Another local railway image acquired!

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Acquiring images of past railway operations. especially in the Toronto area is something that many of us pursue. John Mellow, a member of the Board of TRHA, has acquired another photo taken in the Don Station in the early 1960's. This is a photo showing train order Operator Clarence Schoester making an entry in the train register book at the desk in Don Station. John, of course, was himself an operator in Don Station back then as well.
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Posting by Russ Milland, Photo from John Mellow's Collection

Heritage train in motion .. a close up experience!

The video below gives us a close up view of the vintage train set being moved into and out of the Railway Children theatrical production. This happens several times during the actual performance. The event becomes one of the attractions at the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre when the shows are scheduled. For an afternoon matinee production, the train movements occur at about 3:00 p.m. and twice more until 4:30 p.m.

Posting by Russ Milland, Video by Michael Guy

Click here to read the next TRHA News post about the Railway Children production

Field Trip: Chasing an Empress!

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As many are aware, CP maintains and operates a heritage train pulled by one of their famed CPR Royal Hudson #2816 steam locomotives. Each year, they bring the train to special events around Canada and offer rides to the public with revenues going to the Childrens Wish Foundation. This summer, the heritage train is making excursions throughout B.C. as well as Alberta.

Cor van Steenis who lives in Calgary, Alberta has been following the train and shares with us his well documented attached images as well as this description of his excursion as follows:

"On 23 June 2011 CPR operated a passenger train from Calgary to Golden, BC, with CP 4-6-4 Hudson #2816, CPR tuscan and gray diesels #4106, #3084, #1401 & #1900 along with 19 cars, the combined consists of the steam program plus the Royal Canadian Pacific (RCP). This is the first time I have seen 4 diesels with the Empress. At Golden, the train was split, the RCP heading south to the Crowsnest Pass via the Windermere Sub with #4106 and #3084; #2816 heading back to Calgary as Train 28B-24 with the #1401 and #1900 plus 10 cars. The steam train had the Business Car 'Mount Royal' (one of the RCP cars) on the tail end. The train made a one hour stop in Field, B.C., for the 125th anniversary celebrations of the founding of Yoho National Park and then continued on to Banff to embark passengers for the Children's Wish Foundation public trip to Calgary. It was a great couple of days following this train(s), even though it was only 6 degrees at Morant's Curve and there was still snow in the Trans Canada Highway ditches near Field!"

For more information about #2816 and CP's excursions, read our earlier post, the Wikipedia entry on #2816 and also check out CP's Empress website page.

Posting by Russ Milland; Photos by Cor van Steenis

Highballing with the Richmond Hill Live Steamers!

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Highball is not only the name of a famous mixed alcoholic drink but, in the world of railways, is defined as "a signal to start a train, given with the hand or with a lamp" and also as a "signal for a train to move at full speed". Engineers operating their trains at full speed were often described as "highballing" the train. Early railway signals consisted of a ball pulled up and down a pole to provide an engineer clearance to proceed. A ball high on the pole was clearance to proceed at full speed.

There are two large miniature railway clubs in the greater Toronto area. Members of both have contributed significantly to the development of the miniature railway in Roundhouse Park. One of these clubs, the Richmond Hill Live Steamers, operate an extensive railway in beautiful pine woods just north of Toronto. In the video below, we are treated to a steam-powered engine being highballed around their recently expanded trackage result in a trip over 6 minutes long which shows off their environment very nicely.

Note that neither they nor we travel at such speed when we are carrying the riding public. We limit ourselves to 10 miles per hour at those times.

Posting by Russ Milland; Video by Ron Melvin of the Richmond Hill Live Steamers; Photos above by Russ Milland

Weekend Report: Expanded miniature railway operation and many projects tackled as well

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Father’s Day weekend was a busy one. Michael Guy reports on Saturday’s miniature railway operations as follows:

“We had a good day today (Saturday), with 321 riders. We tried out the new schedule, which allowed two windows during the Railway Children performance to run trains during a time that we would normally be shut down. This process was aided considerably by a new signal system which showed red and green lights at the turntable (as shown in the image at the upper right) which can be seen from Don Station. The Railway Children train crew control both these lights and the blocks that are pulled in and out of the tracks so this was exactly what we needed to make this system work. When the show got out at 4:30 p.m., we ran two further trains to carry the rush of passengers who were coming out of the theatre.”

Sunday being Father's Day, we had another great day with lots of families out visiting us and all the people coming to see the show (“403 riders on Sunday alone” – Derek Boles). We had #6213 open for visitors and the miniature railway operations went flawlessly. Every window of opportunity was successfully used to operate the train using the plan and technology described earlier.

With our new expanded operational capability, we will now be running the miniature railway each week on a daily basis from Wednesday through Sunday.

Crews were also busy this weekend inside the roundhouse on a number of projects as shown in the images below.

Posting by Russ Milland; Images by Lance Gleich (above) and James Rasor (below).

