The National Model Railroad Association's Winnipeg train show is on tomorrow!

Saturday, November 1 is the big day! The NMRA is holding it's first ever train show in Winnipeg, and it's open to the public! You don't have to be an NMRA member to attend! They're going to have lots of layouts, including the No. 1 Northern Division's Free-Mo layout, the Lionel 027 "Giraffe Car" layout, a portable N scale layout, and a G scale layout! There will be clinics and a demonstration on how to run a layout with a cell phone. Try your hand at runing a miniature switching yard with the John Allen Timesaver module!

The fun starts at 10:00 AM this Saturday at Whyte Ridge Baptist Church, 201 Scurfield Road! Admission by donation. Handicap accessible! Portions of the proceeds will be donated to St. Amant.

Log onto railpictures.ca and view a great railroad photo gallery

Here's a neat website that Peter Newman, our good friend from Orlando, Florida sent us. It's railpictures.ca and it has thousands and thousands of great Canadian railroad photos, taken by rail fans just like yourself! Anyone can contribute to the site, and registration is free! You create your own photo page and profile and post your own images, and even get feedback from other members! We can't show you any of the images on this site without permission, as all contributors hold their own copyright, but all you have to do is log on to railpictures.ca and see all the great train images they have!

Read Rene Gourley's Pembrooke:87 blog

Peter Newman, who sent Morgan Turney the information we posted last month about Del Rosamond's amazing photos posted at http://www.CanadianSteam.Smugmug.com, also sent us another fascinating post: http://pembroke87.wordpress.com/. It's a great model railroading and rail fanning blog all in itself, and it also features a post on Del Rosamond's photography, which he posted on September 5, which you can read by clicking here. Enjoy!

Learn how to operate a model railroad with a cell phone at the National Model Railroad Association's train show in Winnipeg on November 1

Want to learn how to run a model railroad with a cell phone?  That's one of the the exciting clinics and demonstrations that the No. 1 Northern Division of the National Model Railroad Association is holding at their annual train show this November 1st at Whyte Ridge Baptist Church, located at 201 Scurfield Boulevard.

There will be several operating layouts, including the No. 1 Northern's Free-Mo HO layout, a portable N scale layout, the Lionel 027 Giraffe car layout, and a G scale layout! You can also test your skill at switching with the John Allen time saver module. There will also be continuous video presentations during the show.

Admission is by donation, and the church is handicap accessible. Hours are from 10AM to 4PM. Hope to see you all there!

Ken Epp's memorial service well attended

A band with over 75 members played at the memorial service for our good friend Ken Epp. Ken led an exemplary life of service to others, not only to the model railroading community but to the music and basketball community of Manitoba. He was the executive director of the Manitoba Band Association for 29 years and also served as a referee with the Manitoba Association of Basketball officials.

   Ken worked at many levels of the game, including many high school provincial championships and Canadian national championships at the university level. Under Ken's leadership, music instruction through band programs became available to students across the province, making Manitoba a leader in music education.

   Of course, Ken will always be fondly remembered for organizing the WMRC's Great Canadian Train Show for so many years.

The Winnipeg Free Press covered his memorial service. You can read the article by clicking here.

A BNSF SD40-2 built entirely out of Lego

Here's something our good friend Ian Lisakowski sent us from the Friends of BNSF website. Dennis Glassker, a Dutch modeller, built a detailed BNSF SD40-2 out of Lego blocks. And it's huge! It's built at 1:16 scale, it's 52 inches long and weighs 44 pounds. Just to put that size in perspective, LGB G scale trains are 1:22 scale. He even modeled the interior! Check out his work at:https://www.friendsofbnsf.com/content/BNSF-locomotive-model-Legos

John Longhurst's tribute to Ken Epp

 Ken Epp (L) is seen with John Longhurst at John's layout, the CP Rail Manitoba and Minnesota Subdivision. The photo was taken two weeks before Ken's death.

Long time WMRC member John Longhurst wrote a tribute to his brother-in-law Ken Epp in his most recent post on his blog, the CP Rail Manitoba and Minnesota Subdivision. It has been mentioned before on a previous post on this site, but it was so moving that it warranted another posting.  The best quote was one from Ken himself, reflecting on his many trips on Via Rail and Amtrak.

