advanced Passenger Train (APT) (left) and the earlier and highly successful prototype for the Class 55 “Deltic” diesels (right);
And finally, perhaps the most famous locomotive in the world – Mallard.
. Like York, the museum at Shildon is free! However, it has more restricted opening hours so it is best to plan ahead. It is possible to visit both sites in the same day as Shildon is only two short train trips from York, changing at Darlington. . For more information, visit: http://nrm.org.uk/PlanaVisit/VisitShildon.aspx. . Click here for my earlier report on the National Railway Museum's York site. . Posting and images by Thomas Blampied .
Click on each image for a closer look! . Tom Murison and his team were responsible for the restoration of Cabin D, the Tool Shed, Don Station and the Shanty and currently are working on roof restoration of our passenger cars. They have sent us this poem featuring Christmas and Roundhouse Park:
"Twas the day before Christmas The weather was iffy And the geezer was pleased That his shanty was spiffy
The lights were a sparklin' Up on the fir tree And the dogs were now scarce On T O property Yet still came a rumble And whine from Cape Race As the elves were a fixing The roof on that place
Twas redwood not cedar Surprised was the boss Old Sequoias protected For owls and for moss "No Fear" said the crew We'll use cedar and pine And fix it with stainless Planes sharpened up fine
So the elves laboured long But they still liked to feast On fine cuts of Hereford bar-b-qued from the beast They raise up a can of the Whistling Steam To wish all of you cheer From the Murison Team
All the best for 2011 from Tom, Walter, Peter D., Peter C, Lynn, Ed, Aaron, Mac, and Johnny."
Among the above images, you will find a Christmas tree in the Shanty which Tom installed to help us celebrate the Holiday season. . Read on to the next posting below for TRHA's season's greetings to one and all. . Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Michael Guy .
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to one and all from the TRHA!
Click on each picture for a closer look! . 2010 has been a very exciting year for the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre, as anyone is aware who has been following our progress on this website. On December 12th, we were able to thank our dedicated volunteers with a fine party at Steam Whistle. For those of you who were unable to attend or who have supported our endeavour in other ways, the board of directors of the Toronto Railway Historical Association want to take this opportunity to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas. For those of other faiths, the very happiest of holidays and best wishes for 2011. . Railways and Christmas-time have always had a long and fruitful association. For inter-city passenger train carriers, the Christmas season is probably the busiest time of the year as people travel home to spend the holidays with their loved ones. In the days before FedEx, UPS and Purolator, the railways played a key role in delivering parcels for the holidays, not just gifts being exchanged among friends and family, but presents being purchased through the Eatons catalogue and delivered across Canada where they were hidden away in closets and under beds until they were wrapped and deposited under the Christmas tree. . For manufacturers such as Lionel, Christmas was also a bonanza as dads throughout North America purchased toy trains, as much for themselves as for their sons. As a child growing up in Montreal, my own memories of Christmas were inextricably linked to trains. Usually a week or so before December 25, my mother would take me downtown to visit Eatons and Simpsons department stores. As I got older, she would deposit me in the toy department while she went off to browse and shop for items that were more of interest to her. Not only did the toy train display feature operating layouts that occupied a huge space in those days, Eatons had a replica of a Canadian Pacific Royal Hudson that hauled shoppers on a miniature railway track through an elaborately decorated fantasy land concocted by the store's set designers. . Following the shopping we had lunch at Murray's Restaurant, long a fixture in Montreal and Toronto. It was there that I acquired a life-long taste for rice pudding. After lunch we walked over to Canadian National's Central Station and then across Dominion Square to the Canadian Pacific Windsor Station. Both railways erected huge trees in the middle of the concourse as well as other displays throughout the stations. From there it was home to much excitement and anticipation in the days leading up to December 25. Every relative who gave me a Christmas present knew that I loved trains and I was seldom disappointed. . We're pleased this year to present three photographs of railway station Christmas trees courtesy of Raymond S. Farand of Ottawa. In December 2009, Raymond photographed the trees in the Ottawa VIA (lower left image), Montreal Central (upper right image) and Montreal Windsor (upper left image) stations. We thank Raymond for permission to use his photos. . We wish that we could include a contemporary photograph of a spectacular tree at Toronto's Union Station but, alas, the City of Toronto since acquiring the facility in 2000 has shown no inclination to erect such a tree so we've used an image that is almost 30 years old. . The Union Station photo at the lower right dates from 1979 and I have no information on who took it or where it came from. It's a slide that looks like it was photographed from a magazine. If anyone knows, please advise so we can provide proper attribution. Aside from the Christmas tree, the photo has other interesting details that are worth noting. It was taken shortly after VIA Rail was formed and assumed responsibility for passenger trains in Canada. The ticket counters are still located on the north side of the Great Hall. . The four sided bulletin board with the departure times was installed in 1967, replacing the handsome original installation at the centre of the Great Hall. This consisted of a circular marble information counter with a tall four-sided clock mounted on top of a marble column. Instead of numbers, the clock faces had the twelve letters of UNION STATION. Mounted in the column was some kind of mechanical train board, the workings of which I have never been able to obtain any information. . When the four-sided bulletin board shown in the photo was installed in 1967, each side had arrivals or departures for Canadian National and Canadian Pacific trains. By the 1970s, this had become somewhat of an embarrassment for CP since they only had a few trains on each of their two boards, whereas CN's boards were filled with trains. VIA appears to have just left the CP boards blank. . This installation was replaced in 1986 by the monstrosity that currently and gracelessly occupies the centre of the Great Hall and is completely unsympathetic with the otherwise Beaux-Arts magnificence of Toronto's finest chamber. Apparently this structure was VIA's ode to the 150th anniversary of passenger trains in Canada, which they celebrated in 1986. Even VIA gave up on it and it is currently occupied by Travelers' Aid, whose volunteers spend most of their time answering questions about VIA trains since passengers quite naturally assume that it is a VIA information counter. . The installation was featured on VIA's December 2009 Christmas timetable although the two attractive and cheerful models who are obviously ecstatic at the prospect of boarding a VIA train aren't dressed for the season. The photographer and indeed the VIA official who approved the photo appear not to have noticed that the overhead train board which is normally filled with trains is empty and all that is shown are train cancellations. . On that amusing note, I wish you all the very best of the season. . Posting by Derek Boles, TRHA Historian .
