Merry Christmas 2025

 

Every year, at this time of year, it's time to mark Christmas with some meaningful commentary from your humble blogger about something other than trains, not related to trains, not even tangentially related to trains, nor things loosely connected to trains...okay it's always about trains here on Trackside Treasure! A favourite Christmas movie (with a train in it) is the 1946 Frank Capra classic It's a Wonderful Life. Though unsuccessful at the box office and the Oscars, it is highly-rated in several American Film Institute rankings.

Life's themes of desperation and guilt, romance and redemption, sin and salvation, and good ol' "What if I'd never been born?", make those of us sitting-in-a-room-lit-only-by-twinkling-Christmas-lights-beverage-in-hand-when-it's-screened-in-the-late-evening susceptible to its timeless charms. Not surprisingly, I tend to then blur the plot with the equally schmaltzy and Jimmy Stewartzy 1954 The Glenn Miller Story. In both films, Jimmy is cast opposite equally dutiful and misty-eyed wives: Miller Story's June Allyson and Life's Donna Reed. The two plots differ; the ending of the prolific bandleader's notable life story is not as wonderful as we would have liked.

Though I haven't been through situations that made me want to jump off a bridge like Jimmy Stewart's character George Bailey was tempted to, it's fair to say that every life comes with low points. We can only hope then to be saved by a guardian angel like Clarence who shows us that we do matter and that we can get our life back on track. 

We can also be our own personal Clarences, practising reflection and taking action. In the screenshot from Life (below) that could be me in the snow asking myself, "Is it time to stop blogging? Or should I just transition this to a blog about flashlights (Bring a Torch), raising Australian shepherds (While Shepherds Watched), or sheep (All I Want For Christmas is Ewe) or even George Clooney movies (We Three Kings)?"

No, I'll wander off that virtual bridge, back home, thankful for family and friends, and these 2025 sidebar  blog partners who are neither bragadocious nor boastful enough to toot their own horns, so I will:

• Steve - I met Steve for the second time at Real Rails 2025
• Stephen - modelling Toronto with the UK always in view
• Dave - honouring the lasting legacy of railroader Rolly Martin
• Michael - autonomous Ottawa-based author always building readership
• Matthieu - awesome modelling toujours
• JD - always something new in the loop
• Jim - JSSX is a well-weathered 'road
• Chris - one of Canada's model railway true gurus
• Marc - modelling and mining Manitoba's north
• Don, George and Keith - a panoply of model/proto subjects...

...and commenters, readers and Googlers who find themselves here. 

I'll raise a mug of non-egg nog to all and wish you...

Merry Christmas!

Season's Greetings!

--Eric

Let's leave this post with some spoilers from the films. Neither the Modernaires nor Frances Langford ever sang with Glenn Miller (above). Union Jack does not the United Kingdom make - filmed Stateside:

Dancing on top of a covered swimming pool is not always a good idea:

It's talking to Uncle Billy at the station that we find out what George's favorite and most exciting sounds are, and unsurprisingly he lists "anchor chains, plane motors, and train whistles". Filmed in July! You are now in Bedford Falls, or...AT&SF's Lamanda Park station in Pasadena, California.

"Janie, would ya stop playing that piana??"

Life's plot is at turns dark and depressing. A polar opposite from the listings-populating Hallmark-inspired Christmas movie plots that pop up this time of year faster than Salvation Army kettles. Example: bakery owner girl serves boy. Boy and girl fall in love at the Christmas tree lot. Girl realizes boy is the son of a greedy developer intent on bulldozing the town's treasured community centre to put up condos. Boy and girl fall out of love. Realizing it was all a misunderstanding, boy [stays in town - they never leave!] and girl live happily ever after. Or at least until New Year's!

How did this get in here?

Let's finish festively with Christmas greetings arriving from near and far. 

Lance Gleich:

Chris Mears:

VIA Rail Canada:

George's Trains:

1974 Ernestown Derailment - First Person Accounts

Two previously-published posts profile a fatal derailment that occurred about ten miles west of here on December 20, 1974 - now 51 years ago - almost to the day. The first post dealt with the cold facts of the derailment and its immediate aftermath, including the rescue of stranded passengers by 30 local snowmobilers who took them to the nearest road access about one-half mile west. The second, a postscript, included additional material and photos of the derailment clean-up, the locomotives and cars involved and a brief epilogue. When they were published in 2023, I did not expect that some of those affected by the derailment on that fateful winter night would add their first-person accounts to the Comments sections, sharing their experiences as passengers or rescuers. 

