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Train Spotting
- Thread starter Admiral Beez
- Start date
13:56 02162024 Jarvis St. inbound to union.
APTA-2048
Senior Member
flonicky
Active Member
APTA-2048
Senior Member
Went from rarely seeing the new trains, to seeing one almost everyday. It’s nice to see them all in service. Caught Train 48 under the train shed this evening.
Allandale25
Senior Member
Allandale25
Senior Member
Since Niagara Falls is being discussed a lot right now in the GO Service thread.
Railpictures.ca - A.W.Mooney Photo: Last Run!!! After operating since Dec. 30, 1895; the passenger service is no longer. CP, in its effort to rid itself of this burden after taking over the TH&B, paid the city of Hamilton $1.8M to free itself of a
Tens of thousands of great Canadian railway photographs, discussions, and much more. Click to view the image or register for your free account. Please share this if you like it.
www.railpictures.ca
just east of the creek
Active Member
I’m in North Bay for a few days and while I have struck out so far in efforts to get closer to the GO coaches in the yard, I did come across this sad site tucked away in a corner behind some buildings. Surely we can do better!
just east of the creek
Active Member
The following were also spotted in the same general area. There are some great memories attached to these (or like) units and the destinations they travelled two….I may have to nip up to Cochrane to indulge in some nostalgic Chinese and recreate those memories.
fiendishlibrarian
Active Member
Interesting, shame about that steam loco being left to rot and be vandalized. I also did not think there was any intact TEE equipment left anywhere, even if it isn't on rails. I also wonder if that F-unit can be restored and run as a heritage locomotive when the Northlander returns.
crs1026
Senior Member
I am always disappointed when the rail enthusiast community expects someone else to do their heritage preservation for them.
I know rail enthusiasts who put thousands of kms on their vehicles and spend endless hours at trackside.....most of them waiting for something to happen....the hobby is obsessed with photography. (Confession: I may resemble that remark....)
But pick up a paint brush or help raise money for a proper museum with some indoor space?
Parking old equipment somewhere in the weeds and expecting good things to come out of that is the railway buff's equivalent of "thoughts and prayers".
We can park a steam locomotive in a park and hope someone brings it back to life in 50 years, or we can do more by our own efforts.
- Paul
I know rail enthusiasts who put thousands of kms on their vehicles and spend endless hours at trackside.....most of them waiting for something to happen....the hobby is obsessed with photography. (Confession: I may resemble that remark....)
But pick up a paint brush or help raise money for a proper museum with some indoor space?
Parking old equipment somewhere in the weeds and expecting good things to come out of that is the railway buff's equivalent of "thoughts and prayers".
We can park a steam locomotive in a park and hope someone brings it back to life in 50 years, or we can do more by our own efforts.
- Paul
lenaitch
Senior Member
There is a 'historical society' but I don't know if it is anything more that a photo club. Restoration and maintenance of large artifacts takes deep pockets and concerted fundraising. To actually operate something, on live track, is even more challenging. It is made more complicated by the fact that ONR is publicly-owned. I understand they have a wealth of historical documents and photos, as you can imagine, that are just sitting in storage because they can/won't hire someone to curate them.
TNO # 701 is restored and under a shed in Englehart, but I don't know who paid for that.
just east of the creek
Active Member
I am still in NB but have been really too busy to ask around in detail. Some staff I am dealing with had no idea the loco existed. And some local contacts have passed. In my dimly lit childhood memory I think I have a memory that the loco was displayed on better circumstances before. Maybe? It’s been welded up to prevent internal vandalism but certainly needs a new home. And you would think in this town, with its long association with rail, and its museum enclosed in a former rail facility, there might be opportunities. However this is also the town the wants to bury, forget and turn into another used car parking lot, the former home of the Dionne Quintuplets and the long, and quite often painful, story of the birth and exploitation by the province and the city during earlier years of economic hardship, of their birth and childhood. Small town snaky politics.
lenaitch
Senior Member
There is a community group 'Fire Up 503' that has a website that seems to be fairly dormant.