Click on the image for a closer look! . Derek Boles of the Toronto Railway Historical Association has offered guided tours of Union Station on the last Saturday of every month since March 2006. The only exceptions were when the Saturday fell during Doors Open weekend, in which case there were numerous albeit shorter tours available for free. The other exception was when TTC workers staged an illegal wildcat strike and Derek wasn't able to get downtown. Since the last Saturday of December 2010 falls on Christmas Day, there will be no Union Station tour this month. We think people will have other things on their mind that day. The next tour will be on Saturday, January 29. . Posting by Russ Milland; Image from TRHA
Click on each image for a closer look! . A team of volunteers has continued to work at removing valuable parts from LRC #6919 to be used in the restoration of LRC #6917 acquired by the TRHA. . They were joined by volunteers from the Ontario Locomotive Restoration Society (SOLRS) who successfully recovered 5 MU (multiple unit) plugs that we did not need for their restoration projects. . Stephen Gardiner of the TRHA reports: . "Our parts kit now includes two more Number Board fixtures with bug deflectors, a stainless steel nose strip, the dashboard ammeter, a gigantic panel of electrical switches (including the hinge intact), an air dryer, two rear car body stirrup steps, the diaphragm Plate Step, miscellaneous air pipes, safety rails from the doors, the rear door of the locomotive and other bits and pieces of pipe and ephemera that one may find on a modern diesel locomotive." . At the above left we see our LRC #6917 safely stored pending it removal by the TRHA. IN the picture at the upper left, we see that the control console on the cab of LRC #6919 has been thoroughly scavenged. In the final pictures below, we see what is left of #6919. The diaphragm from the back of the PRC safely in the trailer beside it. . Click here for the next News posting on this work! . Posting by Russ Milland; Images by Stephen Gardiner .
Click on each image for a closer look! . On Thursday, December 16th, 2010 at 7:00 a.m., McCulloch Movers loaded up our "new" flat car for delivery to Roundhouse Park. It was a little longer than Greg McCulloch could fit on his tracked trailer so he chose to lift the car off its trucks onto a bigger flatbed trailer then load the trucks on top of the flat car. A fifty-ton mobile crane made short work of the three lifts and Greg was on his way by nine-thirty a.m. The flat car was back on its trucks on track 34 at Roundhouse Park by noon. The flat car has trucks fitted with elliptical leaf springs which are more typical of many a caboose rather than a freight car. . Posting by Michael Guy; Pictures by Ryan Ho .
. Continuing our reporting on the topic of the railways dealing with the challenges of plowing snow from their tracks, the video above captures an Ontario Northland train using a locomotive mounted plow to blast through a five foot snow drift. Note that the engineer blasts the air horn all the way through the drift to prevent it from being plugged up. . What do railways do when the drifts are even higher? They turn to a Canadian invention, the Rotary Snowplow. The rotary was invented by Canadian dentist J.W. Elliot in 1869, but a prototype wasn't built until the Leslie Brothers constructed one in 1883. For more information on the Rotary plow, visit Wikipedia's article on the rotary by clicking here. . Below we see two steam locomotives pushing a steam driven rotary. This action was captured on video a few years ago on the famed Cumbres & Toltec narrow gauge tourist railway in Colorado. . Posting by Russ Milland .
The OSR tackles the snowfalls in southwest Ontario!
Click on the pictures above for a closer look! . Railways have always been challenged with winter snowstorms. Today, you often find snow plow blades mounted on the front of today's locomotives to allow a train to clear the tracks ahead of it when the amounts of snow on the rails are modest. In two of the pictures at the above left, we find Ontario Southland Railway (OSR) locomotives, #180 and #181, which are ex-CP RS18u engines, equipped with such snowplows. . If the snow on the tracks is deeper than a foot or two, railways will often bring in their classic wedge plows such as the plow in the picture at the above right which is part of the collection at the Revelstoke Railway Museum. In the video below by Walter Pfefferle, we find the OSR using their GP7 #378 and RS23a #503 and a plow borrowed from CP. They used this train yesterday on December 17th, 2010 to to plow the railway from Ingersoll to St Thomas.
As described on their website: "The Ontario Southland Railway is a 100 % Canadian owned short line railway company incorporated in 1992 to provide a number of transportation services to meet customer needs. On December 14th, 2009 the OSR took over the 32 miles of the St. Thomas sub from Canadian Pacific. OSR now has operations in Guelph, Tillsonburg and Woodstock to St Thomas. The OSR provides railway contract operations including complete maintenance, locomotives and related equipment. ....." . For more about the Ontario Southland Railway, click here to visit their website where they provide much of interest to the rail enthusiast including a roster of their locomotives and a number of pictures as well. Also, click here for some great images of the plow in action also taken byWalter Pfefferle! . Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures and videos by Russ Milland, Walter Pfefferle and from the OSR website. . Click on the video below to watch it! .
Click on each page for a closer look!
