new design train model

 We had a great meeting last night! It was movie night, complete with free popcorn! After viewing a classic Warner Brothers Road Runner cartoon (which also had a train) we watched Newfoundland Long Lines, a fascinating film chronicling the making of the telephone and telegraph line along the narrow gauge Newfoundland Railway lines during WW2. The 21 minute film was in colour, which was pretty rare for a documentary at the time.

Speeders were used to lay the cable, and local trees were used to make over 30,000 poles. Because there was little or no communication between Army HQ and the bush, the crews were never really sure when the trains were coming. During WW2, there were lots of trains running - usually 16 a day!

Our program director Morgan Turney received this link from Paul Levin, Director of Marketing at Puce Creek Hobby Distributors, located in Concord, Ontario. 

But if you missed last night's meeting, you can still enjoy the movie by clicking here.  Check out the segment on the video when two men in a speeder had to swiftly dismount their speeder and then throw it off the track to get out of the way of a freight train!

Our main program for our meeting on Friday, October 10 is a fascinating U.S. Army documentary made in 1943 about the making of the telephone and telegraph line along the narrow gauge Newfoundland Railway lines during WW2. The 21 minute film is in colour, which was pretty rare for a documentary at the time.

Speeders were used to lay the cable, and local trees were used to make over 30,000 poles. Because there was little or no communication between Army HQ and the bush, the crews were never really sure when the trains were coming. During WW2, there were lots of trains running - usually 16 a day! Wait until you see the segment on the video when two men in a speeder had to swiftly dismount their speeder and then throw it off the track to get out of the way of a freight train!

After a short break, we'll see a National Film Board movie from 1958 by Guy Cote called Railroad-ers. The movie depicts the life of CPR railroad men out of Revelstoke as they run their trains and maintain the line through the Rocky Mountains. The original Canadian Pacific Railway Canadian is featured throughout the film.

Our meeting starts at 7:30 PM at the Charleswood Legion Hall, 6003 Roblin Boulevard. Access is through the west entrance. Guests are always warmly welcomed. Hope to see you all there!

The Assiniboine Valley Railway will hold their last public open house for the 2014 season this weekend on Saturday, October 11 and Sunday October 12. The weather looks promising, so either day might be a great day to ride the AVR for one last time this year! There will be no dinner train this year, and the trains will not be running for the holiday season.

The hours are from 11:00 to 5:00 on Saturday, and from 1:00 to 5:00 on Sunday. It's only two bucks for a ride, and kids under three ride for free! A 12 ride pass is available for $20, which is good at any AVR event.

It's also the Thanksgiving day weekend, but if you have Thanksgiving dinner on Monday, you can ride the trains on Saturday or Sunday, or on both days! What could make for a better long weekend than that?

The AVR is located 3001 Roblin Boulevard, just west of Assiniboine Park. There will be signs posted on the road. For more information please visit their new website at http://assiniboinevalleyrailway.org/blog/

On October 3, 2014, the WMRC blog site passed a significant milestone. We made it to the one year mark! And what a year it has been! As of this writing, we've had over 27,000 viewers from all over the world, and we'd like to thank each and every one of them for doing so! We've had over 150 posts, and we will continue to post news not only about the WMRC, but from other groups in the city, the province, the country and around the world about what we love - model railroading and rail fanning!

WMRC member Ian Plett has created a truly unique video of the 2014 Manitoba Mega Train Show. He built a car out of Lego and mounted a camera on it! Then he ran it on the No. 1 Northern Division Free-Mo Group's enormous layout (it was 95 feet long - the biggest display in the show). As the layout was just about in the middle of the show, you get a very interesting view of what was going on.  Please note that the video was shot early in the morning while the crowds were still light. As most visitors would attest, it got pretty crowded later in the day! Click here to watch this amazing video!

This year's Manitoba Mega Train Show was a resounding success! We had more displays, vendors tables and visitors than ever before! Unfortunately, most WMRC members were so busy displaying, volunteering, buying and selling that they didn't have time to take any images of the show.

But Ken Spicer came to the rescue with a wonderful video he shot, edited and uploaded on YouTube of the event. It gives a great view of all of the layouts on display at the show. Check out the footage he shot of the G gauge modular layout in action - he shot a moving G gauge train coming at him while he was walking backwards!

Due to the crowds, lot of us who were volunteering or displaying at the show didn't even have the chance to see the rest of the displays. This video gives us all a chance to see just what we missed!

Click here to view Ken's video.

   Here's something Morgan Turney, our Program Director, discovered for the WMRC blog:

  Peter Newman, who is a rail fan and a commercial airline pilot,  has created Canadian Steam, a website gallery that features the photography of the late Del Rosamond. Del spent a lifetime capturing scenes of steam trains and early diesels that were part of Canadian Pacific and Canadian National freight and passenger consists.

  The images were taken primarily in the Pembroke, Ontario region. Peter has had these slides for over 35 years, and he knew that someday they had to be professionally restored and shared. There is a lot of detail in these shots, and they would certainly be valuable to anybody modelling this time period and area.

  Canadian Steam provides a rich experience in time travel with visions of an era in transportation that has gone the way of chariots.