new design train model

    A great place for rainfanning, although often overlooked, is Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park. It features a neat miniature live steam train that has just celebrated its 50th anniversary in the park. Although it's mainly for the kiddies, it's still a live steam engine, and still a wonderful sight to see when it's all fired up! Tickets are a very reasonable $2.75 each.

    While you're at the park, take a walk over to see CN's classic 6043 4-8-2 Mountain steamer. This historic engine, built in 1929, made the last scheduled run of steam power on Canadian rail on its run from The Pas to Winnipeg on April 25, 1960. The engine was placed in the park in 1983.

    In 1965 the National Film Board of Canada released a short film featuring legendary silent movie comedian Buster Keaton, titled The Railrodder. Buster travels across the entire country from Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia to the Georgia Strait in a CN speeder.

     This was one of the last Films Buster Keaton ever made, and it was a fitting ending, as one of his most famous films was The General, where he rescues a train stolen by the Union Army during the civil war.

     The Railrodder is a delight not only for Buster Keaton fans, but for rail fans and historians alike, for it gives us a rare glimpse into what Canada looked like in the mid 1960's all from the perspective of an open speeder.

     If you have 24 minutes to spare, sit back an click here to see The Railrodder.