The closing of the Winnipeg Railway Museum puts the future of the Gateway Western Railway in jeopardy

On November 5 Via Rail served notice to the Winnipeg Railway Museum that the part of Union Station they use will no longer be available. Their last day of operation will be December 31, 2021.

Via states that tracks one and two need to be brought up to safety standards. The station is undergoing extensive renovations to its exterior wall. The museum occupies 37,500 square feet in the station. Via states that they will continue to house the museum’s artifacts and they will be working with the museum to find a new home.

Union Station is a national heritage site. Heritage Canada regulations require Via to keep it in a good state of repair. The west wall of the train shed has been slowly deteriorating for several years.

Construction of the new wall is scheduled to begin in January 2022, at which time the Museum space becomes a designated Construction Zone requiring suitable PPE for all personnel. Only construction personnel will be permitted on site during the construction.

After the new wall is complete, the current Building Code Occupancy Requirements will apply, and the space the museum occupies does not meet these requirements. When the museum was opened in the early 1990's it was in accordance with the occupancy requirements of the building code at that time.

The plywood partition between Tracks 2 & 3 needs to be replaced with metal/concrete/glass, the electrical plant and lighting must be upgraded, the sprinkler system must be replaced, to the tune of $3,000,000 in order to qualify for an occupancy permit.

The museum is home to the Gateway Western Railway, operated by the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club. The contents of the Gateway are the property of the club. The structure that contains the Gateway is owned by the museum. No notice has been given as to whether or when the club will have to remove their display.

It has been a very rough year for Winnipeg’s model railroad and rail fan community. Along with the closing of the museum, the Assiniboine Valley Railway and Cellar Dweller Hobby Supply have also closed this year.

For more information on the closing of the museum, please go to the following links:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/railway-museum-relocate-union-station-via-winnipeg-1.6245828

https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/winnipeg-railway-museum-closing-at-end-of-december-1.5660148

https://globalnews.ca/news/8363527/winnipeg-railway-museum-to-close-doors-dec-31-seeks-new-home-for-2022/

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/winnipeg-railway-museum-to-shutter-at-end-of-year-575720112.html

 

The WInnipeg Railway Museum and the Gateway Western Railway are open again

Great news! You can now visit the Winnipeg Railway Museum and view the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club's Gateway Western Railway again! As of Saturday, July 17 the museum will be open seven days a week from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM.

The Gateway Western Railway, the largest modular HO layout in the province, will be open for viewing. Only members of the WMRC and the Winnipeg Railway Museum are allowed inside the structure that houses the layout. The Gateway's Tuesday operating nights and maintenance sessions are still suspended pending on a decision from Via Rail to have the station open later. 

The museum is located on the second level of the Via Rail station at 123 Main Street. Admission to the museum is $7.00. Seniors get in for $6.00.  Students over 16 years of age with ID get in for $6.00. 

To enter the museum you must show proof that you're fully vaccinated. You also must wear a mask and practice social distancing at all times. Children under 12 years of age are not allowed in the museum at this time.

Gino Kost lights up his model building

  Gateway Western Railway superintendent and long time WMRC member Gino Kost used LED technology to illuminate a structure that he submitted for the club's monthly model display at our last public meeting in September. By using a 9 volt battery the building is completely portable and independent of the layouts power supply, which means it can be used and illuminated anywhere on the layout. The interior of the building is removable.

Gateway Western Railway reopens with restrictions

 Please follow Larry's example and practice social distancing when at the Gateway Western.

The Winnipeg Model Railroad Club’s Gateway Western Railway has reopened, coinciding with the reopening of the Winnipeg Railway Museum. The Gateway will be open to people who are both members of the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club and the Winnipeg Railway Museum during museum hours only.

As the Via Rail Station now closes at 6:00PM, it is no longer possible to hold the Tuesday night sessions. The museum is open from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm every day.

If you do plan on going to the Gateway you MUST follow the same rules that are in place to visit Union Station and the Railway Museum. When inside the Gateway you MUST follow safe distance rules. If you are using any equipment you need to wipe it down with an appropriate sanitizing solution after use. This also applies everything you touch when inside the Gateway, such as filing cabinets, desk tops, table tops, chairs and tools.

Gateway Western Railway closed until further notice

Tuesday nights are no longer Gateway nights for members of the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club or the Winnipeg Railway Museum. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all operations at the Gateway have been suspended until further notice. The Winnipeg Railway Museum is also closed due to the pandemic.