Rather than letting these important accounts languish, I decided to include them in this new post. I think you'll agree that they really bring the story to life - in ways both chilling and heartwarming. If any more accounts are received as comments in the future, they will be added here. 

Not surprisingly, many of the passengers on CN No 45 were studying in Kingston, heading home for the Christmas holidays and swelling the passenger count close to 200. None of those aboard, nor the passenger train's crew, could be aware of what lay around the curve approaching Ernestown as they hurtled west at 80 mph. It was CN No 318 doing 60+ mph and heading right for them.

Here are those accounts:

NANCY ALLEN - Nanaimo, BC - Passenger:

"Thank you for this very thorough research of the crash on that fateful night so long ago! I was on that passenger train heading to Toronto from Ottawa to spend Christmas with my parents. My boyfriend at the time, a 3rd year med student at the University of Ottawa, was on the train too, heading down to his parents in Niagara Falls. The crash was a shock. I remember slamming forward against the seat ahead. I think we were about three cars back from the engine. People starting screaming and moaning almost immediately. My boyfriend jumped out of his seat right away and helped people where he could. I think I was in shock after the crash. 

All I remember is a ride on a snowmobile to a bus? then on to Belleville for a later train to Toronto. I must have arrived at my parents in the wee hours of the 21st. They hadn't heard of the crash by that time and were pretty nonchalant about the whole thing. Reading your accounts and the newspaper articles makes me realize only now how serious it was. I didn't know that alcohol, speed and the health of the engineers were all key factors contributing to a very sad tragedy. It makes one realize we really put our lives into the hands of the bus drivers, train engineers and pilots! Something to never take for granted." 

(ANONYMOUS) - Passenger:

"I was in that accident, going home from Queens U to Belleville for Christmas.....ironically due to a later than normal Chem Lab the only time I ever used the train for that trip...usually took the bus for that trip."

(ANONYMOUS) - Passenger: 

Thanks for this in depth article, I was a Queens U student heading home for Xmas on that train.....I remember "face planting" the back of the seat in front of me.....other than a bloody nose and a couple of black eyes I was not badly hurt, and I will always remember the snowmobilers who helped out.

ROSS BABCOCK - Rescuer:

"I came down from Odessa on my almost new Johnson Rampage snowmobile and brought one of the passengers over to County Road 6 following this collision. I was 34 at the time." 

SUSAN STASIAK - St Catharines, ON - Passenger: 

"Thank you for publishing this article. As I sat down this morning to look online for a book that our book club is going to read (Paris Express) it reminded me of the train accident that I was in 51 years ago. A quick google search brought up your article, with more info than I had ever read regarding the accident. I was on the passenger train and had boarded in Kingston to head home to St. Catharines (connecting at Union Station) to spend Christmas with my family. I was 21 at the time.

Not long after boarding, I walked back a few cars to the snack bar in the dining car, and the collision occurred while I was standing at the snack bar. It happened so suddenly that I didn't remember the collision or the train braking in advance. I ended up on the floor partially on top of the person who had been standing next to me, and I think she was unconscious. I yelled for help and the first person to appear was a server from the dining area who was bleeding from several cuts on his hands. I was OK, but likely in shock and I recall my confusion when I saw the injured server, still not understanding in those early moments after the crash what had happened.

Before departing the train, I was allowed to go up to the car that I had been seated in to get my bags. The damage there was quite bad and I felt fortunate that I had walked back several cars prior to the collision, and that I wasn’t in between cars when it happened.

I recall the snowmobile ride (and being grateful to the snowmobilers who came to our rescue) and vaguely remember the bus ride to the train station, and train ride to Toronto. My boyfriend picked me up at Union Station - he was going to pick me up at the St. Catharines Station but heard of the accident (I’m not sure if it was on the news already, or if he found out at the St. Catharines station when he went to pick me up) so he headed to Union Station to pick me up.

