Showing posts with label Saskatchewan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saskatchewan. Show all posts
Wednesday, 12 August 2015
Churchill by rail - Part one
A superb view of the prairie taken from the dome car on the train to Churchill.
This year my wife Margaret and I decided to go whale watching in Churchill, a destination on our bucket list. Being a railfan, I had always wanted to travel there by train. I also wanted to see what northern Manitoba was like, as the farthest north either Margaret and I had ever been in the province was Duck Mountain Provincial Park.
We signed up for the History and belugas of Churchill group tour offered by Rail Travel Tours, which is run by long time WMRC member Daryl Adair. We opted for the upper and lower berths on the train. Not only are they the least expensive sleeping option, but they have the biggest beds, and they're more sociable than being locked away in a room, or in a roomette.
There was a horrendous rainstorm on the morning of our departure, which was so bad that we had our doubts about even getting to Union Station. But 15 minutes before were about to leave, the rain stopped! We were grateful for that, but what we didn't know was that the rain was going to play a significant part in our adventure to Churchill.
We arrived at the station in time to have our luggage checked and to join Daryl's tour of the Winnipeg Railway Museum. Daryl gave a very enjoyable and thorough tour. He's a long time member of the museum, and he knew every piece of rolling stock in the museum inside and out.
The only problem was the heat. Remember that morning's rain? After that downpour, the temperature climbed rapidly, and with all of that extra added humidity, the museum turned into a sauna. It was well before noon when our tour ended, but by the time it was finished we were all dripping with sweat.
When we got back downstairs to the station, we found that the train was running late, as it didn't arrive in Winnipeg until 7:00 that morning (over 14 hours late) and the crew needed more time to get the train ready. Lunch in the car's diner was cancelled, but Via supplied us with a lunch from the snack bar in the station's main foyer.
The train was ready for boarding quicker than anticipated, and we boarded right after we ate. Before we left, Daryl cautioned us about the schedule of the Churchill train.
"It's supposed to arrive in Churchill at 9 AM, but if it arrives on the same day, it's considered to be on time!" He said. And he was right about that.
Our guides for the trip were Robert and his wife Deborah, and they were absolutely terrific hosts. Much to our surprise, we found that most of the tour group were from Manitoba. When we booked the tour, Daryl told us that most of his customers for this trip were usually out-of-towners. He said that in Churchill they refer to this as 'perimeter-itis", reflecting on Winnipegger's well known reluctance to vacation in their own province. But it was a welcome surprise, as we got to know a lot of great people who lived nearby.
Wonder of wonders, the train had an domed observation car! The dome car has been featured this summer on a number of trips on the Churchill service as a pilot project. The domes were also featured a few years back during polar bear season in the fall and at the odd time for special groups. Boy, was it ever popular! It gave us the perfect place for our group to get to know each other, and to enjoy the scenery as no other passengers on the train to Churchill had ever been able to before.
After a hot, humid morning in the station, it was a blessed relief to travel in air conditioned comfort. I was giddy in anticipation as we left Portage La Prairie for the Gladstone subdivision, for it was a route that I'd never travelled before by rail. We weren't breaking any speed records. It was a bit disconcerting to see cars zipping by us on the road next to us, but none of us cared - we were in the dome car, it was a beautiful sunny day, and we were all having a wonderful time!
We went through Gladstone, which I had only seen from Highway 16. The track through town was elevated, and everybody laughed when we passed mere inches away from the second floor window of a Chinese restaurant! If our windows had been able to open, we all could've got some take out!
We had a wonderful dinner in the diner as we slipped through the Togo subdivision, then crossed the border to Saskatchewan and into the Assiniboine subdivision. We went to bed when we reached Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan, looking forward to what the next day was going to bring.
But the next day was full of surprises that no one had anticipated.
A tour of the Winnipeg Railway Museum was included as part of the travel package.
Photo by Margaret Ullrich.
The train rounds a curve through a heavily wooded area outside of Gladstone, Manitoba.
The train arrives at Glenella, Manitoba, just before Dauphin.
Sunday, 22 March 2015
Suzanne Lemon is the winner of March's Winnipeg Model Railroad Club photo contest
The artistic image was captured with a combination of a slow shutter speed at 1/6 of a second and use of the flash in Rear Curtain Sync Mode. The flash fires at the end of the exposure, rather than at the beginning, therefore capturing some sharp detail in the subject, while the rest of the locomotive and its train is a blur of motion.
Suzanne won a cash prize for her image, and the image was published on the cover of the March issue of The Lantern, the official publication of the WMRC. For next month�s contest, the theme is anything to do with RUSTY equipment.
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
The making of a module (which you can see at the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club's open house)
By Suzanne Lemon
The module represents the rugged prairie and the ghost town of Bents, Saskatchewan. The grain elevator was scratch-built from styrene and the wood siding, air brush painted, decalled and heavily weathered with a variety of acrylic paint colours and other materials.
The scene also features an abandoned farmhouse, kit-bashed from a Branchline laser-cut kit which has also been hand painted and heavily weathered with different shades of acrylic craft paint. A floor was also scratch-built from strip wood for the structure and some weathered interior furnishings were placed inside, along with tattered blinds at the windows, made from thin strips of paper carefully cut and shredded with an X-Acto knife.
The tack shed, the horse and the rider on the hill comprise a Woodland Scenics white metal kit that was hand painted with a mix of acrylic and enamel paint. The paint was also used to simulate the rust on the tin roof.
The rails and ties of the abandoned track were painted with a mix of acrylic paint and Woodland Scenics enamel paint pens to simulate rust and heavy weathering from many years of exposure to the elements.
The scenery on the module was made using a Styrofoam board base that was cut to shape and layered to create hills. It was covered with plaster cloth and a layer of Hydrocal plaster. This was painted when dry and coated with a variety of Woodland Scenics turf and bush products to enhance the character of the prairie vegetation.
Recent additions to the project have included the long grass tufts to make the areas near the abandoned house and grain elevator appear overgrown. These items are also a Woodland Scenics product that was made from a synthetic material which has to be separated to the right thickness. Depending on your intent, each clump can be trimmed to the length that you desire. I glued them in place using Weldbond, as the thick consistency of this type of glue helps the tufts stay upright as they dry.
I will be building and adding on some small internal and external details for the elevator. In the near future you can observe the remnants of the loading door platform, the grain spout, the drive-in shed and the loading ramp. More weathered structures and vehicles will likely be added to the scene in the future as opportunities permit.
The actual photo that I took of Bents shows a creepy place with an abandoned general store that still contains shelves full of merchandise. There are also abandoned houses that still hold the furnishings. The details on the module are not exact copies, as some creative license was used. I hope to add more structures as a contextual component to the module.
You can view this module, which will be part of the Kildonan Short Lines modular railway, at the WMRC's open house, will be held on Saturday, March 15 and Sunday, March16 at Westworth United Church, 1750 Grosvenor Avenue. Times are from 11:00AM to 4:00 PM on Saturday, and from 1:00PM to 5:00 PM on Sunday. Admission is by donation. A portion of the proceeds from the show will go to support St.Amant.
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