Would you want a VIA Rail Canadian in LEGO®? How about a VIA Corridor train? If Nick Lafreniere is successful with his bid, this could happen. Nick has designed two potential LEGO kits featuring some of VIA’s trains operating today. Nick needs your help to get these to kit form. Click one or both buttons … Read more
Blog reader Paul La Rocque sent me these photos of a mysterious passenger train on the CP Emerson subdivision south of Winnipeg. He was wondering what type of train this was. This is one of Canadian Pacific’s “TEC” trains, featuring a Track Evaluation Car (TEC) behind a generator car and a passenger car. These trains … Read more
In this time of social distancing, sheltering in place, and all the other new phrases associated with the coronavirus / COVID-19 pandemic, what should photographers do? Things You Clearly Can’t Do One on one type photography is clearly not OK. A photographer should not be doing studio work with models, families, babies, business headshots and … Read more
Photographer Mark Perry very kindly scanned seven slides from his collection that feature a fan trip in 1983, probably from the Winnipeg NMRA convention that I talked about in my previous post. The photographer isn’t marked on the slides. In fact, they have no markings other than the Kodak “July 1983” stamp, which I believe … Read more
The Greater Winnipeg Water District is a unique railway that has been serving the city of Winnipeg for many years. It was built to provide service along the aqueduct that brings fresh water from Shoal Lake to Winnipeg. The GWWD used to provide passenger service along the route using either passenger cars or Brill self-propelled … Read more
I was doing some decluttering during this time of voluntary isolation – darn COVID-19 – and came across a box that had a few very special toys in it. Some of you may know that I lived in Moscow (USSR, not Idaho) for two years. My father was in the military and he was posted … Read more
I am shamelessly stealing this idea from J D Lowe at the excellent 30 Squares of Ontario blog. He wrote his “Miniature Buildings Edition” post based on a post by Michael Leddy on the Orange Crate Art blog, which riffs off the New York Times’ “By The Book” game. I guess there’s a lot of … Read more
In early 2011 a prototype electric bus project was launched to run a single electric bus in Winnipeg. The project was financed by the province, Manitoba Hydro and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). At the time, MHI was in the business of manufacturing lithium-ion batteries but exited that business in 2014. The study was conducted in … Read more
Back in the fall of 2014, Eric Gagnon challenged several railfan bloggers to share their Railfan Five, a selection of five of our images from our own “railfan journey”. Mine is here. Recently, Eric and Chris Mears and I decided to do the challenge again, and I believe Michael from The Beachburg Sub is in … Read more
This summer, there was a call for artists at the tourism site in St. Thomas, Ontario. That in itself isn’t unusual, but the call was for artists to paint on existing railway boxcars. There was a bit of a hue and cry from railfans about this, including me. It was explained that these were outside … Read more