My parents hadn't heard of the accident and when I arrived home in the middle of the night, I don’t think they woke up. Since I wasn’t injured, they didn’t seem too concerned about the accident when I told them the next day. It wasn’t until the next day that we heard the sad news about the fatalities.

Thanks again for publishing this story – my husband and I found it both informative and interesting. He was the boyfriend who went to Union Station that night to pick me up … we were married 5 months later."

Running extra...

Christmas is all about the kids. Our granddaughter picks out her Build-a-Bear pup 'Bernie' the Bernese mountain dog this past week (above). Should I let her watch this Apple iPhone woodland animals video, even with its references to roadkill in the animal world? It's entertaining, and includes amazing puppetry skills and technology!

The train in Spain is mainly on the plain. At least the high-speed one. This entertaining video draws some parallels. You sing ALTO, I'll sing TENOR twelve miles away! Meanwhile, VIA's CEO will be retiring in January. I am just putting the finishing touches on my resumé. (Will hours-spent-trackside count in my interview points total?)

Have you ever travelled in a coach for 4 days? And I don't mean sitting in Brockville. Travel with John Mac as he makes even more creative use of Winnipeg layover time than I did visiting CN's East Yard...taking in a Jets game, er, period. Interview with a breakfast sandwich at the 37:37 mark! Spoiler alert: John says "If I'm honest" 113 times!

First past the post...

At the first of three piana-playin' Golf club get-togethers this week, I was able to chat with Jim, our former hospital VP. We are both enjoying retirement, but only one of us recalled playing hockey in the hospital lobby when we were six years old with the nurses setting up goal posts near their 'old main' nurses' station! We are both, however, awaiting the someday new hospital for which the city has pledged land. I expect to go see it in the Access Bus with my seeing-eye dog. It may take that long to get built!

VIA Venture Sets' Serviceability in 2025

For the last year, I've been doing some 'citizen science' to find out what VIA couldn't or wouldn't share - Siemens Venture serviceability data. Why do this? Because the constant complaining and perceived problems with the Ventures, expressed by rail enthusiasts and passengers alike, may not always have been fact-based. An earlier post published in May, 2025 includes serviceability data and On-Time-Performance data from the previous seven months. I'm still waiting for a complete response from VIA's Access To Information Co-Ordinator and have been since March, 2025. Until that happens (if ever - count me one of those who thinks the federal ATI system is broken or at least cracked), here goes...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

(Based on data from December, 2024-October, 2025)

• VIA's Venture Sets had a wide range of serviceability from 0-100%. 
• Venture Sets had a monthly mean serviceability rate of 73%.
• The Venture fleet's trainsets had a median serviceability rate of 79%.
• As more Venture Sets were delivered, the percentage of sets in service and the total number of Sets in service increased.

THE RETROSPECTIVE RESEARCH - MY METHODOLOGY

While trackside at Kingston's VIA station last winter, I decided to start recording the serviceability of the Venture sets from various sources I could cross-reference:

• personal observations
• credible trackside reports from others
• video and still photos,

while maintaining a high bar for veracity so as not to over-report or sensationalize the challenges VIA staff and operating crews have faced with this implementation, as well as the aforementioned acrimony of VIA's passengers as they switch to Ubers, planes and GO trains to their destinations, while slagging VIA on social media. 

Populating a table each week, 'VIA Ventures Not Operating November 18/24-November 8/25' (below) I hoped to compile meaningfully accurate serviceability data, (and remember, it's only data until it becomes information!) with the 32 Set numbers shown on the vertical axis at left. The weeks of each month are shown on the horizontal axis at top. The table uses the following colour-coding to show serviceability:

• Red - not observed in operation for two or more weeks. (Minimum of  two-week intervals for out-of-service, for which I'd garnered no observations anywhere in the Corridor, allowing one week perhaps for routine service, or just missed by trackside observers, although since the trainsets operate across multiple Corridor lanes, that seemed unlikely!)
• Green - train set received, prior to undergoing break-in testing.
• Yellow - undergoing [1,000-mile] break-in testing.
• White - observed in service.

Now that a year has elapsed since that chilly sittin'-in-my-van session at the station, and all 32 Venture sets have been delivered, I've decided to tabulate the data from almost all weeks in the table above.

