Another Look at the St. Jacobs & Aberfoyle Great Model Railroad

In an earlier post, I wrote about my behind-the-scenes visit to the St. Jacobs and Aberfoyle Model Railway.

This post is of the more conventional variety—what visitors normally see when they visit this astounding layout in St. Jacobs, Ontario.

It is simply impossible to overstate how magnificent it is. Even more amazing is how club members moved it to its present location from its former home near Guelph.

Apparently, they cut it into 51 pieces before reassembling it in the new building. Some former scenery couldn’t be saved and was rebuilt.

Talking to one of the volunteers, he told me that if the club was forced to move again, he doubted it could be put back together again.

There simply wouldn’t be enough people or expertise, he suggested.

Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. The club will need to renegotiate their lease next year; I hope that all goes well, and it can continue to bring the transition era in southern Ontario alive for many more years to come.

Meantime, enjoy the photos! For more photos and info about the layout, check out these other posts and links.

Last look at the Aberfoyle Junction in its old home.

Great Canadian Model Railroad: Aberfoyle Junction.

Click here to watch a video of the layout.

Behind the Scenes at the St. Jacobs and Aberfoyle Model Railway

It’s been seven years since I first saw the Aberfoyle Junction O scale layout—one of Canada’s finest layouts.

Back then, it was still located at its original and long-time location near Guelph, Ont.

Now called the St. Jacobs and Aberfoyle Model Railway, it is located in nearby St. Jacobs, Ont., its home since 2013.

I was able to visit the layout again this month; once again, I was overwhelmed. There are simply not enough words to describe how magnificent it is.

This time around, a volunteer generously offered to let me see behind the scenes. I got to go behind the layout to see the staging yards, and also up into the control booth located on the second floor above the trains.

Engineers control the trains from their perch on the DC block-controlled layout—something that is only possible with the use of cameras so they can keep an eye on the staging yards, switches and magnets for uncoupling.

In addition to the behind-the-scenes photos, I took many other pictures. I’ll post them over the next couple of posts.

Manitoba Mega-Train Show, 2019 (Plus More Great Modelling from Echo Valley in Regina)

Another Mega-Train show has come and gone.

As weekends go for the show, it was great—cool and rainy. 

When I helped run the show, we always wished for bad weather. It kept people closer to home and away from the cottage or parks, and more likely to attend the show.

Since I had just taken my layout down a couple months earlier, I really wasn’t in the market for anything.

I did consider taking a table to sell off some stuff, but it was too early for that. I’m not ready yet to part with any rolling stock or locomotives. They all still feel like close friends.

And yet, one day I will have to do it. Just not yet. (I did take note of prices for the future, however.)

The show had the usual assortment of good layouts and great sales.

I’m always taken by the tinplate stuff; there is such an amazing history of the hobby in those items!

The prices seemed low to me. But a seller assured me they were appropriately priced.

Apparently, there’s a lot of this stuff coming on the market now as older people, or their kids, dispose of train collections that have been hiding in attics or basements for a long time.

As in the past, I enjoyed the fine modelling of the Echo Valley Guild Free-Mo layout from Regina.

I once again found myself appreciating the simple crossing scene made by club member Jeff Betcher.

Jeff told me he was thinking of adding additional items to the scene. But then he read my post from last year about this clean and simple scene, and how much I liked it, and decided to leave it as is. I’m glad he did!

He did add an abandoned farmhouse nearby, though—something very common on the prairies. It was also a great model.

Another scene on the layout that drew my attention was the burnt-out forest.

Anyone who has traveled in the mountains of B.C. has seen this kind of thing, what with all the recent wildfires.

It reminded me of the realistic scene of a forest killed by pine beetles on the Thunder Creek modular layout from Moose Jaw. (What is it with these great Saskatchewan layouts, anyway?)

Anyway, as usual it was a great show. My thanks goes to the organizers.

Friends

Morgan Turney & Jason Shron visit the M & M Sub.

One of the things I enjoyed best about the M & M Sub. was having visitors over.

While watching trains make their way around the layout, we had many enjoyable conversations.

One thing that was especially gratifying was welcoming friends who didn’t have layouts. Having a chance to run trains with them was always fun.

Some of them brought locomotives to see them run. This provided the M & M Sub. with some interesting visiting power. (See photos in this post.)

One frequent visitor was Morgan Turney, editor and publisher of Canadian Railway Modeller.

He was also the last visitor before the layout became a pile of lumber on the floor.

Which was only appropriate; he was the first person to visit my previous layout, the CP Rail Grimm Valley Sub., back in the early 1990s.

He also made one of the first visits before the M & M Sub. was built.

And now the layout is gone. But the friends I made through it have remained—along with the photos and memories of their visits.

Resto Gare: A Train Lover's Restaurant in Winnipeg

Where better to enjoy a great meal than in a passenger car?

Of course, the best place to do that is on The Canadian, traveling across Canada. But if you can't do it on a real train, you can still do it in a stationary passenger car in Winnipeg at the Resto Gare in St. Boniface.

That's what I recently did with my wife (for our anniversary).

The Resto Gare is located in the former St. Boniface railway station, built in 1913-14 for the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR).

In addition to the renovated station, the restaurant features fine dining in former CNoR passenger car #9647.

Built by Canadian Car & Foundry in 1914, it was acquired by the CNR in 1921. It became sleeping car #1458 “Trenton” in 1953.

It finished its service as CNR mechanical instruction car #15022.

I don’t know how or when it got to Resto Gare, but I do know I always ask to be seated in it when we visit the restaurant.

While sitting there, I find myself wondering who else sat in the car over its many decades of service.

Who were those people? Where were they going? What were their lives like?

In the early years they may have been immigrants, newly arrived in Canada and filled with hope and trepidation as they headed west to new lives in a new land. 

Later, they may have been vacationers, going east and west across the country and enjoying the fine accommodations the railway provided.

And now they are people looking for a fine meal, with some train ambience on the side.

So if you like trains, and find yourself in Winnipeg in need of a fine meal, Resto Gare is a great choice.