VIA's Kool-Aid Contest, Summer 2000

A Kool-Aid contest in March 2000 led to 6404, 6405, 6406, 6411, 6424, 6432, 6433, 6439, 6453 and 6454 wearing a colourful livery, for a few months, April to August 2000. This Kool-Aid wrap appeared on more locomotives than any other wrap, pre-rebuilding, and was arguably the most colourful and eye-catching of the plethora of wraps VIA applied to its F40 fleet. Spiderman wraps were numerically second with six in May 2004, though for much longer, with 6408 staying wrapped from 2004-2011! VIA 6433 at Kingston (below at Kingston - Tim Reid photo):

It took me 25 years, but I recently (thanks, Jason Paul!) acquired this brochure that was distributed to kids during the consist. The brochure explains the contest, as well as featuringsome puzzles to challenge young minds:

Kool-Aid-wrapped 6432 leads No 65 at Kingston on May 12, 2000 as the engineer greets our kids during the station stop. Our kids rarely if ever drank Kool-Aid. So sugary. (Though I hope they drank the Kool-Aid when it came to our parenting style!) Now they have grown and moved on to more 'adult' beverages. Nor have they been 'drinking the Kool-Aid' when it comes to watching trains, although they do occasionally send a message when something interesting and/or colourful rolls by!

The contest even made the newspaper wire service:

Combine kids, trains and a healthy dose of Kool-Aid and what do you get? An award-winning campaign that brings to life Kool-Aid's fun and wacky branding and embodies its brand essence of "Kool-Aid takes the Ordinary and makes it WILD!" And it also delivers bottomline results for the client. The Kool-Aid Kool-Train program was an unprecedented success, partnering Kool-Aid, VIA Rail Canada, YTV, Kidsworld Magazine and TV Guide to create a synergistic and integrated media campaign to reach both the kid and Mom target. (It won the Best of Show at Marketing Magazine's inaugural Media Innovation Awards last November. And this June, it made the short list in the Media Lions competition at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes.) - From Marketing magazine, Jul 30/01 Vol 106:30

UberVIAphile Tim Hayman contributed this photo (below) to my fourth book on VIA Rail, one of several featuring Tim's fine modelling of VIA's comparatively small yet diverse fleet. The locomotive is a Rapido F40PH-2D that he painted with a variety of Tamiya paints (custom mixed to match), and decalled with Highball Graphics (formerly SGS) decals. Weathering was done with airbrushed acrylics. The model represents 6404 as it appeared in late summer of 2000, when Tim rode behind it on a trip from Ottawa to Brockville. Unique among the other Kool-Aid units, 6404 was the only locomotive in that scheme that did not have a small Canada flag between the numberboards. It also had a cab sunshade on only one side, and had an early version of the air-conditioner that would soon become standard on the 6400's. Unlike the later yellow air-conditioner units, it was white, with "Genesis" lettering on the sides, for which Tim custom-printed decals.

For those who prefer RTR models, Rapido Trains released this attractive paint scheme on their F40PH-2D model in 2018. 

Lots o' links:

• VIA 6411 rail pictures photo
• on video thanks to the prolific late David Othen
• HO scale decals by Highball Graphics
• brass model Pacific Fast Mail

Is a Kool-Aid unit still out there? Looks suspiciously so, based on these clandestine photos taken in North Bay...turns out it's a former Roberval-Saguenay unit:

Running extra...

From inside the lines at VIA, I received a message this week: "...when your blog is being used as reference during the Teamsters Union call to give employees information...", it makes blogging feel even more worthwhile. Trackside Treasure does not represent a particular side in the protracted CN-VIA Venture/crossing speed-reduction polemic: management, union or passenger, but attempts to represent all and moreover, the truth.

The trade war continues...albeit in volleys of comments following the recently-published Globe & Mail article on Rapido Trains Inc. There are some commenters who hit the nail on the head but are woefully unaware of what the company actually does. Then there are counter-commenters who know the company's talking points all too well:

First past the post...

Thanks to the unnamed grey-top who kindly handed over two of her Tim Hortons napkins to us on our napkin-less sit-down at the mall food court with our granddaughter this week. The octogenarian may have seemed grandmotherly in her demeanour, but she then whipped out her tablet and it like a boss immediately afterwards!

Pop-up Post: Two Days in March 2025, Freight Cars

For the second time in two months, an online crafting event for my wife meant an anticipated three days trackside: March 21-23, 2025. My goals were to visit some Kingston railfanning locations I hadn't been in awhile, and to catch some doublavay Venture eastbounds. Each train was listed by time, direction, train number if known and notes in Part 1, Day One.  In Part 2, it's Day Two and in this third pop-up post it's freight cars I photographed on those two day's trains! 

Day One - Irving lumber aboard AOK 29813 on No 305

Day One - CNPX 160193 on CN No 731

CITX 151566

NKLX 201887

More Irving lumber on CN No 305

Day One - CR TTGX 981037 on CN No 271

Day Two - GACX 54158-54163 on CN No 372

Wheel flatcar AOKX 44125 on CN No 372

Day Two - Lebel lumber on CN No 305

W&W AEX 23898

GAEX 100293 blue pole flatcar

Day Two - PHLX 107 on CN No 306

PHLX 183

PHLX 200

WC 85061

Running extra...