Here's how I compiled the data:

# Red cells (total number of Sets not observed in operation)       =     # of Sets not in revenue service

   # Red and White cells (total number of Sets in revenue service)

• The quotient was the # of Sets not in revenue service that week, converted to a percentage. The 'mirror image' of that percentage (adding to 100%, i.e. 30% not in revenue service = 70% in revenue service) gave me the Venture Set serviceability for each week.
• I averaged each month's 4 or 5 weekly percentages together to get the serviceability rate (percentage of Sets in revenue service) that month.

Notes and caveats - quite a few, actually:

• The goal for my methodology was to garner monthly totals that would make a trend in serviceability, be it negative (or positive!) easier to detect.
• VIA's actual serviceability figures likely differ. They would have the advantage of being based on VIA or Siemens proprietary data, versus my collected trackside empirical data.
• Each 'week' is not necessarily Sunday-to-Saturday, nor completely within one month. Months shown may therefore include a few days of the previous or subsequent month.
• A 'week' shown 'in service' may be based on only one observation or many, i.e. the set may have been used for one day or seven days to be shown as white/in service. Tabulating daily records would create a whole different table!
• Percentages could actually be lower. My two-weeks-not-observed-before-ruling-out-of-service could mean that certain trainsets were actually out-of-service for an additional, undetected 'red' week.
• Percentages have been rounded up to whole numbers.
• Set 25 "became" Set 7/25 after remnants of both sets were combined in August, following inclusion of two cars each in Sets 12 and 24, respectively, all sets then totalling the CN-friendly 32 axles.
• Set 32 entered service during the second week of November, just beyond the scope of this table.
• I'm not a trained statistician, just a train statistician. If you find any errors, please let me know.

THE RESULTS

With the math done, I was able to summarize the compiled data in three formats, each using percentages. The first assessing the horizontal axis (serviceability trend over time); the second assessing the vertical axis (serviceability of each Set) and the third portraying the second in different form. Here are the three individual formats, described, followed by the percentages in list form. 

All data pertains to my chosen 48-week period - full months from the first week of December, 2024 to the last week of October, 2025. I did not include the last two weeks' of November 2024's data, nor any data beyond the first week of November 2025 because the number of observations decreased below what I believed was a statistically-significant level (30-50 vs. the usual 70-80 per week). That's why I can't claim a full year of data - though I would suggest that 48 weeks' data is enough to reveal any emerging, credible trends. 

1. Serviceability of Venture Sets by Month:

Using the calculation described under the table above, the results gave the percentage of Sets in revenue service each month.

2. Serviceability of Venture Sets by Individual Trainset:

The number of weeks in service for each Set over the 48 weeks expressed as a percentage. The results show that while there is one trainset - Set 1- that hasn't been accepted by VIA nor left VIA's TMC in 2025, there is another Set that I've never found to be out of service (though it is possible a Set can be out of service for the better part of two weeks and my methodology wouldn't detect that). The Sets are listed by order of delivery from 2021-2025. If you believe that the best predictor of future activity is past activity, and you're standing on the platform when your Venture-equipped train pulls in and it's Set 4 with its paltry 50% serviceability rate, does it mean you have a 50% chance of making it to your destination successfully? Not necessarily, but maybe so!

3. Serviceability of Venture Sets by Percentage Groups:

Rather than presenting Sets' serviceability in ascending (or descending) percentage order, and not to single out a particular Set for circumstances beyond its control, this is a wider grouping of Sets, with individual Sets' serviceability gathered into groups of ten percentage points. Such groupings should account for a +/- 5% margin of error in my methodology. (Plus, I was just too lazy to re-do the list showing each Set's serviceability in percentage order!)

1. SERVICEABILITY OF VENTURE SETS BY MONTH 

 (Mean = 73%)

• December, 2024: 68%
• January, 2025: 60%
• February: 62%
• March: 67%
• April: 67%
• May: 73%
• June:75%
• July:81%
• August: 87%
• September: 85%
• October: 79%

2. SERVICEABILITY OF VENTURE SETS BY INDIVIDUAL TRAINSET

(Median = 79%)

