Wednesday, September 30, 2015

The 2015 Manitoba Mega Train Show was a resounding success!

A wonderful G gauge modular layout was one of the many displays featured at the 2015 Manitoba Mega Train Show.

3,000 happy people attended the Manitoba Mega Train Show last weekend, with is a record breaking number for any train show held in the city for the past 30 years! The last time any train show in Winnipeg had numbers like that was for the legendary 1983 NMRA national  convention, Railway Jamboree.

Everyone loved our new venue!  The Red River Exhibition Park building was over three times the size of our previous venue. There was over 17,000 square feet of space!

Remember last year when the entire show was kept within the perimeter of the mega-train oval of track? Well, not this time! The mega-train took up just a third of the space this year. But the space inside of the track oval was still put to good use as the "kiddie section", which included two Lionel layouts, the Lego club display, Dan Kollesavich's Morse code demonstration, the face painter, and a balloon animal creator.

There was also another loop of track within the mega-train loop which featured a steam engine just smaller than the mega train. Most of the vendors were placed in one section, and the displays and modular groups were placed in another, which worked out to everyone's satisfaction.

Vendors reported some very impressive sales as well. Gerry Shaw from the Choo Choo Shop came all the way from Chilliwack to sell Lionel trains!!

The show also had out of town displays from the Portage La Prairie model railroad club and the Moose Jaw Thunder Creek Model Railway Club. 

We have plenty of pictures to show you, but they can't fit all in one post, so we're going to stagger them throughout this week, and the next. Enjoy!

Our good friends over at WinNtrak also set up their ever popular modular layout.

Godfrey South and his son Tommy get ready to run the Kildonan Short Lines modular railway.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Manitoba Mega Train Show to be held this weekend at Red River Exhibition Park

This is the big one, folks! The big Kahuna! The biggest and the greatest train show of the year! And it's this weekend, at a new location! Yes, it's the annual Manitoba Mega Train Show at Red River Exhibition Park!

There will be 17 layouts, 9 different displays and over 40 vendors!  They're pretty close to filling up the new location! The WMRC will be there in full force, volunteering, displaying and running the Mega Train itself!

In case you haven't been there before, here's how to get there:

 At the first set of lights just west of the Perimeter turn into Assiniboia Downs. Go past the new MTS IcePlex and into the Downs parking lot.  Just as you enter, there is a building on the left in a fenced in area.  It has a sign that says Red River Exhibition Place. Manitoba Mega Train should be on the sign as well. For those coming from the West, the lights are the last ones you hit just before the perimeter. Entrance will be Gate #2.   For those coming around the North Perimeter, you can access the Downs right off the Perimeter.

The times are from 9 to 5 on both Saturday and Sunday, and there's plenty of free parking for all!


Monday, September 21, 2015

Exclusive photos: The CPR G5's engines arrive at the Prairie Dog Central

 The cranes are getting ready to lift the locomotive. All photos by Morgan Turney.

By Morgan Turney 

After arriving at the Prairie Dog Central on September 15th, operations began for unloading the G5s and their tenders two days later. Able Crane Services did the lifting and Ranger Enterprises looked after the preparatory work, such as removing the cables which secured the engines and tenders to the flats, installing the blocking for the lifts and cleaning the flat car decks of all the welded wheel guides and cable eyelets.

Members of the Vintage Locomotive Society handled the moving duties once the engines and tenders were safely on the rails. Great team work, you guys!

Operations began about 7:30 am and it took about eight or nine hours to complete. Ex-CPR G5s 1238 and 1286 are now safely back in Canada and will be stored at the Prairie Dog Central's Inkster Junction station. Thanks to everyone at the Vintage Locomotive Society and especially to Vintage Locomotive Society General Manager, Paul Newsome, who arranged for me to be there for the day. It was quite an experience watching these guys at work!

 Lift off! The G5 is lifted into the air!
 Touchdown! The engine lands onto the rails!
On the move! The G5 gets rolling slowly down the rails.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Winnipeg Model Railroad Club gets ready for Railway Days at the Winnipeg Railway Museum

WMRC Program Director Morgan Turney has been so busy preparing for Railway Days at the Winnipeg Railway Museum that he's been split into three! Some suspect that it's from a cloning experiment conducted by WMRC President Larry Leavens. But we believe that it was caused by mitosis.

Mitosis is a part of the cell cycle in which chromosomes in a cell nucleus are separated into two identical sets of chromosomes, each in its own nucleus. We hold the theory that Morgan consumed too many quarter chicken dinners at Swiss Chalet when they were having a two for one sale last month, and as a result nuclear division of his cells occurred - twice!

