Toronto Railway Historical Association

White Creek Railroad: Operations and Remote Control

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The White Creek Railroad is a private 7.5-inch gauge miniature railway constructed by Russ and Mara Eldred and is located in a rural country setting in Western Michigan on approximately 120 acres of land. The track meanders through densely wooded hills and open fields, across marshy lowlands and nearly encompasses two picturesque lakes.

As mentioned in the story of the development of the railway on their website , by May 1, 2000 (over ten years ago) the railroad statistics included 5 miles of mainline with 6.5 miles total track, over 1000 feet of trestles, 190+ switches, bi-directional running with 30 passing sidings, 30 signal blocks, 27 industry spurs, 2 yards, and 9 junctions.

Many miniature railway enthusiasts build detailed scale models of complete train sets to pull with their locomotives. On very large miniature railways such as this one, a very popular event is to operate the railway just like a real one to operating orders and schedules. Trains travel from town to town and from rail yard to rail yard. Click here to read an interesting invitation for railway enthusiasts to join them on the White Creek Railroad at one of their operations of this type last May.

The video below (taken on the White Creek Railroad) was posted on September 29th, 2011 and shows how radio control can be used to operate miniature train sets such as the ones that we use in Roundhouse Park. Note that, just as is done on rail railroads, they use remote control helper locomotives located in mid-train or at the back of the train to help with the load.

Posting by Russ Milland

Rocky Mountain Express opens on October 1st at the Ontario Science Centre!

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Stephen Low is a gifted producer of IMAX films and we have known for some time that his company, The Stephen Low Company, is working on the production of an IMAX film starring CP's #2816 Royal Hudson steam engine. The film, titled the Rocky Mountain Express, is now being released and will be featured daily at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. on Monday through Friday from October 1st through December 23rd, 2011.

For more information about the engine and the film, follow these links:

For more information about #2816, follow these links:

If you visit the Ontario Science Centre after October 13th, also consider taking in the the "Leonardo da Vinci's Workshop - The Exhibition" which features 16 exclusive scale models of his inventions including his Mechanical Lion and Robot Soldier, as well as the famous Great Kite flying machine and the Self-Propelling Cart.

Click below to watch the video trailer for the Rocky Mountain Express.

Posting by Russ Milland; Images from the CP Website

Restoration of the miniature railway's original right of way!

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This week a crew of TRHA volunteers are making great progress in resurrecting the old right of way from under its gravel covering where it rested while the Railway Children Production was underway. The original track was in very good shape so we expect to fully restore the railway in the very near future.

Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Michael Guy and Jay Larkin

The flat car's new deck is now complete!

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In the attached images, we find our Saturday crew out on the deck of the flat car celebrating its completion. Congratulations to the intrepid crew of volunteers who persisted in working on the car for many weeks now to get the job done!

Posting by Russ Milland

The Railway Children Production - An Open House video!

With this TRHA News posting, we complete our coverage of the Railway Children production which happened in Roundhouse Park this past summer. The video below was taken in June of 2011 during one of a number of Open Houses held to let the public learn more about the production. In it, Bob Dickson of the TRHA speaks to the history of the steam locomotive and the passenger carriage used as a heritage train set. Then Rhona Waddington, the Resident Director of the production, speaks to the theatrical production itself.

This is a great behind the scenes glimpse into a very successful theatrical production.

Posting and video by Russ Milland

Heritage Train Returns to the U.K. - Part 2!

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Continuing our report on the departure of the Heritage train set from the Railway Children production for the U.K., we find the Adams T3 Steam engine being tied down to the float and then finally departing Roundhouse Park with one serious police escort!

Click here to view a video behind the scenes of the Railway Children production!

Posting by Russ Milland; Images by Thomas Blampied & Stephen Gardiner

Heritage Train Returns to the U.K. - Part 1!

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With the successful conclusion of the Railway Children production the heritage train set consisting of the Adams T3 4-4-0 steam engine and the Director's Carriage were loaded onto truck transports this past week and will subsequently be taken by train to the east coast and then by boat back to the National Railway Museum in the United Kingdom.

