Larry Leavens shows how to model an unusual prototype scene at the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club's April meeting

 

 

Larry Leavens will show us how to model this prototype scene at our next meeting.

At our April meeting WMRC past president Larry Leavens shows us his modelling efforts in recreating an unusual scene on the CN mainline west of Rivers, Manitoba, where a new bridge was built over the Oak River. 

It is suspected that the bridge was built as part of the plan to double track the mainline, which never happened. When the old bridge was torn down, the mainline was shifted to the new bridge, then back to its original route, creating what looks like an elongated letter N on an otherwise straight mainline, but makes for a great modelling project. 

Larry has a very long straight track from one siding to the next on his layout. This is very typical for CN to have dead straight track but Larry thought that it was a little boring. Installing this scene would add more interest to the scene. Like most modelling, some sort of selective compression was needed.

The fun starts at 7:00 PM on Friday, April 14, in the Tank Room at the Charleswood Legion, 6003 Roblin Boulevard. The canteen will be open, and we will have our usual model and photo displays and our 50/50 draw. 

 This is an image of the bridge over the Oak River outside of Rivers, Manitoba. Larry will show us how he modelled it at our April meeting.
 

Exclusive images of CN's executive train

Three WMRC members really lucked out on a rail fanning excursion last week! Past president Larry Leavens, Social Media Director Paul Ullrich and Winnipeg Railway Museum President Gary Stempnick spotted a CN freight pulling seven executive passenger cars. Not only that, but they spotted this rare sight four times in four different locations on the same day!

They first witnessed this eastbound train barreling through Grant's Cut, just outside of Rivers. Then they spotted it just outside of Justice, Manitoba. It showed up for a third time by the Hart grain elevator, then for the last time at Portage La Prairie. 

All of these photos were taken on bridges, but Gary was on ground level at Portage when he saw them pass by. He reported that all of the passenger cars were empty, so it was assumed that they were being taken to CN headquarters in Montreal.
 

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 spots twin VIA 40th anniversary units

 
By Felix Lesiuk

Louis Lenz and I headed out on Thursday, August 2. The weather started off with some rain and the rest of the day was spent with the sun darting in and out of the clouds. Not too hot, not too cool and a slight breeze to keep the bugs away. A perfect rail fanning day.  We bumped in to Cliff Davidson, who was also heading west and rail fanning. He informed us that VIA had tweaked its schedule and was running a bit earlier now. That would explain our surprise of seeing VIA's No 1 heading west at Harte around one o'clock. Super early!

That surprise was complimented by the fact that the westbound had a pair of wrapped 40th anniversary units on the lead. Awesome! The chase was now on. Thankfully VIA was following a freight and CN was fairly congested with traffic. We beat it to Moffat and caught it in Rivers coming into town and leaving. Nice! CN traffic was steady and we even caught sight of some elk near Moffat.  The new VIA schedule might make it possible to catch both at Rivers more easily (I hope).
 

Summer rail fanning with Felix Lesiuk

Our roving correspondent and long time WMRC member Felix Lesiuk went out rail fanning with his good buddy Louis Lenz. They headed out west to catch Via's Canadian at Grant's Cut in Rivers, and stopped by at the Harte grain elevator along the way. CN was fairly steady but not too busy. They saw some vintage cowl units on CN and lots of USA motive power, such as UP and CSX. Felix also reports that there have been very few mosquitoes, which is always good to hear.