It used to be in Lee Park (south end of waterfront) then in was moved to beside the museum (former CP station) around 2001. According to this article, it was still there in 2017. I don't know when or why it was dragged down to its present home.
My guess is it's all about money. North Bay doesn't have a great tax base. It lost significant income base when the RCAF downsized and CP pulled out. I'm guessing NipU and Canadore College plus government and the ONTC are the biggest employers. Population has been pretty stagnant for years. There is no 'big daddy' employer, like a mine, that most other northern cities have. If nothing else, what economy there is is fairly diverse and not dependent on that one big one. The City would probably dearly like ONTC to fund the restoration (and maybe the TEE unit), but the ability of public money to be spent on such things is limited.
The 'Dionne Quints' thing is quite divisive. Some, including the volunteer Heritage Board, want the city to take over the building, fund its restoration (which it apparently needs much of - many were concerned it wouldn't make the trip) and pay for its operation. Others want nothing to do with it. To some its money, but to others, they don't want to be seen carrying on the exploitive legacy that the provincial government left. The building used to be on the Hwy 11/17 bypass co-located with a Destinations Ontario tourist information centre. When the province closed it and surplused the land, it had to move. Beyond being a regional event, nothing happened in North Bay. The family lived near Corbeil and Dr. Defoe lived in Callander (his house is the Callander Museum). Both the Callander and North Bay museums have Dionne artifacts.
(I now live just outside of town. Enjoy your visit).
just east of the creek
Active Member
Thanks. Here on business, but in another age I spent some young formative years here, and then later, South River, and sometimes (I think when I was waiting for a train) a rather sleezy bar opposite the station, now long gone.There is a community group 'Fire Up 503' that has a website that seems to be fairly dormant.
It used to be in Lee Park (south end of waterfront) then in was moved to beside the museum (former CP station) around 2001. According to this article, it was still there in 2017. I don't know when or why it was dragged down to its present home.
My guess is it's all about money. North Bay doesn't have a great tax base. It lost significant income base when the RCAF downsized and CP pulled out. I'm guessing NipU and Canadore College plus government and the ONTC are the biggest employers. Population has been pretty stagnant for years. There is no 'big daddy' employer, like a mine, that most other northern cities have. If nothing else, what economy there is is fairly diverse and not dependent on that one big one. The City would probably dearly like ONTC to fund the restoration (and maybe the TEE unit), but the ability of public money to be spent on such things is limited.
The 'Dionne Quints' thing is quite divisive. Some, including the volunteer Heritage Board, want the city to take over the building, fund its restoration (which it apparently needs much of - many were concerned it wouldn't make the trip) and pay for its operation. Others want nothing to do with it. To some its money, but to others, they don't want to be seen carrying on the exploitive legacy that the provincial government left. The building used to be on the Hwy 11/17 bypass co-located with a Destinations Ontario tourist information centre. When the province closed it and surplused the land, it had to move. Beyond being a regional event, nothing happened in North Bay. The family lived near Corbeil and Dr. Defoe lived in Callander (his house is the Callander Museum). Both the Callander and North Bay museums have Dionne artifacts.
(I now live just outside of town. Enjoy your visit).
Thanks for the updates. Hopefully something positive comes out of both situations, there are stories there to tell current and future generations, and NB owes much to both.
I keep trying to grab a photo of the current lineup of GO coaches in for updates, but work conspires against me. It appears a couple are “shrinkwrapped” in some blue cladding.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Last I was on the bridge it looks like about half a dozen, a couple wrapped.
On a Northlander note, no evidence of work re-connecting CN Newmarket to ONR trackage as indicated in the business case. Admittedly not a huge job unless land title has been abandoned (a scrap yard seems to have grown into the old ROW - it maybe just a lease - or they shift the alignment a bit).