Rail Travel Tours journey to York Factory

 This summer, our own Felix Lesiuk led the Rail Travel Tours trip to historic York factory. 

By Felix Lesiuk

After the 3 hour jet boat ride we got to York Factory. It was absolutely the nicest fall day you can imagine. After climbing up from the dock we met Claude Daudet, our host and guide from Parks Canada. The first concern for everyone one was, “Where are your bathrooms?”  Once that task was taken care of, we had a tour on the boardwalk of the cemetery, powder house ruins and where the ships were pulled up for the winter. We also got to look at what was left of a replica York boat that was used for the TV series “Quest for the Bay". 

We got a tour of the grounds and the main building as well as being able to climb up into the rooftop cupola.   If you need to know anything about the North American fur trade, this place is ground zero! While we were there, a group of American goose hunters dropped in by helicopter for a visit.  They looked like they just walked out of the pages of a Cabelas catalogue! After a delicious BBQ on the shore we headed back.  Along the way, we had a look at the failed Port Nelson site and even saw a polar bear and some seals on our return trip.  We had dinner in Gillam and went to bed for an early wake up the next morning. We had to be at the station for 5 am as VIA was scheduled to depart at 5:30.  This meant a 4 am wake up call. Thankfully we got to catch some sleep when we got onto the train before breakfast. I took full advantage and was the last for breakfast!
 
We left on time and arrived in Thompson later in the morning. We had time to walk around and enjoy the beautiful fall day. I walked around and checked out the yard and some of the Hudson's Bay Railway equipment. 

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?

Larry Leavens' very first Craftsmen kit

   For our October model display, WMRC President Larry Leavens entered the very first Craftsmen kit that he assembled way back in 1976 when he was a novice twenty something modeller.  His notes on building it were so amusing that they're definitely worth repeating on this post. When you're reading this, keep in mind that we've all been there (including mistaking actual red for boxcar red).

 By Larry Leavens

   The other week I had a conversation with a friend about the first train model that I built. It was in the summer of 1976 while I was living in the Kettle Construction Camp just outside Gillam, Manitoba. On one return trip to Winnipeg I dropped by Gooch’s on Portage Ave. and purchased a Duluth, Winnipeg & Pacific boxcar. The word Winnipeg in its name was probably the reason I bought the car. At his point in time my modelling skills were limited to building a few plastic airplane models while I was a kid. I had much to learn. Once back in Gilliam I examined the box’s contents to find a bunch of wood and many pages of instructions. It started off by congratulating my on buying this wonderful CRAFTS-MEN kit, whatever that meant.

   The first instruction was to cut the wood to length. Oh my, I need TOOLS! Into the shaving kit to find a double edged razor blade to cut the strip wood. Glue pieces together? This I did right and purchased some white glue from a hardware store in Gillam. Things progressed along until I had to mount the grab irons and other metal parts. Drill with a # 72 drill bit. What is that? I was able to find a 1/16” drill bit in the Gillam hardware store, but that was the smallest that they had, (but that was still way too large). I ended up using a darning needle to poke holes in the wood to mount the grab irons.

   Once all of the wood and parts were assembled, it recommended using boxcar red to paint the car, whatever that colour was. The hardware store back in town had a small selection of spray paint including – RED. I want to paint a boxcar red so this must be the correct colour. I painted the car outside the bunkhouse one night and then placed the model in my room to dry. It did not take long before the little room smelled like I had painted the car in there.

    The dry transfers are still attached to the model so I must have done that right. It will never be a contest model but it was the first railroad kit that I built – craftsmen, whatever that meant.