steveIt’s time for the traditional year-end roundup post. So. 2020. How was that? Well, you know. We who survived the pandemic lived through it, so there’s no need to belabour the issue. Remember the fallen, honour the front line workers who fought for us, and move on to bigger and better things. I have high … Read more
Rocky Mountain Railtours is advertising a new route for their luxury cruise train, the Rockies to the Red Rocks route. This route, slated to start a late and abbreviated season in August 2021, will see the train start in Denver, Colorado and proceed west through the Rocky Mountains to Moab, Utah with an overnight stop … Read more
I want to take a moment and wish you, Dear Readers, a merry Christmas and a happy new year. For those who don’t celebrate Christmas, happy holidays. I’m not religious but I still call it Christmas and in normal years our family gets together to share meals and exchange presents. I don’t want to talk … Read more
This is a review of the book “Railway Nation: Tales of Canadian Pacific – The World’s Greatest Travel System” by David Laurence Jones. I should disclose that I was given this book for free as a review copy, so consider that while reading this review. I would’ve bought this book anyway, and in fact I … Read more
Via Twitter, I heard that the Railway Coastal Museum in downtown St. John’s, Newfoundland was closing. Apparently the city of St. John’s is in a cash crunch, and to save money they’ve decided the museum has to go. I visited this beautiful building and toured the museum in 2016. It’s a great museum. Why Close … Read more
This series is modeled after the “Interesting Railfan” series in Railroad magazine from years ago. I’m asking each railfan 10 questions, some standard and some customized for the particular person. I hope you enjoy it. (See all in the series) I put 10 questions to Ryan Gaynor, an Ontario-based photographer and videographer (read more about … Read more
A recent incident prompted me to write about backing up your photos – and data – again (I wrote about this back in 2013). A friend of mine kept some of his photos on an external hard drive. Well, one day that hard drive started making ugly noises and it stopped working. The drive was … Read more
Eric Gagnon’s latest book, “Smoke on the Waterfront”, is a deep dive into the history of Kingston’s waterfront, and its not terribly successful relationship with Lake Ontario. Readers looking for VIA Rail or detailed train content are advised to look to Eric’s other books like “Trains and Grains” or his “Trackside With VIA” series. This … Read more
Canadian Pacific revealed five refurbished locomotives on November 11, 2019, painted in military inspired colours to honour the women and men of the Canadian and American armed forces. As I mentioned in my recent Cross Air Force off the List post, I’d seen four of those five locomotives. Now it’s five out of five. I’d … Read more
Conductor: “Clear signal.”Engineer: “Clear.”C: “It should be clear all the way past Meadows. RTC says we have a meet at Marquette. 298.”E: “Gotcha.” If it wasn’t so overcast, the crew of train 411 would have seen the sun rising as they left Winnipeg. As it was, the temperature was a cool -7 Celsius, not bad … Read more