Winnipeg Model Railroad Club mourns passing of long time member Louis Lenz

Louis Lenz, one of the WMRC’s longest serving members, passed away at the age of 91 on August 13.

Lou was one of five other club members who, along with Charlie Scott, Bill Morrison, Tommy Kucera and current WMRC President John Bate, were professors at the University of Manitoba. Lou spent his 31 year career at the U of M in the Department of Plant Science, working in the area of Landscape Horticulture before retiring in 1995.

Lou was presented with an Honorary Life Membership in the Canadian Society for Horticultural Science in 2000. In retirement he continued to be active in horticulture and model railroading.

Lou was a quiet, gentle soul best known around the club as Felix Lesiuk’s rail fanning companion during his many excursions in western Manitoba. He continued rail fanning with Felix long after he moved to an assisted living residence. 

As per Lou’s wishes, a cremation has take place with is ashes to be scattered, and no formal service will be held.

 

Felix Lesiuk's first July rail fanning trip

Long time WMRC member Felix Lesiuk took two rail fanning trips with Louis Lenz riding shotgun. They headed west and made it to Harte and Moffat, two popular rail fanning sites. Harte has an iconic grain elevator which makes for some spectacular shots. Despite light rail traffic due to track maintenance, he managed to take some excellent pictures. After experiencing some heavy rain, he was rewarded with a rainbow that took direct aim at some MOW equipment.

Exclusive images of CN MOW equipment in Manitoba

The ever intrepid Felix Lesiuk went rail fanning last week with his good buddy Louis Lenz and captured some great images of CN MOW equipment outside of the iconic grain elevator at Harte, Manitoba, a favorite spot for many Manitoba rail fans. Some of the equipment he shot include a ballast cleaner, a tie stacker and a tie unloader.

Another rail fanning and nature tour with Felix Lesiuk and Louis Lenz

Maybe it's due to the COVID-19 cabin fever rali fans have been experiencing, but we had an unusually large response on social media from our last post on long time WMRC member Felix Lesiuk's last rail fanning trip. Fortunately, he took another trip right after that, this time with his stalwart companion and long time WMRC member Louis Lenz.

Along with some great CP shots, Felix took some interesting images of some rarely seen CEMR and CN 100 motive power. He also indulged in some nature photography, capturing images of a red wing blackbird, some lady slippers and a dragonfly. Enjoy!

Exclusive photos of CP military theme paint scheme locomotive in action

On March 10, just one day before the COVID-19 virus outbreak was declared a pandemic, long time WMRC members Felix Lesiuk and Louis Lenz went out for what just might be their last day of of rail fanning for a while. Felix caught a CP freight with a freshly painted locomotive brandishing their recently announced military paint scheme near Austin, Manitoba.  

Due to the pandemic, we do not know when there will be Felix's next rail fanning excursion, so enjoy these photos, keep safe, practice social distancing, work on your layout and build some models until this health crisis is all over.

Mild winter weather makes for some great rail fanning images

 Longtime WMRC members Felix Lesiuk and Louis Lenz took advantage of the mild winter weather this week and headed out west to do some rail fanning. The gloomy atmosphere and frosty conditions made for some very moody looking images!

Felix Lesiuk's latest rain fanning adventures

Felix Lesiuk and Louis Lenz headed west on July 19 and August 14. On their first journey, they made it as far as Rivers, Manitoba and on their second trip they went as far as Moffat. There was still a lot of variety of motive power cruising around. A lot of the newer grain cars are starting to become more prevalent as well. As they were brand new, there hasn’t been any tagging on them yet. Felix also went along Hwy 221 and took some images CP’s recently upgraded motive power.

Felix Lesiuk's winter grafitti gallery

Our prolific rail photographer Felix Lesiuk took another rail fanning trip with Louis Lenz on March 7. They headed West on a Thursday to try to catch the VIA Canadian, since both the east and westbounds run on Thursday. But both were many hours late.  They made it as far West as Moffat. Traffic was light on CN, but they saw more CP trains than normal.

But what Felix did catch was an amazing array of graffiti on some of the rolling stock, which is what we’re featuring on this post. Some of the work is very intricate, and quite fascinating. It’s amazing how the graffiti taggers manage to do what must be very time consuming work without getting caught!

Exclusive images of wrecked CN locomotive

Our intrepid rail photographers Felix Lesiuk and Louis Lenz headed West for the first time in a month. Weather for rail fanning had been a bit sketchy lately, as it was either very cold, windy or unsafe to be on the highways and back roads. A decent day presented itself on February 22. Weather really cooperated and turned out to be a nice sunny day. They followed CP to Portage La Prairie but not much was happening along the line, but they did catch the local CP switcher working around Portage.

    While in Portage they saw what they thought was one of the wrecked locomotives from Nattress sitting in the yard on a flatcar. They also saw that CN is busy getting ready for summer and is stockpiling a huge amount of concrete ties.

     They headed west and got as far as Moffat, where they saw some unique patched lease units. CN traffic was fairly light, which might’ve been because their crews were working on the wreck at St. Lazare. They saw two semis with scrap oil tank cars heading towards Winnipeg along the Trans Canada highway. They caught a CN potash train in Portage as the sun set. 

January rail fanning with Felix Lesiuk

Our intrepid staff photographer Felix Lesiuk and Louis lenz braved the cold January weather and headed west on what was supposed to be a bright, sunny day! They made it as far west as Moffatt, where it was very foggy. They caught Via's Canadian speeding by at 75mph, a new CP grain hopper with their new logo design in Portage la Prairie and a variety of air repeater cars on the CN mainline. Other than the lack of sunshine, they had a great day!