• Set 1: 0%
• Set 2: 52%
• Set 3: 32%
• Set 4: 50%
• Set 5: 48%
• Set 6: 81%
• Set 7: 67%
• Set 8: 94%
• Set 9: 62%
• Set 10: 85%
• Set 11: 75% (damaged near Mont St Hilaire on September 24, 2025 and still out of service)
• Set 12: 66% (includes remarshalling/testing as XL set)
• Set 13: 87%
• Set 14: 81%
• Set 15: 62%
• Set 16: 62%
• Set 17: 100%
• Set 18: 79% (Lumi)
• Set 19: 62%
• Set 20: 75%
• Set 21: 79%
• Set 22: 88%
• Set 23: 100%
• Set 24: 100% (includes remarshaling/testing as XL set)
• Set 25: 100%
• Set 26: 100%
• Set 27: 93%
• Set 28: 100%
• Set 29: 100%
• Set 30: 87%
• Set 31: 60%
• Set 32: 100%

3. SERVICEABILITY OF VENTURE SETS BY PERCENTAGE GROUPS

• 100% serviceable: Sets 17, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 32.
• 90-99% serviceable: Sets 8, 27.
• 80-89% serviceable: Sets 6, 10, 13, 14, 22, 30.
• 70-79% serviceable: Sets 11, 18, 20, 21.
• 60-69% serviceable: Sets 7, 9, 12, 15, 16, 19, 31.
• 50-59% serviceable: Sets 2, 4.
• <50% serviceable: Sets 1, 3, 5.

THE TRENDS THAT EMERGED

• It's clear from the compiled data that the serviceability of in-service Sets has trended positively over the past 48 weeks. More white, less red!

• It's also clear that VIA has a handle on maintaining the Ventures. As newer sets are delivered, they seem to spend more time in-service. We know that cracked-windshield replacement (shown above at TMC) is an example of a serviceability issue that Ventures were plagued with, but which VIA in conjunction with Siemens was able to address successfully.

• It could be argued that showing in-service percentages for each Set, with earlier-delivered sets understandably having more weeks in-service to have something 'go wrong' would make it easier for newer sets to have higher percentages in-service. But note that the final ten Sets delivered (23 to 32 inclusive) have been in revenue service for up to 42 weeks, a significant time period, with one set entering service about every 7 weeks.

• As the number of Sets increased until all were delivered, a percentage represented an absolute higher number of Sets. In the first week of December, 2024 86% represented 17 Sets in service (out of a total of 21), while a similar percentage in the first week of October, 2025 represented 26 sets in service (out of a total of 31).

GOING FORWARD 

I'm planning to continue recording the serviceability of the Venture sets from various sources. Since it's easier to prove which Ventures are in service, not just unseen in revenue service for two weeks or more, I think this will result in a table that looks opposite to what I've been compiling, but still produce meaningful serviceability data. 

Should VIA come through with their own serviceability data that I have requested, it will be interesting to compare it to what I've been able to compile as a  concerned citizen scientist!

Running extra...

'Tis the season for Christmas specials:

• CMA Country Christmas - Little Big Town yes, 'Children Go Where I Send Thee' unfortunately sung by other artists.
• Christmas from Rockefeller Center - It's not Rockette science that I watch this every year!
• Kevin Costner's The First Christmas - a surprisingly scholarly approach to all the reasons my mantle nativity scene is technically only a pastoral pastiche.

Watch for Trackside Treasure's upcoming annual Christmas post. I'll be showing you the secrets to fantastic stuffing, sharing some favourite Christmas songs as Spruce Springsteen, how to make a bunch of cheap crap out of tinsel a la Martha Stewart, and opening the 14 Rapido Trains Inc. mystery boxes that arrived yesterday. It's a wonderful life, no 'bones about it! 

First past the post...

Our neighbourhood held its quite quiet not nocturnal Santa Claus parade last weekend, in fresh snow. Very Canadian. Collecting food items and winter clothing for various local charities, donations totalled 1,300 pounds of food, 45 jackets and many bags of other clothing. 

GHM-1 - Enhanced Post

Memories have a way of aggrandizing themselves in our minds. One example - I believed that I had recorded several observations of this venerable private car - GHM-1 -  though in checking I could find only one. It was easing east across Kingston's Counter Street crossing during March break, 1979. The last car on the nocturnal Cavalier, in the days of VIA handling private business cars (PV's):

When reminiscing retroactively recently at Real Rails 2025 in Burlington when I featured the March 22, 1979 consist in my presentation, I realized I had some more work to do. What did GHM-1 actually stand for? While maintaining the original GHM-1 post published back in April, 2021, this enhanced post brings in some additional information about this unique and short-lived Corridor colonist, this Hochelaga habitué', this metropolitan marketing maven!