“I have to say that sitting in the dome car at night as the train goes across the Canadian Shield, watching the signals get knocked down, seeing the northern lights and the snow on the trees—I don’t know if what heaven is like, but for me, that’s heaven.”

 We can only hope that heaven is as nice a place as that.

Ken's funeral service will be held on Sunday, October 19 at North Kildonan Mennonite Brethren Church, 1315 Gateway Road at 2:30 PM.

Winnipeg Model Railroad Club mourns passing of Ken Epp

Long time WMRC member Ken Epp passed away yesterday. He was recently diagnosed with cancer of the liver and given just a few weeks to live.

Ken was a long time member of the WMRC. He will be most remembered at the club for organizing the Great Canadian Train Show from 1997 to 2011. This was no easy task. Ken had to deal with dozens and dozens of displayers and vendors, then he had to fit them all into the two levels of the gymnasium space allotted to the club at the Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute within the constraints of the fire marshal's regulations.

Ken was the Executive Director of the Manitoba Band Association, a non-profit charitable organization which promotes the growth and development of band in Manitoba through regional and provincial programs and charities. His love for music rubbed off on his son, Jeremy, who held the position of Principal Timpani in the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra until he joined the Detroit Symphony Orchestra last month.   Ken was also the brother-in-law of long time WMRC member John Longhurst, who also assisted Ken in organizing the club's Great Canadian Train Show for several years.

Ken will also be remembered for his truly unique layout, the HO scale Cougar River Subdivision. Ken managed to combine his desire for a large layout with his family’s need for basement living space. The result was a club-size layout that features a 530-foot mainline run, yet ensured that the rest of the basement is available to the family (a large recreation room, bedroom, full bathroom and utility area).

He accomplished this by using an around-the-walls double and triple deck design. The loop-to-loop layout, with its nine-scale mile run, ran through and around all the basement rooms, but didn't interfere with activities since the shelves in the living areas were only 6 to 12 inches wide. To make the layout compatible with other living areas, Ken finished off the edges with hardboard fascia and was careful to keep wires and other clutter from view. The tracks punched through the walls 19 times! It took 25 minutes for a train to traverse the layout from the lower staging yard to the upper staging yard. Ken's layout was showcased in every major model railroad convention we've had in Winnipeg, and was frequently featured on local television programs.

 Ken's funeral service will be held on Sunday, October 19 at North Kildonan Mennonite Brethren Church, 1315 Gateway Road at 2:30 PM.

Below is an image from Ken's Cougar River Subdivision. You can view more of his magnificent layout by clicking here. For a further tribute to Ken, please go to John Longhurst's Manitoba and Minnesota Subdivision blog site by clicking here.

 

Watch the making of the telephone and telegraph line along the Newfoundland Railway

 We had a great meeting last night! It was movie night, complete with free popcorn! After viewing a classic Warner Brothers Road Runner cartoon (which also had a train) we watched Newfoundland Long Lines, a fascinating film chronicling the making of the telephone and telegraph line along the narrow gauge Newfoundland Railway lines during WW2. The 21 minute film was in colour, which was pretty rare for a documentary at the time.

Speeders were used to lay the cable, and local trees were used to make over 30,000 poles. Because there was little or no communication between Army HQ and the bush, the crews were never really sure when the trains were coming. During WW2, there were lots of trains running - usually 16 a day!

Our program director Morgan Turney received this link from Paul Levin, Director of Marketing at Puce Creek Hobby Distributors, located in Concord, Ontario. 

But if you missed last night's meeting, you can still enjoy the movie by clicking here.  Check out the segment on the video when two men in a speeder had to swiftly dismount their speeder and then throw it off the track to get out of the way of a freight train!

Newfoundland Railway video featured at Winnipeg Model Railroad Club's October 10 meeting

Our main program for our meeting on Friday, October 10 is a fascinating U.S. Army documentary made in 1943 about the making of the telephone and telegraph line along the narrow gauge Newfoundland Railway lines during WW2. The 21 minute film is in colour, which was pretty rare for a documentary at the time.