But there will be only one Morgan at Railway Days this weekend at the Winnipeg Railway Museum. The hours are from 10 to 5 on September 19 and 20. Admission is by donation. The WMRC will be out there in full force, operating the Gateway Western Railway in its own separate structure within the museum. That itself would be worth the price of admission, but there's so much more to see!


The Winnipeg Railway Museum is located on the second level of the Via Rail Station at 123 Main Street. Free parking is available behind the station in The Forks.



Monday, September 14, 2015

Exclusive photos of the locomotives being delivered to the Prairie Dog Central


Our intrepid photojournalist Morgan Turney took these photos of the former CPR G5 class 4-6-2 locomotives and their tenders yesterday. They were photographed at an undisclosed location in Winnipeg.

Morgan got a heads-up that they were behind a 10-foot fence,  so he dug out an 8-foot ladder, chucked it into his pick-up and off he went!  These engines are on their way to the Vintage Locomotive Society (also known as the Prairie Dog Central). These images, and several others, will be published in a forthcoming issue of Canadian Railway Modeller, but publisher Morgan Turney is giving us an exclusive to post a few of them here first!

We have been following the progress of these two engines since the news broke that they were returning to Canada. The locomotives spent over 40 years in Covington, Virginia as part of the late Jack Showalter's Virginia Central Tourist Railroad. Showalter, a tourist railroad operator and dedicated steam preservationist, died in November 2014.

 The engines have been stored on the Shenandoah Valley Railroad in Staunton, Virginia for over 15 years. The Prairie Dog Central has not purchased these locomotives. They were purchased by an Albertan, but will be stored at the PDC's shops off Inkster Boulevard. The 1238 was built in Montreal in 1946. The 1286 was built in Kingston Locomotive Works in 1948. Future operating plans for these two engines are under review by the Vintage Locomotive Society.



Saturday, September 12, 2015

All aboard for another Assiniboine Valley Railway open house

Our good friend Steve Boyko, who does the popular railfanning blog, Confessions of a train geek, is seen here with his family enjoying a ride on the AVR in July.

The AVR is having another open house this weekend! The fun starts at 11:00AM today and runs until 5:00PM. Sunday's hours are from 1:00PM to 5:00PM. It's only two bucks for a ride, and you can buy a rail pass, which will give you 12 rides for only twenty bucks! Children under two ride for free, and all minors must be accompanied by an adult. Join the fun at 3001 Roblin Boulevard, just west of Assiniboine Park!

There's still time to make your reservations for their popular Fall Dinner Train, which will be held on Saturday, September 19 & Sunday, September 20. The cost is $15 for adults and $12 for kids. Reservations must be made for the specific times listed below, and must be prepaid to confirm. Payment is preferably by credit card, but arrangements can be made to pay by cheque or cash.  

Participants will eat on the train, 2 people to a car, up to 16 people per train.  Family groups can reserve a full train.  The meal lasts four loops around the track. The meal starts with refreshments (coffee, tea, soft drink or water), snacks and a fresh tossed salad for the first loop around the track. The main course is a deluxe hamburger platter (or a hot dog platter for kids), which will be eaten over 2 loops.  Dessert is pie with ice cream or whipped cream or a dish of ice cream for the fourth loop. Each meal lasts about an hour.
To make a reservation, phone Len LaRue at (204) 832-3448.  Messages can be left on voice mail, but please just leave a name & return phone number and be prepared with your credit card in hand.  Reservations are first come first served. This is a very popular event, so please make your reservations as soon as possible! The cut off date for making reservations is September 17, but don't wait until the last minute! They're sure to have been filled up by then!

Dinner train times are as follows:
Saturday, September 19:  12:00, 1:30, 3:00, 4:30 (Members only:  6:00, 7:30, BYOB)
Sunday, September 20:  1:00, 2:30, 4:00 (Members only:  5:30, BYOB).



Wednesday, September 09, 2015

Winnipeg Model Railroad Club meets Friday, September 11 at Charleswood Legion

This is where we meet: The Charleswood Legion 6003 Roblin Boulevrd. It's pretty easy to find. Just look for the tank! Please park and enter on the west side of the building.

Welcome back to another year at the WMRC!  September's program features a presentation from Ian Plett, our local long-haul trucker, who manages to do a lot of railfanning while at work. Ian has some great material to show us along with a few video clips he's managed to get while out on the road. After Ian's presentation, we'll have a short film that was made in 1928 showing a steam locomotive being built at CPR's Angus Shops in Montreal.

The canteen will be open, and we'll be holding our monthly 50-50 draw and our model display. If you've been doing any modelling during these rainy weekends we've been having all summer long, by all means bring it down! You can't win a prize unless you do!

To qualify for the monthly model contest prize, your model must show signs of either some assembly, (not just parts in a box or a ready to run model from the manufacturer) or some weathering beyond minor touch-ups of MU hoses. Each entry must include your name and a short write up describing the work that has been accomplished to date.

