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
I often have a lot of different projects going on and sometimes it’s hard to keep track. I’m going to share what I’m working on so you might see what’s coming down the wire and also for a little accountability. I might be a little vague on a few things that I can’t share details … Read more
I mentioned in a recent post that CN had five locomotives specially painted to honour the railways they acquired since their 1995 privatization. Naturally, railfans chimed in with their opinions, the railways don’t care, and the trains keep rolling. Ahem. The word circulated that CN 3115, the BC Rail “heritage” unit, would be leading train … Read more