The book “Streetcars of St. John’s” is the third “before and after” book from author Kenneth G. Pieroway. Following on his excellent Rails Across the Rock and Rails Around the Rock books, this book features the streetcars that once ran in Newfoundland’s capital city, St. John’s. The Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that I … 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
Well, COVID-19. What a thing. Years from now, I hope we’re all able to look back on this and shake our heads at just how life-changing this was. One of the big phrases of the year is “social distancing”. This is the act of keeping a distance from everyone else, something I happen to be … Read more
Late last summer, my good friend Caleb Wentzell was in Winnipeg for a while, doing some training with CN. I picked him up one evening for a different kind of train-ing… watching trains! We decided to head down the Sprague subdivision to see if we could find a train while there was still some light … Read more
I wanted to be clever and title this post “A CN-CP-CN Sandwich”, but you’ll see that it would have made a lopsided sandwich at best. So we’re stuck with this lame title. Anyway. The trains are the important part, not the blog post title – right? Right. Whither the Maroon This was another excursion to … 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
VIA Rail’s service across Canada was brought to a standstill due to the railway blockades in support of the Wet’suwet’en pipeline protest. The blockades started on February 6 in response to an RCMP attempt to enforce a court injunction. The blockades popped up in numerous locations across the country. This forced the cancellation of numerous … Read more
The waiting is the hardest partEvery day you see one more trainYou shoot it on film, you take it black and whiteThe waiting is the hardest part“The Waiting”, Tom Petty, more or less It was a bitterly cold afternoon when I went out to photograph along the CN main line on February 15th (2020). IC … Read more
There have been a few occasions when an Ontario Northland Railway locomotive has wandered into New Brunswick. I think they may have been repaying “horsepower hours” to CN and I was fortunate to see two of these locomotives in the 10 years I was railfanning in New Brunswick. ONR 2105 ONR 2105 visited the Maritimes … Read more
The book “The Ontario Northland Railway” by Patrick C. Dorin is an excellent snapshot of the ONR in the mid 1980s. Written by the prolific Dr. Dorin, this book is an affectionate look at the railway that runs from Toronto to Moosonee. The book is divided into four major sections: History of the ONR and … Read more