Differentiate This!

Eric Doubt was a vice-president of a B2B marketing agency specializing in health care in the 1970's. Establishing a Toronto office from Montreal in 1980 was a challenge for the agency as clients and prospects departed down Highway 401 to Toronto. Looking for something to deploy that was dramatic and noticeable, a partner read about the club of private railway car owners in the U.S. Did CN have any passenger cars for sale they could ride into town on? 

CN was selling for price of scrap, in good shape, the former library car on the 1939 Royal Train then Governor-General Georges Vanier's car Metis from CN. The price was not cheap, but was below what was expected. Refurbishing, paint job and basic repairs could be managed. The car boasted a lounge, dining room with glass dining table, fully-equipped stainless-steel kitchen, three private bedrooms and bathrooms and was used for meetings, socializing and travel. Metis was returned to service and put into action for launch in Toronto, while there was still no office nor staff in Toronto. GHM-1 was the only privately-owned car in Canada at the time.

Jacques Pelletier, the former Governor-General's valet and chef came to work on the car. He cooked five-course meals while rolling through towns and villages or on the car's spur beneath the CN Tower. The firm received notice of its Agency of Record status from its first Toronto client while aboard the car. GHM-1 give the firm a foothold and presence in Toronto. Press coverage of the private car unfurled, and the firm the soon transferred its operations to a brick-and-mortar office.

The decision to buy GHM-1 parallels the current situation to beamed-up advertising during the pandemic. One recruiting firm just bought a spacious RV in which to meet and stay safe on highways. Imaginative and attention-getting ways to get to one's destination allows firms to stand out from the competition while making a statement.

Originally, in 2021 I happened to find the above engaging excerpt in a podcast by Eric Doubt of CA14 Integrated Marketing & Communications in Georgetown (top photo from CA14 website). Previously, Eric Doubt was Vice-President then Manager of Ontario operations for the car-owning firm that was part of the alphanumeric car number: Greiner Harries McLean, a Montreal ad agency with a staff of 13, to which the above-quoted Eric Doubt podcast referred, though not by name! Industries were moving out of Montreal at the time due to rising language tensions, and this seemed a fun and convenient way to continue to serve them in Toronto. GHM's accounts comprised mostly industrial/technical advertising.

Metis was purchased from CN for $50,000. The interior was redecorated and repainted grey & black, the exterior blue & gold. Railways charged 20 coach fares to move the car on the tail-end of passenger trains. Its home was in in CN's Pointe St Charles yard or near the CN Tower while in Toronto. Parking fee was $1,000 per month, another $150 to hook up phone and sewer, plus wages for the full-time chef/steward. The car also travelled to Ottawa and Quebec City. 

Michael Harries, president of the firm and a 47 year-old Briton who had been a fixture in the Montreal advertising scene for 20 years, was quoted in press coverage at the time as saying that the firm hoped to have a permanent office in Toronto, at which time GHM-1 would be redundant, "But I'd hate to sell it". Within two years, he overcame that sentiment. Thoughts of renting the car ended when Michael Harries thought of cigarette burns in the carpet from wild parties! The purchase of the car generated widespread press coverage in 1979. 

Toronto Star - March 20, 1979 - just two days before I observed GHM-1 on the Cavalier:

Ottawa Citizen - November 10, 1979: 

Ottawa Journal - November 9, 1979:

UNCOVERING GHM-1's HISTORY

I happened upon this excellent (and the only one I've found on any rail enthusiast website) photo of GHM-1 on the rrpicturearchives website here. Date given as 11/1/1980 - approximate. Location and photographer are unknown, though possibly at the AAPRCO 1980 convention at White Sulphur Springs, VA:

GHM-1 only bore that alphanumeric identity for a short time.