If you are planning to build a model using a 3D printer but have only completed some portion of your 3D CAD drawings, then we would like to see them -  but only if the renderings are actually your own work! No scanned materials! Each entrant will have but one entry for the monthly prize, which is a $15 gift certificate from a local hobby store.

The fun starts at 7:30 PM, Friday, September 11, at the Charleswood Legion, 6003 Roblin Boulevard. Guests are always welcome! Hope to see you there!

Membership application forms will be available at the meeting, but you can download this two page form,  print it up, fill it out, and bring it to the meeting! That way you'll spend less time doing paperwork at the meeting and more time chatting with the rest of the members!



Sunday, September 06, 2015

Assiniboine Valley Railway is taking reservations for their dinner train


The Assiniboine Valley Railway is holding their popular Fall Dinner Train Weekend for the first time in three years.  It will be held on Saturday, September 19 & Sunday, September 20.  

Participants will eat on the train, 2 people to a car, up to 16 people per train.  Family groups can reserve a full train.  The meal lasts four loops around the track. The meal starts with refreshments (coffee, tea, soft drink or water), snacks and a fresh tossed salad for the first loop around the track. The main course is a deluxe hamburger platter (or a hot dog platter for kids), which will be eaten over 2 loops.  Dessert is pie with ice cream or whipped cream or a dish of ice cream for the fourth loop. Each meal lasts about an hour.

     The cost is $15 for adults & $12 for kids.  Reservations must be made for the specific times listed below, and must be prepaid to confirm.  Payment is preferably by credit card, but special arrangements can be made to pay by cheque or cash.  

To make a reservation, phone Len LaRue at (204) 832-3448.  Messages can be left on Voice Mail, but please just leave a name & return phone number and be prepared with your Credit Card in hand.  Reservations are first come first served. This is a very popular event, so please make your reservations as soon as possible!

Dinner train times are as follows:
Saturday, September 19:  12:00, 1:30, 3:00, 4:30 (Members only:  6:00, 7:30, BYOB)
Sunday, September 20:  1:00, 2:30, 4:00 (Members only:  5:30, BYOB).

For more information about the Assiniboine Valley Railway, please click here. 

Friday, September 04, 2015

Churchill by rail: Part 10 - Back to Winnipeg!



 Our train makes a stop in beautiful downtown Kamsack, Saskatchewan.

By Paul Ullrich

After breakfast, we went back to the dome car, where I assumed my role as the unofficial conductor. I like to know where I am at all times, and that's not easy to do in the endless boreal forest of northern Manitoba. But I was armed with my Via Rail timetable, the Canadian Rail Travel Guide by Daryl Adair (that name sounds familiar) and my 1985 edition of Bill Coo's Scenic Rail Guide to Western Canada.

Bill Coo's Scenic Rail Guide to Western Canada is still a valuable resource for the rail traveler, but it has been out of print for 30 years, and it's a bit dated. For instance, it states that between mile 1214 and Gillam, you should watch for Indians carrying their children in moss bags.

Yeah, right. These days they're using baby carriers that the bought from The Northern Store like everyone else.

Using the mileposts with the two books and the timetable, I was able to calculate exactly where we were, and if we were on time or not. My fellow passengers, who also wanted to know where we were, helped me along, spotting mileposts along the way. We arrived late in Thompson, with barely enough time to leave the train and stretch our legs before we departed.

Via Rail had supplied the train with a lovely park car, but not with a park car attendant, so we were on our own in the back of the train with nothing but a carafe of coffee that the staff had left us.  But we discovered that the park car had untapped resources that made the trip a bit more tolerable. One of the staff opened up one of the cabinets in the park car and found some more coffee cup lids! A case of cookies was also discovered in another cabinet.

I went to be in my unshaded lower berth again, but this time I had a sleep mask, which was graciously given to me by one of the other passengers in our car. I woke up shortly after midnight to find that we were in The Pas, right on time. I woke up a few hours later to discover that we were still in The Pas. I woke up a bit after six, and we were still in The Pas!

I washed up and shaved in the bathroom, still in The Pas. The light wasn't working, and the air conditioner was on full blast. As the train wasn't in motion, I was able to fill up the sink almost to the brim. When the train was moving, the best you could do was a couple of inches of water. Any more than that and the movement of the train caused the water to spill. 

We went for breakfast, still in The Pas. As we ate, the train from Winnipeg rolled in, six hour late. This is why our train was held up in The Pas for so long. We finally got moving around 8:00.

There was much excitement in the Park car when we reached Saskatchewan, and the first field of canola was spotted. After several days of boreal forest, muskeg and The Barrens, it was a welcome sight. But if you're the type that gets excited over seeing a field of canola, then you've been in the prairies way too long!