The Gateway Western is almost as old as the WMRC itself. There have been several Gateway layouts in different locations for well over a half a century. The first one was on the main floor of Winnipeg's Union Station. That layout was torn down to make room for a larger bathroom for the station.

Its next incarnation was at Gooch's hobbies in its Sherbrook street location. This layout was taken apart and stored in a local warehouse when Gooch's hobbies moved their store to Portage Avenue.

Thanks to the combined efforts of the WMRC and the Winnipeg Railway Museum, the Gateway was once again resurrected and returned to its original location at Union Station. A tireless band of volunteers assembled an insulated, heated structure within the museum that houses what is now the largest permanent layout in the province.

When the health crisis has abated, the Gateway and the Winnipeg Railway Museum will reopen. Notices of the reopening will be posted on this site and on the club's Facebook page.

Railway Days and CN 100 celebrations at The Forks this weekend

Calling all rail fans and model railroaders! The Forks is the place to be this weekend! The annual Railway Days celebrations is being held at the  Winnipeg Railway Museum in the Via Rail Station!  They’re open from 10am to 5PM on both days. They’ll have displays from many railway related organizations, railway excursions, railway heritage museums and attractions from the rail industry from around the province.

Via’s Churchill train will be open for public viewing on Saturday. The WMRC’s Gateway Western Railway will also up and running at the museum. The Gateway has a public viewing just twice a year, so don’t miss out on this opportunity to see it!

While you're there,   CN's "A moving Celebration" commemorating CN's centennial to be held at The Forks as well! Come on down for a full weekend of railway fun!

Gateway Western Railway to be open to the public during Doors Open Winnipeg

The Gateway Western Railway will be open to the public during Doors Open Winnipeg. Photo by John Longhurst from his blog, the CP Rail Manitoba and Minnesota Subdivision.

The Gateway Western Railway is open to the public just twice a year, so don't miss out on this opportunity to view it during Doors Open Winnipeg this year! The Gateway is Winnipeg's largest HO gauge model railroad display. It is housed in its own structure inside the Winnipeg Railway Museum. Hours are from 10 to 5 on Saturday, May 25 and Sunday, May 26. Admission to the museum this weekend is free (donations are accepted). 

The museum is located on tracks 1 and 2 on the upper level of the Via Rail Station, which is located at 123 Main Street.

 For more information on Doors Open Winnipeg, go to http://www.doorsopenwinnipeg.ca/

For more information about the Winnipeg Railway Museum, go to:
http://www.wpgrailwaymuseum.com/

Gino Kost receives Winnipeg Model Railroad Club's President's shield award for 2019

Gino Kost (Left) is presented with the WMRC's President's shield award from President Bob Harrison at the club's annual banquet held on May 10, 2019.

Gino Kost is the recipient of the WMRC's President's Shield Award for 2019. The award is given every year by the president to a member for their outstanding volunteer contributions to the club.
And Gino is certainly deserving of the award! He is currently the superintendent of the Gateway Western Railway, which is the club's HO gauge layout that is housed in the Winnipeg Railway Museum. The Gateway Western is the largest model railroad display in Winnipeg. It will be open to the public on May 25 and 25 during Doors Open Winnipeg.

He is also our representative and volunteer coordinator for the Manitoba Mega Train Show, which is the largest train show between Toronto and Calgary. The Manitoba Mega Train Show will be held on September 28 and 29 at Red River Exhibition Place.

Gino's greatest contribution to the club was supervising the construction of the structure that houses the Gateway Western Railway. Gino modified the plans of a prefabricated garage, ordered the lumber and had it shipped to the museum, and managed a small group of dedicated volunteers in its construction. The "house that Gino built" is truly the jewel in the crown of the club, and the WMRC will forever be grateful for all of Gino's hard work. Congratulations, Gino!

Join the fun at the Gateway Western Railway at Doors Open Winnipeg this weekend

It's time again for Doors Open Winnipeg! The Winnipeg Railway Museum will be participating again, and the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club will have the Gateway Western Railway up and running! The Gateway is open to the general public only twice a year, so make sure to grab this opportunity to view Manitoba's largest operating model railway in action!

As a special bonus this year, WMRC program director Dave Downie will have the club's John Allen Timesaver running as well! The time saver is a portable interactive switch yard that you can operate! See how fast you can shunt freight cars to their destination! The Timesaver was such a big hit at our open house in April, and we're bringing it back by popular demand!

