Vintage Niagara, St. Catharines & Toronto Railway Photos

The Internet, it is said, has not only eliminated a sense of geography--we can be in touch with and know just about anything and anyone from anywhere--but also a sense of time.

Want to watch an old episode of I Love Lucy? Search YouTube and you will find them.

The old station on Geneva St.

Want to read the August 4, 1967 issue of Time Magazine? For a fee, you can browse it online, together with all the other back issues.

Is the classic 1970 movie The Battle of Waterloo one of your favourites? Want to hear The Doors sing Light My Fire at the Hollywood Bowl in 1968? Again, they're just a click away.

Once upon a time you had to go to a book store, a record store, the library or wait until a movie was on TV or a song played on the radio to see, hear or read those things.

Now they are available any time. Time itself, it seems, has lost some of its meaning.

Which is a long preamble to the subject of this post: Vintage photos of the Niagara, St. Catharines & Toronto Railway.

I was born in St. Catharines three years before the NS&T shut down. (I blogged about it here.) Whenever I want to remember it, I can pull out one of the books I own about it.

Or, in this Internet age, I can visit Vintage St. Catharines on Facebook.

Vintage sites for various places in North America are cropping up on the Web. This one is a place for people to post photos and memories of St. Catharines of the past.

Already, the group has over 5,000 members.

As I scrolled through the photos, I found a number of the old NS&T. I have no idea where they came from. Maybe they were copied off the Web. Or maybe they are from someone's old collection.

However they came to be on that page, I am sharing them here. Maybe you, like me, occasionally feel like escaping the normal constraints of time. If that's the case, enjoy!

And if you are from St. Kitts, as it is also known, visit the Vintage St. Catharines Facebook page.

Update on Conrail 6408 Big Blue

There are no prizes for finishing fast in model railroading. So I take my time getting things done. Like adding details to Conrail 6408, an Athearn SD40-2.

I've had the unit for a number of years, but just never got around to adding the pilot, numberboards (using my simple word processing method) and weathering. But I had some time and inclination this week.

Now it looks like the other units on the layout--toned down and well-used.

How the unit used to look. That blue sure is bright!

This old blue box locomotive will never stand up against the newer offerings. But it does the job on the M & M Sub. And now it does it while looking even better.

Find more info about Conrail 6408 on the M & M Sub., and the end of big blue on Norfolk Southern, by clicking here.

Great Canadian Photo Site: Your Railway Pictures

There are a lot of great websites out there that have great photos of Canadian trains. But one I really like is Yourrailwaypictures.com

The site, which has been created by John MacDonald, is old school. But that's no big deal; the photos are superb. 

On the site, John notes that "like most Canadians over 50, I have a fascination with railways and steam locomotives in particular."

He's turned that fascination into quite a collection of photos of older and newer trains, with a number of historical shots from across Canada.

There are sections about CNR and CPR steam, Canadian railway artifacts, RDCs, old Canadian rolling stock (freight and passenger), Canadian train stations, cabooses, Canadian streetcars and grain elevators.

There are also pages about bridges, trestles and tunnels (with a detailed look at the CPR Spiral Tunnels), old Canadian logging equipment, CP Rail robot cars, more CN, CPR and VIA locomotives, the Newfoundland Railway, Canadian rail yards and more.

I've never seen a photo of CNR steam at
Churchill, Manitoba before.

The photos are mostly submitted and all are captioned; John intersperses comments about the photos, providing information about time and place.

Be warned that the pages are very large; you have to scroll a long way to get to the bottom of most pages. But that just makes it more enjoyable--sort of like a treasure hunt. (What will I find next?) 

Also be warned that John has brief train sounds embedded on the home page and other pages, in case you open it up at work. (Turn the sound off!)

If you have the time, or even if you don't, Yourrailwaypictures.com is well worth a visit.

Friends Visit the CP Rail M & M Sub.

It's Louis Riel Day in Manitoba, a Monday off to celebrate the man who is considered the founder of the province--and the man who was hanged by the government of Canada in 1885 as a rebel.

Who says we don't have a colourful history in this country?

It was also a day to welcome some friends to the CP Rail M & M Sub. The gathering was occasioned by the visit of Rapido Trains founder and owner Jason Shron to Winnipeg.

(Maybe one day Canadian model railroaders can designate a day to celebrate the founding of this unique company. I wonder what day would be best? What would we call it? And how would we celebrate it? Jason would have an idea or two . . . .)

Anyway, eight of us ran trains and talked about the state and future of the hobby, and a few things in between.

We even managed to pick up a wayfaring stranger from Toronto who was supposed to be headed back to that city today on VIA; a derailment forced him to fly home. Somewhere along the way he met Jason, and was invited to come along.

In the photo above are Ray Goy, yours truly, Jason (the VIA T-shirt is a give-away), Canadian Railway Modeller founder and editor Morgan Turney, Walter Pankratz, Matt Soknacki (the wayfaring visitor from Toronto), Christopher Robinson and Ed Pankratz.

Even though there are a number of lone wolf model railroaders, ours is also a social hobby. I enjoy sharing it with friends.

Visiting Power on the CP Rail M & M Sub.

Being a DC layout, the CP Rail Manitoba & Minnesota Sub. doesn't get much in the way of visiting power.

But it did a week ago when my friend Rick Ritchie (after whom the town of Ritchie is named) brought over an Aurora & Portland SW1500 (I think that's what it is) made by his friend Jerome Wheeler.

The neat little unit, which was painted and detailed by Jerome, handled the switching duties at the Peace River Mill that evening.

And it looked good doing it.