A New Angle

Winnipeg is half encircled by the Red River Floodway, which can divert most of the Red River around the city during times of flooding. It was expanded after the 1997 “Flood of the Century”. I’ve included the handy map from Wikimedia above. Remember that the Red River flows from south to north, coming from Fargo … Read more

Bus Spotting at Osborne Station

I had an hour to kill one June evening this year, so I headed over to the Osborne Village area of Winnipeg. My intent was to look for different photo angles in the area. I decided to visit the Osborne Station on Winnipeg’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line. Here’s a map I drew of the … Read more

Book Review: Steam Echoes of Hamilton

Steam Echoes of Hamilton is a nostalgic look at mid-1950s railway action in and around Hamilton, Ontario. I have been aware of author Ian Wilson’s “Steam” series of books for some time. People have spoken very highly of his books, known as the Canadian Branchline series, but until now I haven’t read a single one. … Read more

Former Diesels of the TH&B

In my review of In The Shadow of Giants by Norman Helm, I mentioned that when the Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railway was absorbed into the CPR, some of the TH&B was kept by Canadian Pacific. The TH&B’s GP7 and GP9 locomotives had their short hoods chopped, and were repainted into red CP Rail colours. … Read more

Book Review: In The Shadow of Giants

I picked up “In The Shadow of Giants” by Norman Helm as part of a lot of train books I bought. I’d heard of the Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railway, of course, but I didn’t know a lot about it other than it served those three cities and was eventually absorbed into the Canadian Pacific … Read more

More on VIA Rail in Lego

Lego Canadian Train

Back in May I posted about Nick Lafreniere’s “Lego Canadian” and “Lego Corridor” projects to get the LEGO Group to issue the VIA Rail “Canadian” and/or the “Corridor” train as LEGO kits. He needs 10,000 supporters for it to be considered, and he’s just over 75% there on the “Canadian”. Click the button below to … Read more

Just Like Halifax

When I heard that CP 119 was coming into Winnipeg with the CP military “navy” locomotive CP 7022, and a Union Pacific locomotive as well, I decided to try to catch them coming into the city. Although it had been blustery and rainy all day, there were some glimmers of sun. As I drove east … Read more

2021 Calendar Update

Calendar

I’ve been contemplating offering one or two 2021 calendars, featuring trains and/or grain elevators. I polled my mailing list and blog readers, and the results are here. People were most interested in large train calendars, but there was enough interest in any case for me to proceed. I ordered one large grain elevator calendar. After … Read more

Can’t Reach It

Along with trains and grain elevators, I like bridges. Back in the days when Google+ was still a thing, I ran the “Bridges Over Tuesday” circle where people posted photos of bridges on that day. I have a lot of photos tagged “bridge” in my Adobe Lightroom catalog. Manitoba doesn’t have a lot of significant … Read more

The British Are Coming!

Well, going, anyway… I received a hot tip that there was a CN train in Symington Yard in Winnipeg, waiting to go east, with a string of military equipment on flatcars. I gulped down my supper, grabbed my ready-to-go camera bag, and hit the road. I had to drive a quarter of the way around … Read more