On May 1, I was pleased to present my Paralysis Analysis PowerPoint presentation to the 75 Zoom attendees participating in the Virtual Prologue of the Railway Modellers Meet of British Columbia (RMMBC). Thanks to blog partner Marc Simpson for the invitation and fellow presenters blog partner Matthieu Lachance and Chris van Der Heide for their presentations on weathering and 3D car printing and prototypes, respectively. I had to have a nap, as my time slot began at 2245h, three hours later than Pacific Time! I'm looking forward to taking in the second evening Prologue on May 15. Feedback:

On May 7, I was pleased to be a volunteer Heritage Fair judge at my grandsons' school. Neither of them were participating, being too young for the Grades involved: 5-7-8. Feedback for this one was in the form of a nice hug from my older grandson who was touring the displays, a signed Thank You card from all the participating students and juice and cookies from the teachers co-ordinating the Heritage Fair. One lad's display on the Canada-Denmark "Whiskey War" did not include free samples, and I don't think the two displays on Maple Syrup did either!

Today is VE-Day. Eighty years ago, the Germans finally gave up. The CBC coverage of the Liberation of Holland largely by Canadians has been excellent. Major-General Richard Rohmer at 101 years of age valiantly made the trip with a small group of centenarian veterans to honour the 7,600 Canadians who gave their lives in the pursuit of peace in that then-devastated country.

First past the post...

It was good to chat with former fellow Whig editorial board member (and renowned local historian and author) Peter Gower at the Heritage Fair. Not only has Peter devoted his time in the past to preserving Kingstonians' contributions to World War I and historic Kingston objects in book form, but in the present he inquisitively wondered why on a recent train trip CN freight traffic had been non-existent!

Pop-up Post: Two Days in March 2025, Day Two

After spending Day One near Gananoque Junction after capturing VIA No 60/50, the first of two doublavays at Bayridge Drive overpass, I headed slightly east on Day Two to capture VIA No 60/50 from the Sir John A Macdonald overpass near Mi 175 CN Kingston Sub (top photo).

0953 EB - VIA No 60/50 Sets 11 and 24 Youtube video link. It was a cold one-hour wait - trains from Toronto were late due to a Metrolinx trackwork detour (see below). I then headed to Mi 174 at Queens East, at the site of the former CN-CP interchange. 

On the north side of the mainline was formerly Queens 1 with a lead to the interchange, lifted in the 1990s. Now an expanse of ballast, a few tie remnants and invading brush, (which I had ample time to tame), I tried to include the old-timey westward-facing Queens East signal gantry in many of my photos. These signals are bound to be replaced, some year. One of the signal targets was loose and could be heard banging when the wind came up.

1052 WB - VIA No 643 Set 13:

 

1103 EB - CN No 372 2934-midtrain DPU 3976 ex-Citirail:

1124 WB - CN No 271 all (empty) auto racks, all the time 8843-8901:

1138 WB - VIA No 63 (unphotographed) 910-3463-3467-3341-3350F(uture)-3312R(en).

1235 WB - CN No 305 2949-midtrain DPU 2872:

1321 EB - VIA No 62/52 Sets 2/10:

VIA No 62/52 Youtube video link 2'20" late due to Newmarket/York Sub Metrolinx detour around 'three sides of the square'. One hour late leaving, took 1.5 hours to reach the Kingston Sub, schedule had been adjusted to accommodate the detour, but still! All I know is that minutes before I left home that morning, it said "expected to depart on time"!

These trains seen from the south side of the mainline at Queens East Mi 174 CN Kingston Sub:

1327 WB - VIA No 65 913-3478-3455-3342-3356F-3351F, 40(years)-3355F.

[1350 - wellness check from CN Police constable, who dryly noted this location is usually frequented by mentally distraught people, or family of the unhoused living nearby.]

1410 EB - VIA No 40 6411-3470-3465-3368(hand-painted blue)-3350?F-3369:

1416 WB - VIA No 53 Set 7 (unphotographed).

1441 WB - VIA No 47 917-3472-3371-3309R-33xx-3338F (unphotographed).

1450 EB - No 64 6440-3460-345?-3352-33xxF-3336:

Driving home via the Kingston VIA station, CN No 306 came out of the setting sun.

1635 EB - CN No 306 3108(CN100) - midtrain DPU 3919 ex-Citirail:

a large cut of Parrish & Heimbecker covered hoppers:

Day Three really didn't get off the ground. It was sunny but cold, and our grandsons were arriving for an afternoon visit, so I did not find myself trackside. However, this bonus pop-up post shows freight cars from the first two days!

Running extra...

I published this April 23 update on VIA's case in the Quebec Superior Court:

The Superior Court of Quebec has chosen not to intervene and grant an interlocutory injunction against CN. The Court's decision says that Transport Canada, as the authority responsible for rail safety in Canada, is best-positioned to decide this matter. VIA's CEO shared the outcome, and VIA does not view this as a loss. In fact the main legal case - a request for permanent injunction - is still ongoing. In the course of the legal process in Quebec, VIA  and Transport Canada (TC) were able to obtain key information from CN that had been previously unshared. These new insights will significantly support VIA's ongoing discussions with TC and CN. VIA claims that CN's latest data confirms that none of VIA's trains are detected at crossings any differently than other trains operating in the Corridor. VIA's General Counsel is reviewing the Court's decision and evaluating next steps in the legal, operational and administrative avenues.

YouTube recommendations:

• Thanks to Jim Lowe for this YouTube recommendation from Gatineau, QC. So many models I recognize and remember!
• I met Greg Wiggins at both of my OVAR presentations. A very humble and quiet guy modelling what I used to model, only much, much better.
• Yet another Youtube trip on the Canadian! Here's Part One and Part Two. Just like Day Three, Part Two gets truncated.

First past the post...

Jesse McLaughlin kindly updated me with OS's from all across America and as far east as Belleville as VIA's Venture Set 29 was delivered this past Wednesday. The first daylight delivery through Kingston since Set 11 was delivered back in December, 2023! Jesse also sent screenshots from various Virtual Railfan webcams along the route as the power changed from UP 6916 to CN 8918!