Former CN streamlined heavyweight business car 1041 Metis, built by CC&F in 1928 with sister car CN 1040/Cacouna as 7 compartment-observation-library-buffet, often used on Depression-era CN's St. Lawrence Special Montreal-Gaspe trains. As built, from Canadian National Railway Passenger Equipment 1867-1992 by Lepkey and West showing original clerestory roof:

Schematic from CN passenger car binder:

On June 27, 1964 showing clerestory roof and ductwork covered (Bob Gevaert photo - W.R.Linley collection, from John Riddell's Canadian National Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment-Volume 1):

• 1937 - ice-activated a/c installed with ducting on the roof.
• 1939 - redesignated Special Compartment car.
• 1953 - modernized with a straight arched roof and modern sealed windows.
• roller-bearing trucks installed by 1968.
• 1973 - renumbered by CN to Business Car 41.
• 1975 - renumbered to CN 15104.
• In private ownership as Gravette Historical Museum [GHM-1] --> red herring. This information was included with the rrpicturearchives captioning information, erroneously. I checked with the Gravette, [Arkansas] Historical Museum and they knew of no connection to this car!

• Sold in 1978 to Eric Doubt and Michael Harries as GHM-1 (Montreal/Toronto)
• Resold in 1981 to J.H. Green, Texas Tank Car Works
• Resold in 1989 to Jeff Hanley (Clarksville, AR), named Mercedes
• Resold in 1997 to Ron Dyer, Historic Rails Travel Center (Kansas City). Metis was an attendee at AAPRCO conventions 2003+.
• Resold in 2004 to John Tyson, American Rail Excursions (Reno) MRLX 800341 Metis.
• Resold in 2010 to the New Brunswick Southern. 
• Now MRLX 800341 Mid-America Railcar Leasing. 

My observation of GHM-1:

• March 22/79 tailing the Cavalier, VIA No 58

Lots o' links:

• PPCX 800341 Metis painted in CN green-black as of 2004.
• New Brunswick Southern Metis as profiled by fellow blogger Steve Boyko.

Running extra...

Another one bites the dust. VIA's Amherst Manor has been renamed Archibald Manor. Archibald who? The car's plaque reads, "Archibald Manor - Sir Adams George Archibald (1814 - 1892), for whom this car is named, represented Nova Scotia at the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences in 1864, forming the basis for Canadian Confederation in 1867. In 1870, he became the first lieutenant-governor for the newly created province of Manitoba and the North-West Territories. He administered the provisions of the Manitoba Act guaranteeing Métis land rights and was vital in the negotiations of Treaties 1 and 2 with the Ojibwe and Swampy Cree." 

I  grew up in Amherst View, across from Amherst Island, and went to Amherst View Public School. Having just watched Ken Burns' series on the American Revolution, it's about time that Washington state and even the capital of the US are renamed. The reasons for doing so would be equally VIAlid. Disease was rampant during the American Revolution, famously Smallpox running rampant among the ranks of the patriots, as was Dysentery, Typhus, Malaria and Measles. A virtual Bouquet of Biological Warfare! 

The crowded, unsanitary conditions of military camps made smallpox particularly virulent due to the lack of immunity among many American colonists. In response, George Washington implemented a controversial but successful mass inoculation program for the Continental Army against smallpox, which was crucial for securing victory. Really Fundamental Knowledge, junior! 

My parents travelled in Bedroom F of Amherst Manor, as they left Amherst View and rode west on VIA No 1 in the summer of 1983. My Dad thought this was an interesting bit of local interest, photographing the portrait of Sir Jeffrey that hung in their room. It's okay now to revise the history portrayed on VIA's Canadian. Can revising Canadian history itself be far behind? I'm left to wonder what he'd say if I told him about the renaming.

Waiting to EXO...Distant heads-ups EXhOrted me trackside this past weekend and I was EXOrable, so went out to catch three X's and O's head east as they were EXpOrted from California ALL-tOgether towards Montreal where they will carry Anglophones, Francophones and ALLOphones. Youtube video here. 

 

Scrapping of at least three VIA Renaissance cars at the Montreal Maintenance Centre, posted to UrbanToronto by 'ManyQuestions' on December 3:

First past the post...

I was able to plug some holes in my plethoric periodicals this past week, thanks to fellow blogger Steve Boyko. Inhabiting the incoming box with Bytown Branchlines was a bevy of beautiful X2F's for my burgeoning box of banausic couplers. Thanks, Steve!