The Winnipeg Railway Museum is located at the second level of the Via Rail Station at 123 Main Street. The museum is open during Doors Open Winnipeg from 11:00AM to 5:00PM on Saturday, May 26 and Sunday, May 27. Hope to see you all there!

Take a ride on the Gateway Western Railway

Graham Leathers, son of our longest serving member Norm Leathers, got this neat mini cam, attached it to a flat car and ran it on the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club's Gateway Western Railway! You've to to see it to believe it! It's like taking a ride on the railway itself, and you get to see close up all the great modelling work the club has done!

The Gateway Western Railway is housed in the Winnipeg Railway Museum on the second level of Winnipeg's Via Rail Station and owned and operated jointly by the two organizations. To see this great video, just click here.

See the Gateway Western railway at Winnipeg Railway Museum's Railway Days this weekend

The WMRC's Gateway Western Railway, undoubtedly the largest of its kind in the city, will be open for public viewing this weekend at the Winnipeg Railway Museum as they hold their annual Railway Days event. The Gateway is open to the public only twice a year, so be sure to grab this rare opportunity to view it!

The museum is located on the second level of the Via Rail station at 123 Main Street, and is open from 9:00AM to 5:00PM on both Saturday, September 16 and Sunday, September 17. Admission by donation.

Gateway Western memories at Doors Open Winnipeg 2017

Everyone had a great time running trains at the Gateway Western Railway in the Winnipeg Railway Museum during Doors Open Winnipeg last weekend! The next time the Gateway will be open to the general public will be during Railway Days in September. Hope to see you all then! All photos by Morgan Turney.

See the Gateway Western Railway today!

These kids really enjoyed watching the trains run at the Gateway Western Railway last year!

The Winnipeg Railway Museum is again participating in Doors Open Winnipeg. The WMRC's Gateway Western Railway, which is housed in the museum, will be open to the public today from 11AM to 5:00PM. The Gateway is Manitoba's largest model railroad display, and it's open to the public only twice a year, so don't miss this opportunity to view it! The Winnipeg Railway Museum is located on the second floor of the Via Rail station at 123 Main Street!

See the British National Railway Museum at the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club's March meeting

By Morgan Turney, Program Director

This month, we'll have Tommy Kucera give us a presentation on rail preservation in the United Kingdom. We'll begin with a short video, titled 'Steam on the Roch Valley Viaduct', and then to the main feature, a tour of the British National Railway Museum at York. The museum contains over 300 years of railway history with over one million railway artifacts. You'll see the indoor turntable in action, too!

We need to have any club trophies returned to Morgan Turney either at the March meeting or on a Tuesday evening between 7PM and 9PM at the Gateway Western Railway layout located at the Winnipeg Railway Museum. Please return the trophies before our annual open house and train show, which while be held on April 1 and 2.

Model contest entries will be accepted on Friday evening, March 31st, during set-up night for the annual open house at the Charleswood Legion. If you are unable to attend on the Friday set-up night, models will be accepted on Saturday morning up until 9AM only. Please have all of your paperwork completed beforehand. There is a model contest entry Form in the current issue of The Lantern. If you attend the set-up night but wait to enter your models in the model contest on Saturday morning, they will NOT be eligible for entry. The Saturday morning entry time is only for those who can not be there on the Friday evening.

The meeting starts at 7:30PM on Friday, March 10 at the Charleswood Legion, 6003 Roblin Boulevard. The canteen will be open, and we'll have our monthly model display and a 50-50 draw. Guests are always warmly welcomed. Hope to see you there!

Winnipeg Model Railroad Club members show off their modelling talents

Three of the club's most talented modellers displayed their latest works at the WMRC's February meeting's monthly model display. Morgan Turney brought his model of a bulkhead flat car with a rebar load (featured above).   Morgan made the rebar out of .007 inch steel wire, and tied them together using a twisted double strand of electrical braided wire from a piece of electrical cord.

Suzanne Lemon created this abandoned Ukrainian pioneer log home using balsa and basswood which she cut and shaped to give the appearance of rough-cut timbers. She notched each piece to fit in a tongue and groove fashion. The wood was distressed with an X-acto knife and a wire brush, and weathered with sweet and sour wood stain and a dark grey wash.

Aaron Woloshyn scratch built this speed swing out of scrap pieces of styrene and wire. He "harvested" a set of spare wheels from the WMRC's Gateway Western Railway, and used spare decals from various sets that he had left over.

Come to The Forks this weekend for Railway Days and WinNtrak

Come see the Gateway Western Railway at the Winnipeg Railway Museum this weekend!