Recovering parts of the original roundhouse smoke jacks

When the John st Roundhouse stalls 1 to 11 were re-built, three original 1929 wooden smoke jacks were removed from stalls 1 to 3 and stored. Deterioration and lack of storage space has dictated they be destroyed. The video below documents an initiative undertaken recently by volunteers of the TRHC to save some of the artefact. As time allows, one jack will be rebuilt from the saved parts. In due course, we hope to install the smoke jack as an exhibit in stall 15 which can then be interpreted for the visiting public. Only the hood part inside the building will be restored.

Posting and video by Michael Guy

Safety First in Roundhouse Park

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Safety is a constant concern within Roundhouse Park and our TRHA volunteers are continually looking for opportunities to improve it as we build our operating experience. The images here capture our recent production in our shops of signs to both warn visitors of the rails under their feet on the pavement in front of Don Station as well as of the fact that there is a railway crossing at Cabin D.

Posting by Russ Milland

Weekend Report: A busy weekend despite variable weather!

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This weekend again saw our miniature railway in full operation as usual with hundreds of riders enjoying a trip around Roundhouse Park. On Saturday afternoon, the child actors participating in the Railway Children Production enjoyed a special barbeque held just for them with our TRHA volunteers helping out with the cooking and providing them with rides around the park as well.

Our work party this weekend was a small one but they were quite productive working on a number of projects:

• Finalizing the frame design for the rolling stock signs
• Began building the first of the signs to interpret our locomotives and rolling stock
• Starting the rebuild of an old CP boxcar ladder
• Clean-up and sorting of the items brought from the machine shop into TRHA storage boxes
• Building a new storage module for brooms, extension chords, and ropes
• Cleaning and re-organizing the working material in the caboose

The pictures shown here capture the work party in action inside the Roundhouse. The last photo shows the latest addition to the signage around the park which helps visitors find the growing number of attractions that we have to offer.

Derek Boles shares with us an interesting story about an encounter last Saturday:

“Last year we were visited by John C. Clarke who worked at John Street his entire working career starting in 1942 and was shop foreman in the 1970's when the excursion steam locomotives were being restored. We had an extensive write-up on him on the website on April 25, 2010. Mr. Clarke showed up today with his grandkids to see the show. He came up to me and started describing what he had done at the roundhouse and, although I had never met him personally (even though I wrote the web item), I said - "I know who you are; you're John C. Clarke "" - and his face just lit up. Seconds after that his family, who had entered Don Sation, found the " Workers " plaque that we had moved inside and started making a commotion when they discovered John's picture and name on the plaque. I think it's fair to say we made his day (and mine actually!). It's stuff like that that makes it all worthwhile.”

Posting by Russ Milland; Photos by James Rasor

TRHA Annual Train Show Report - Part 7

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Finally, we round up our report on the TRHA Train Show on May 28th and 29th with these photos of crowds enjoying themselves at the event as well as their riding our miniature railway which was a height of the weekend as well. Both our Sweet Creek steam engine and our mini-Whitcomb gas-hydraulic were pressed into service and our expanded fleet of passenger cars performed flawlessly.

This ends our series of reports on this very successful weekend event. Click here to read the first and subsequent reports in this series.

Posting and pictures by Russ Milland

TRHA Annual Train Show Report - Part 6

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TRHA also had a table where we promoted the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre and sold souvenirs to the visiting public. Our exhibit included a modular model railroad provided by Rapido Trains Inc. for our use.

Stephen Gardiner (pictured with the layout above) used this module to display and operate his wonderful HO scale models of most of our engines and our rolling stock in the TRHC collection which he has painstakingly crafted using kits of parts and other materials from many sources.

Click here to read Part 7, our final posting in our report on the May 28th and May 29th Train Show.

Posting and photos by Russ Milland

TRHA Annual Train Show Report - Part 5

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Continuing our coverage of the May 28th and May 29th TRHA Train Show, we turn now to the three TRHA railway simulation systems which were available to visitors that weekend. While one of our four simulators is integrated into our full size GE U33C Diesel Cab, we also have three "portable" simulators which can be taken to train shows to help promote our museum.

As shown in the photos, these units were in service during this show and were a great hit, especially with the younger railway enthusiasts.

Click here to read Part 6 of our report on the May 28th and May 29th Train Show.

Posting by Russ Milland; Photos by Lance Gleich & Russ Milland

TRHA Annual Train Show Report - Part 4

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Continuing our coverage of the May 28th and 29th Train Show at the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre, we go inside the Roundhouse to the Steam Whistle's entertainment area where a number of railway themed displays added to the public's enjoyment of our train show. Pictured are the some of the many fine portable model railroad layouts brought to the show by enthusiastic local railway modellers.

Steam Whistle Brewing advised us that over 6,000 people visited the facility over the two days of the event.

Click here to read Part 5 of our report on the May 28th and May 29th Train Show.

Posting and pictures by Russ Milland