Welcome aboard this year-long retrospective series celebrating my Fifty Years Trackside - watching trains and taking numbers. This is the Third in a year-long series celebrating those fifty years - each month's post is a time capsule; a five-year slice of those five decades. This month, my trainwatching enters the 1990s.
My May, 1986 western trip was challenging personally. As my relationship with my future wife progressed, I was ready to pop The Question. During that trip to SteamExpo at Expo86 in Vancouver, my note-taking took a dive. Being at station stops from here to the Pacific, watching young couples saying 'goodbye' or 'hello' just added to the pressure with pangs of separation.
We were married in May, 1987 and we made a railfanning stop in Smiths Falls on the way home from our honeymoon at Ottawa's Chateau Laurier. CP 4741-Chessie 3719-4509 prepare to head west:
Being an accommodating newlywed, Karen let me set up a 4x8 Manitoba-themed layout in our apartment's spare bedroom. The driving of the Last Spike of the Manitoba Western Railway brought together two local railway tycoons. Dave of Happy Valley Railway Management/CP Rail and Laurence of the Delaware & Hudson. The grand (!?) occasion was marked by the signing of commemorative certificates, heartfelt speeches and refreshments. All this for a simple 4x8! My Dad and brother celebrate, the latter going 'full Roger Doucet':
In the prototype world, there were two local derailments at the time - one along outer Montreal Street on August 26, 1986 and another at the Counter Street crossing on March 28, 1987. The first site was not very accessible, just east of the switch linking the original and 1974 curve alignments along the Great Cataraqui River. The second was a major inconvenience for the preparations to load 1 Canadian Signal Regiment for the Rendezvous 87 major army exercise at CFB Wainwright, Alberta.
In the summer of 1987, it was time to get documenting again after a five-year hiatus. Rather than keeping notes in notepads, I went back to transferring the numbers and notes, cars and consists into the first of many scribblers that I still use.
It was a transitional time for VIA - grinding the last miles out of its cab units leading VIA consists. Although GM and MLW cab units were in charge of most VIA trains in the late eighties, the F40PH-2's, VIA's first new locomotives since the LRC, were about to arrive. The first of the 6400's arrived on December 15/86, with 25 delivered by the following September, and the last of the series in 1989. CN was running first- and second-generation power, and Western Flexicoil-equipped Geeps arrived, awaiting their chop-nosing dates at Pointe St Charles shops in Montreal. Cabooses' years were numbered - they would disappear in a hurry in 1990 once permission was granted to the railways, years after End of Train Units emerged in the U.S. An eastbound freight flies past Kingston's VIA station on September 20, 1987 with covered and open auto racks (below).
In October, 1987 Karen came along on a trip to the Canadian Railway Museum at Delson/St-Constant, QC. Not so for a trip to the Halton County Radial Railway at Rockwood, ON. Another perennial favourite trip was the Toronto Railway Show in March, 1988. Usually a complete zoo [not the Toronto Metro one!], with a long line-up to get in, then having to ford a several attendee-deep crowd in front of every display or vendor table. From large venues like Exhibition Place and the Mississauga International Centre, the Toronto show would eventually contract to a much smaller one.
Kingston was launching its own train show at the same time. Attending the meetings of a fledgling railfan club in the mid-1980s, at Royal Military College or St Lawrence College, the informal group later becoming the Kingston branch of the Canadian Railway Historical Association.
We moved to our new (and current) house in August, 1988. It had a view of the CN Kingston Subdivision to the north, in season, and even read engine numbers with binoculars on a clear day! I even started a separate section in my sightings scribblers for such sights, abbreviated S.F.H. (Seen From House)! The view was obscured once leaves began budding on the trees, and eventually two new seniors' apartment buildings would be built in the gap. But on February 26, 1989 it was possible to see this CN westbound freight:
We visited Karen's parents at their home between Harrowsmith and Sydenham most weekends. On April 9, 1989 we checked out the dismantling of the moribund former CN Smiths Falls Subdivision there. This photo of me hoisting Karen onto my shoulders to dismantle a trackside sign (below) does not belie the fact that she was pregnant! Now it was time to paint that nursery a neutral yellow.
We made the first of several trips to Pennsylvania's pastoral Amish country, also stopping at the World Famous Horseshoe Curve on June 11, 1989 (below). This was in the pre-funicular days, and it was probably no fun for the pregnant lady to climb the nearly 200 steps to track level! We caught 14 movements in four hours: westbound Contrail coal trains and freights headed by two SD-40 helpers, as well as Amtrak passenger trains traversing the New York to Pittsburgh route, all on the remaining three of the original four Pennsylvania Railroad tracks on the Harrisburgh-Pittsburgh main line.
Driving toward Harrisburg then Reading, we passed the Hollidaysburg car shops. Long lines of Contrail and predecessor road cars paralleled our route. There were gondola and hopper cars, N5 and transfer cabooses, a few Geeps and maintenance-of-way coaches. Sadly, since driving, not a single photograph was taken! Our son was born in October of 1989.