We started out 5 1/2 hours late leaving The Pas. As we trundled through the prairies, we lost more and more time. I became the constant bearer of bad news as the rest of our group asked me how we were doing. When we had lunch, we found that the menu selection had become even smaller. We were back paralleling the highway again, and automobiles continued to zip past us.

We weren't supposed to have dinner on the train, as it was supposed to have arrived in Winnipeg at 4:45 PM. But the crew managed to rustle us up a meal. There were only two selections on the menu, but we were just grateful to be fed. We arrived in Dauphin seven hours late, but the train stayed there long enough for us to go outside for the first time since we left Thompson.

It was announced that we wouldn't arrive in Winnipeg until 1:00 AM, eight hours and 15 minutes late. But the railfans didn't mind, because that meant more time on the train!

We made the best of it by holding a little reception in the park for our two gracious and hard working tour guides, Robert and Deborah. We watched a beautiful, lingering sunset as the sun dipped near Riding Mountain National Park. We watched the moon rise and the stars come out as we approached Gladstone. The lights of Portage La Prairie were a welcoming sight, as it meant that we were almost home!

We pulled into Winnipeg exactly at 1:00 AM. Robert called for cabs as soon as we arrived, and when we exited the station there were about a dozen taxis waiting for us to take us home.

We arrived home safe and sound, but then we came down with colds, and so did a few others from our group. A friend of mine who lived in Thompson explained that we all must've contacted a "northern bug", and now that we've had it, we'd be now be immune.

A friend of mine took the train to Churchill last week. Her train was exactly 28 minutes late arriving in Churchill. The trip back was without incident. She even had warm, sunny weather and she didn't catch a cold!

Some people have all the luck!

Passengers take a much needed 20 minute break in Dauphin.

There's nothing more beautiful than a prairie sunset. This one was taken at Glenella.

Wednesday, September 02, 2015

Churchill by rail: Part 9 - A troubled journey through The Barrens and beyond



 There's a whole lot of nothing in The Barrens, just south of Churchill.

By Paul Ullrich

We were all in a celebratory mood as we left Churchill. Our group held another get together in the park car, reminiscing about all the good time we had as we traveled through The Barrens.

The Barrens is perhaps the bleakest part of the country I've ever seen. The land is so flat that it makes southeastern Saskatchewan look like the Rocky Mountains. There's nothing but arctic moss, stunted trees and shallow ponds spreading beyond the horizon.
  
There's a well known Canadian book by Farley Mowat called Lost in The Barrens, which was made into a motion picture in 1990. Now that I've been through The Barrens, I don't see how anyone could get lost there! Remember the old joke about the prairies (which was used in the opening theme for Corner Gas) where they say that if your dog runs away you can watch him go for three days? If that happened in The Barrens, you could watch him run for a month!

Those stunted trees don't look like much, but they're very, very old. Things grow slow in permafrost, and those tiny pines are somewhere around 50 to 100 years old! I have a guide book that says that The Barrens goes on for only 40 miles, but there's not much of a transition in scenery when you finally leave it.

We bedded down for the night, still traveling through The Barrens. That's when we received the first signs of a troubled journey.

Our sleeping car attendant handed us our towel bags, then asked us to ration our towels, as they were such short supply that we wouldn't be getting another towel bag like we usually would get on our  second day. I reached up to pull down the window shade on my lower berth, and discovered that it was missing. This meant that I was going to be awoken by the dawn's early light whether I wanted or not for the next two nights.

I awoke well past Gillam, once again in the familiar boreal forest. After we had breakfast, I ordered a coffee to go. When the server brought me the cup, she said, "You might want to hold on to the lid. It's the last one we got. Everything's in short supply on this train!"

Oh, boy!

I took her advice and held onto that lid for dear life until we reached Winnipeg. Had I wanted to, I might've been able to sell it for five bucks on that train!

Things went from bad to worse after that. The sleeper next to us had no hot water, which meant that we had to share the shower. Another sleeper's septic tanks were completely full, which left the car with a very unpleasant door. The attendant kept spraying air freshener throughout the car, which helped for about ten minutes.

I knew that the Churchill train is not one of Via's crack trains, and that I shouldn't expect the same level of service that they have on their other two trains with sleepers, The Canadian and The Ocean.  The Canadian has tablecloths. The Churchill train does not. The Canadian doesn't serve coffee in paper cups.  The Canadian has a new menu ever day. On the Churchill train, we joked that everyone had memorized the menu after the first day, as the selection was always the same.  But setting out with a shortage of supplies, and hot water in one car and a full septic tank in another, especially when you are literally in the middle of nowhere, is not only inexcusable, but a bit frightening.



          An interesting bit of equipment on a siding in The Barrens. Anyone know what it is?