You may have heard the acronym FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out. Many railfans have this affliction, and I have suffered from it myself. You hear about some special train or locomotive coming through your area and you feel like you have to go see it because other people are.
A recent CP derailment has put life back into the rail relocation zombie, the shambling agglomeration of ideas to move the rail yards and lines out of downtown Winnipeg that just won’t die.
Dr. J. Patrick Kennedy, founder of OSIsoft, died in early April at the age of 79. He will be missed. Who was Dr. Kennedy, or Pat as most people knew him? And why am I writing about him here? Pat was a brilliant engineer, a savvy entrepreneur and a genuinely caring person. He was one … Read more
Today we take computer networking for granted. In fact, most people don’t even think of it at all. The fact that the device in your hand can load a web page halfway across the planet in a few seconds is taken for granted. It wasn’t always this easy. In fact, it was downright difficult.
The quiet town of Eastend, Saskatchewan has become the home of perhaps the largest collection of ex CN, ex VIA Rail equipment in the world. Gary Southgate, a farmer from North Battleford, SK, has been collecting railway equipment for a decade. He has purchased ex VIA Rail blue and yellow passenger equipment, and locomotives, and … Read more
I happened to see a quartet of Milanese tram slides for sale on an online auction site a few months ago. I submitted the minimum bid and, lo and behold, I won. I guess there isn’t much competition for this type of slide! All of the slides are dated 1973 but have no other markings. … Read more
I was recently asked for some advice on railfanning near the Trans-Canada Highway between Winnipeg, Manitoba and Regina, Saskatchewan. I’m sharing a portion of this route here. Feel free to chime in with your own suggestions in the comments. I’ll be describing it as if you are heading west from Winnipeg, and I am only … Read more
Back in the late 1980s, I was hired for my first commercial programming task. I wrote two programs for the Super Snapshot cartridge… a Sprite Monitor, and a Sprite Editor. What was a Super Snapshot cartridge? What’s a sprite? Why do you want to monitor or edit it? To tell that story, we have to … Read more
Public transit in the German city of Köln (Cologne in English) is the responsibility of Kölner Verkehrs-Betriebe AG, which is responsible for operating the light rail and bus system and the subway (U-Bahn). Collectively the public transit network is known as the Cologne Stadtbahn. When we were in Cologne in early December 2021, we used … Read more
I’ve lost my buddy, Felix. He came into our lives in late November 2019 with his “sister” Millie, and he left us in the morning of February 9, 2023. From the start, he was my boy. I protected him early on when Millie was asserting her alpha cat status, and we developed our own routines. … Read more