In the early hours of January 15, 1990 my Dad and I made a point of doing our bit to document the massive cuts to VIA Rail, witnessing the last overnight Montreal/Toronto Cavaliers. Meanwhile, in the basement now expanding from the 4x8-footer, the fledgling Manitoba Western Railway layout eventually expanded to fill its full 23x10-foot basement layout room. A 1990 visit included my Dad unboxing his business car for a tour of the line.
Previous occupants had operated a home hair salon in the now-layout room. The walls were pink. The trim was pink. There was pink and silver wallpaper and rough-ins for sinks, etc. Just starting out, we bought just enough blue paint to cover the walls down to layout level! Door to layout room at left (above) and opposite side of the room (below) with the last gap and Last Spike not yet in place!
Trainwatching always seemed like a family-friendly activity to me. I'm not sure all other family members always felt the same way! Beyond spending time with kids trackside, collateral benefits included educational opportunities and nature studies trackside, and of course enjoying snacks or fast food together while waiting for the next train. Our new son's first trip to the Kingston station occurred when he was seven months old, on June 13, 1990. We caught four VIA trains and two freights in just over an hour! Posing with VIA No 63:
Steam still steamed, and Dad joined us when we travelled to Brockville on September 16, 1990. CPR 1201 was in town on an excursion, and this was one of our first multigenerational times trackside. We took our son on our first train ride together during a week-long trip to Pennsylvania in late-September, 1990. We rode behind Blue Mountain & Reading ex-GM&N 425 from South Hamburg to Temple (Reading) PA in ex-DL&W commuter coaches (below). By comparison, our daughter would not make her first train trip until she was 16!
Kingston's VIA station was always a good location for trainwatching with kids: long platforms ideal for toddling, walking or training-wheels bike-riding, plus on-site washrooms and food, benches, rain protection and ample free parking. Warm-hearted VIA engine crews would spot us cabside and throw us surplus packs of cookies or peanuts and cups of milk and juice. Andrew, in stroller or on foot, would engagingly play peek-a-boo. Here he is on April 27, 1990 with No 63 led by 6437-6411, pulling deadhead diner Princess and nine blue & yellow cars with SGU 15481 on the tail-end and those awful construction-style 'marker lamps':
We made a four-day trip to Pennsylvania in June, 1991 with Karen's parents. Visiting Steamtown, posing on L&NE caboose 580...
...and saying 'tanks' to one of the many former Canadian engines in the late-in-steam-era-assembled Steamtown collection:
We rode behind Strasburg steamers 89 and 90, the former running around our train at Leaman Place:
At Bird-in-Hand, PA along Route 340, a grab shot of an Amtrak westbound from Philadelphia led by 904 with three conventional coaches at speed:
Thanks for being aboard this year-long train of thought as we retrace, remember, and yes, wallow in nostalgia these fifty years trackside. Watch for an upcoming fourth part as we steam ahead into a third decade - the 1990s.
Running extra...
Snowmobiling the Eastern Ontario Railbed Loop on YouTube. Kevin Gammon, whose parents taught with my Dad, included some images from my posts on Eastern Ontario railway history in this 345 km journey across former railway rights-of-way. Fun to watch, dashing through the snow!
The Canadian Coast Guard dispatched medium icebreaker CCGS Des Groseilliers, named after Médard Chouart des Groseilliers (1618–1669) a close associate of Pierre-Esprit Radisson in explorations west of the Great Lakes. The ship entered service in 1982 and is more impressive than the usual buoy tender seen here, to break ice at the Bath cement dock, allowing CSL's MV Tamarack to dock and load cement, the first of the season. Reportedly, cement from this local plant is sold two years ahead of its production. Both videos by Aerosnapper!
First past the post...
A great turnout at Tuesday's Bytown Railway Society April meeting Zoom presentation "VIA Consists - The Early Years 1976-1981". Dave Stremes, Program Chair (above) kindly invited me to present and others commented that the spirit of Earl Roberts, 30-year editor of Branchline, neighbour to uberVIAphile Jakob Mueller's mother-in-law, and former Lachine resident, was definitely there. He was a contributor to each and every issue writing the “Consists” and “Motive Power” columns, and as longtime editor of the CTSG, and I'm sure he would have enjoyed the VIAntage consists I was pleased to share. It was also great to 'talk to' Phil Jago, Mark Walton, Ray Farand, David Jeanes and other BRS luminaries!
CN Transportation Department then VIA Project Manager for Development Roger Spack has some stories to tell. Very sharp, and just as knowledgeable about the 1970s passenger scene as he is VIA's current Venture challenges. I like his optimism, "...in something like 12 years, or maybe 10 if we're good at it, we will have a revitalized VIA Rail system. We will have a high-speed corridor central route. We will have VIA Rail paying for all or almost all of its costs." The only downside is that comment is from Roger's 1996 Parliamentary Transport Committee appearance!
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