In these images we see the arrival of the float which was used to carry the steam engine as well as the engine being moved to the track beside the coaling tower where the float was positioned.

Click here to read Part 2 of this TRHA News posting.

Posting by Russ Milland; Images by Thomas Blampied & Stephen Gardiner

Weekend Report - Part 2: Re-decking the flat car!

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Work also continued this past weekend on the replacement of the wooden decking on the flat car. In this series of images we get a closer look at how this is done. TRHA volunteers are seen building heavy metal clips which are then used with large bolts to secure each board on the decking to the metal frame of the flat car. We have almost completed all of the decking.

Posting by Russ Milland; Images by Stephen Gardiner

Weekend Report - Part 1: Great weather! Great operations! More progress!

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Weekend operations of the miniature railway continued as other TRHA volunteers addressed other tasks at hand. We disassembled a temporary structure inside the Roundhouse used with one of the portable simulators, recycling the wood for other purposes.

In the images below we continue to prepare appropriate mounting surfaces and then mount the plaques on our rolling stock. Once these are all in place, visitors will be able to read about each and every major piece of equipment as they stroll around the park. We also made great progress on the re-decking of the flat car which will be the topic of our next TRHA News posting.

Click here to read Part 2 of this TRHA Weekend report!

Posting by Russ Milland; Images by Stephen Gardiner

Roundhouse Park is getting a new neighbour - an aquarium!

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A flurry of news postings in the press in August documented the plans by Ripley's Entertainment (famed for their "Believe It or Not" roots as a corporation) to build an aquarium at the foot of the CN Tower between it and Bremner Boulevard to be opened in 2013. This will be their third aquarium in North America. It will become our immediate neighbour to the north. Here are a few news postings which speak to the new project:

No time has been lost in proceeding with construction as can be seen in the image above. For further information, visit the Ripley Aquarium Website by clicking here.

Posting by Russ Milland; Image by Michael Guy

Field Trip: West Coast Railway Heritage Park – Part 7

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Continuing my reporting on what I learned from visiting the West Coast Railway Associations terrific museum in Squamish, B.C., I now turn to their collection of passenger cars many of which are used as museum display cars. A few are in great shape and continue to be exhibited as they appeared at the end of their service. Some have been meticulously restored and will be described in another TRHA News item. Some of them were originally part of museum trains which crossed the country at special times in our history such as the Canada's Centennial year in 1967. Other cars are filled with displays of small artefacts.

In the image at the lower left, an old computer has been interfaced to a sounder connected to a railway telegraph system that they have set up to interpret the importance of telegraph in our railway history. In the middle image below there is a display of artwork from a painter of note who donated his collection seeing their museum as an ideal home for it.

Finally in the lower right image, we find an extensive HO scale model railroad system built into one of their passenger cars by a widower who had moved to Squamish and spent a year and a half building it. The design is quite interesting as it consists basically of a layout that occupies about 2/3 of the width of the passenger car but has alcoves built in at regular intervals to provide lots of viewing area. It is difficult to photograph because of all of the glass however.

Posting and pictures by Russ Milland

Images of the U.K. Railway Children heritage train in Waterloo Station

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As the Railway Children production in Toronto fades becomes a memory, Adrian Ashby offers us the images shown here of the current production of the Railway Children in London, England. It is housed in the otherwise disused Waterloo railway station. The theatre itself is housed at the far distant end of the station in the image at the upper left. The heritage train set is powered by the two "shunter" engines shown in the middle image above. At the upper right, we find the Sterling Single steam engine used in the production.

In the images below we see both the exterior and the interior of the carriage used in the production. It has a restored and finished interior unlike the carriage used in the production in Toronto.

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

Posting by Russ Milland; Images by Adrian Ashby

Weekend Report: TRHA Volunteers were busy on many fronts!

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Labour Day weekend began with a busy Saturday as TRHA Volunteers:

Shuffled equipment around outside as Roundhouse Park reverts back to its former self
Worked on the flatcar with the new decking nearing completion
Continued to install the rolling stock signage
And gave roundhouse stalls a good cleaning

Posting by Russ Milland; Photos by Jay Larkin and James Rasor