The Forks is the place for all model railroaders and rail fans to be this weekend!

Railway Days is happening at the Winnipeg Railway Museum, and the WMRC will be  operating the HO gauge Gateway Western Railway, housed in its own structure within the museum. Hours are from 11AM to 5PM on both Saturday, September 17 and Sunday, September 18. Regular admissions are suspended, but donations will be gladly accepted.  

The museum is located on the second level of the Via Rail station at 123 Main Street. 

The Winnipeg Sun had a great write-up about the museum recently, which you can read by going to: http://www.winnipegsun.com/2016/09/06/on-the-rails-museum-offers-ride-through-history

As an extra added bonus, WinNtrak will be displaying their N gauge modular layout just across from the museum at The Forks Market! They will be displaying from Friday, September 16 to Sunday, September 18 in the wing around the corner from Skinners. The display is open during mall hours. 

Russians invade the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club!

Some very suspicious characters have been spotted at the Gateway Western Railway recently. 

Last month, the  WMRC blog had a surprising and very suspicious increase in the number of hits it received from Russia. On July 21, we had 1,030 views, mostly from Russia. On July 26, we had 807, also mostly from Russia. Our average daily number of views is usually around 130. There couldn’t be that many model railroaders in Russia who are interested in our club, which led us to suspect that Russian “bots” (which is a slang term for “robots”, which are actually programmed computers) were cruising the site for personal information.

Please note that the WMRC blog has never posted any personal information other than the names of some of our members, and the location of our meeting places and open houses. So the robots aren’t going find anything, but that won’t stop them from trying. 

 So we beefed up the security of the blog site. You might notice that the site's web address  now has an HTTPS in front of it, which means that it’s an encrypted site, just like the websites of the banks and any places of business that exchange money on-line. This will prevent the robots from investigating the site, but it will also mean that the number of hits we receive will be discernibly less.

Last month we got 7,202 hits, which is a record breaker, but it doesn’t mean very much outhouse hits were created by Russian robots. Last week we got all of two hits from Russia. 

Let’s see how many hits we get in August. Regardless of the amount, at least they'll be honest ones!

Everyone had a great time at Doors Open Winnipeg

By Morgan Turney

Doors Open Winnipeg, presented by Heritage Winnipeg on May 28 and 29, was a resounding success for the Winnipeg Railway Museum again this year, with just over 1300 visitors. The Gateway Western Railway was a popular highlight with volunteers running their trains for the duration of the opening. Thanks goes to Dave Downie for organizing the running schedule.

     Graham Leathers directs part of a tour of the museum from a flat car.

Former WMRC President Larry Leavens discusses the size of the birthday present he wants this year with WMRC Treasurer Gary Stempnick while Gary's wife Joanne look on.

Happy New Year from the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club!

The WMRC wishes all of its members and readers a happy and healthy New Year filled with trains, trains, and more trains!

Our club had a great 2015! Membership is up, the blog has had over 76,000 views since its inception in October 2013, and we now have 255 followers on our Facebook page! We also participated in the 2015 Manitoba Mega Train Show, which had record breaking crowds of over 3,000 people! Our own spring show was a resounding success, and our Gateway Western Railway (housed in the Winnipeg Railway Museum) is almost completely landscaped!

We wish to extend our thanks to our hard working team of members, volunteers, and especially our WMRC executive for all of the success we enjoyed in 2015, and my the coming year bring us to even greater heights!

The Gateway Western keeps on growing

    TH&B consist makes for the tunnels on the Gateway Western layout during Railway Days at the Winnipeg Railway Museum. All photos by Morgan Turney. 

The jewel in the crown of the WMRC is the Gateway Western Railway. It has seen several incarnations since its early days on the main floor of Winnipeg's Union Station, but the latest version in the Winnipeg Railway Museum is the greatest one yet! A dedicated band of volunteers, led by long time member Gino Kost,  built the structure in which its housed in the middle of a very cold Winnipeg winter. The state of the art layout inside the building has been growing ever since!

These images were taken at Railway Days, which is hosted by the Winnipeg Railway Museum. It was held this year on September 19 and 20, 2015. Attendance was brisk and there were several displays to be seen, including the Gateway Western Railway. Railway Days is held each year on the third weekend in September at the Winnipeg Railway Museum, located at the VIA Rail station, 123 Main Street.

Youngster love to watch the trains through the windows of the Gateway Western!

A scale model of the famous Napa Valley Wine Train rolls down the tracks of  the Gateway Western.