Speeders were used to lay the cable, and local trees were used to make over 30,000 poles. Because there was little or no communication between Army HQ and the bush, the crews were never really sure when the trains were coming. During WW2, there were lots of trains running - usually 16 a day! Wait until you see the segment on the video when two men in a speeder had to swiftly dismount their speeder and then throw it off the track to get out of the way of a freight train!

After a short break, we'll see a National Film Board movie from 1958 by Guy Cote called Railroad-ers. The movie depicts the life of CPR railroad men out of Revelstoke as they run their trains and maintain the line through the Rocky Mountains. The original Canadian Pacific Railway Canadian is featured throughout the film.

Our meeting starts at 7:30 PM at the Charleswood Legion Hall, 6003 Roblin Boulevard. Access is through the west entrance. Guests are always warmly welcomed. Hope to see you all there!

This weekend is your last chance for a ride on the Assiniboine Valley Railway for 2014

The Assiniboine Valley Railway will hold their last public open house for the 2014 season this weekend on Saturday, October 11 and Sunday October 12. The weather looks promising, so either day might be a great day to ride the AVR for one last time this year! There will be no dinner train this year, and the trains will not be running for the holiday season.

The hours are from 11:00 to 5:00 on Saturday, and from 1:00 to 5:00 on Sunday. It's only two bucks for a ride, and kids under three ride for free! A 12 ride pass is available for $20, which is good at any AVR event.

It's also the Thanksgiving day weekend, but if you have Thanksgiving dinner on Monday, you can ride the trains on Saturday or Sunday, or on both days! What could make for a better long weekend than that?

The AVR is located 3001 Roblin Boulevard, just west of Assiniboine Park. There will be signs posted on the road. For more information please visit their new website at http://assiniboinevalleyrailway.org/blog/

The Winnipge Model Railroad Club blog site is one year old!

On October 3, 2014, the WMRC blog site passed a significant milestone. We made it to the one year mark! And what a year it has been! As of this writing, we've had over 27,000 viewers from all over the world, and we'd like to thank each and every one of them for doing so! We've had over 150 posts, and we will continue to post news not only about the WMRC, but from other groups in the city, the province, the country and around the world about what we love - model railroading and rail fanning!

Watch Ian Plett's video of the Manitoba Mega Train Show - shot from an HO flatcar!

WMRC member Ian Plett has created a truly unique video of the 2014 Manitoba Mega Train Show. He built a car out of Lego and mounted a camera on it! Then he ran it on the No. 1 Northern Division Free-Mo Group's enormous layout (it was 95 feet long - the biggest display in the show). As the layout was just about in the middle of the show, you get a very interesting view of what was going on.  Please note that the video was shot early in the morning while the crowds were still light. As most visitors would attest, it got pretty crowded later in the day! Click here to watch this amazing video!

Watch Ken Spicer's fantastic video of the 2014 Manitoba Maga Train Show

This year's Manitoba Mega Train Show was a resounding success! We had more displays, vendors tables and visitors than ever before! Unfortunately, most WMRC members were so busy displaying, volunteering, buying and selling that they didn't have time to take any images of the show.

But Ken Spicer came to the rescue with a wonderful video he shot, edited and uploaded on YouTube of the event. It gives a great view of all of the layouts on display at the show. Check out the footage he shot of the G gauge modular layout in action - he shot a moving G gauge train coming at him while he was walking backwards!

Due to the crowds, lot of us who were volunteering or displaying at the show didn't even have the chance to see the rest of the displays. This video gives us all a chance to see just what we missed!

Click here to view Ken's video.

Canada’s late steam and early diesel era featured on Canadian Steam website

   Here's something Morgan Turney, our Program Director, discovered for the WMRC blog:

  Peter Newman, who is a rail fan and a commercial airline pilot,  has created Canadian Steam, a website gallery that features the photography of the late Del Rosamond. Del spent a lifetime capturing scenes of steam trains and early diesels that were part of Canadian Pacific and Canadian National freight and passenger consists.

  The images were taken primarily in the Pembroke, Ontario region. Peter has had these slides for over 35 years, and he knew that someday they had to be professionally restored and shared. There is a lot of detail in these shots, and they would certainly be valuable to anybody modelling this time period and area.

  Canadian Steam provides a rich experience in time travel with visions of an era in transportation that has gone the way of chariots.