Railfan Stories

Over the past six months or so, with the help of my counselor, I’ve spent a lot more time doing things that I enjoy doing and a lot less time doing things that I think I should do. This includes railfanning, on both sides of the scale.

Continuing our story, Ian and Bill crossed into Manitoba and made their way to Winnipeg. The lead photo is CN’s impressive Uno trestle, unfortunately sans trains.

Ian and Bill visited the CN Wainwright subdivision. They stopped at CN’s Battle River Trestle, an impressive structure to be sure. It’s 2,775 feet long and the deck is 195 feet above the river. It was completed at the end of 1908.

Long-time reader Ian Walker and his railfan partner Bill Hall visited the Prairie provinces early this summer, and sent along some photos. I’m sharing them here in a series with Ian’s notes.

I’ve always loved playing chess. When I was in school, I joined the chess club. I used to check chess books out of the library and study them. Spassky, Fischer, Lasker, Kasparov… names I knew well.

I recently had to made a quick road trip to Toronto. I’m not going to go into the reason for the trip, but I wanted to share a few observations and images from the run. It took me 36 hours and 30 minutes to drive to Toronto, and 35 hours and 25 minutes to drive … Read more

Well, I did it – I rode the VIA Rail Canadian to Sioux Lookout, Ontario and back to Winnipeg. It was a good trip and I’m glad I did it. The trip wasn’t without its anxiety-inducing moments, due to late trains… read on.

Late afternoon. Mid-October, last year. A lovely day for train watching. Right off the bat, a CP train appeared, heading south on the Emerson sub. A chase revealed a train waiting in the siding at Grande Pointe for the southbound train. The southbound train rolled to the south siding switch, which was against them. The … Read more