Click on each image for a closer look!
.
Saturday, March 20th
.
Lots of activity today at the roundhouse and lots of public wandering through and watching the performance as we shuffled cars and locomotives for a photo shoot by Norm Betts, a professional photographer who has been documenting progress of the development of Roundhouse Park for some time. We actually hit an all-time record high for volunteers on site at one time. There were eighteen of us engaged in various projects.
.
A host of tasks were tackled which included the miniature locomotive workshop, the TH&B caboose, shuffling the rolling stock and engines, moving fences around to facilitate moves, operating the turntable, working on the F7 cab, sealing the floor in the miniature railway depot, installing the barrier arms on the crossing gates, and of course capturing everything in pictures.
.
The weather was perfect for working and photography being cloudy and therefore evenly lit. Not too warm in the afternoon though; we were getting occasional flakes of snow! All together it was a good day and I think everyone either had fun or felt good about achieving a goal on a project. Congratulations to TH&B caboose team as they were able to close up the west wall today with the tongue and groove interior panelling.
.
We also thank volunteer Dave Wetherald for his donation of four new fluorescent lighting fixtures.
.
Sunday, March 21st
.
I thought the coming of spring was supposed to bring warmth? It was better last week when it was still "winter"! Regardless, a small team completed installation of the mini turntable today. It revolves nicely and it is the right height. We can now proceed to complete the miniature railway tracks leading to the depot. On Sunday, work also continued on the task of stripping the caboose doors.
.
Posting by Michael Guy, Pictures by Stephen Gardiner, Michael Guy & James Rasor
.

Click on each picture for a closer look!
.
As we have noted before, our CNR Northern 4-8-4 Steam Engine #6213 is one of several that still exist across Canada. One of the other members of this class of locomotive, #6218, is located at the Fort Erie Railroad Museu. This locomotive was built in 1942 and donated to Fort Erie in 1973. It has not been maintained since 1973 and has deteriorated seriously.
.
It has been determined that the locomotive is in need of repairs to cosmetically restore it that will cost a total of $429,000. Mary McLelland-Papp, of the recently formed Fort Erie Historical Railway Association, says an initial fund-raising goal of $73,000 has been set. A campaign to seek memberships from corporations, individuals and other volunteers who are interested in doing their part to make the train's restoration a reality is now in effect. The City of Fort Erie has also made an initial allocation of $50,000 towards the restoration effort.
.
For more information, read the recent article in the Fort Erie Times newspaper by clicking here.
.
I visited the Fort Erie Railway Museum site for the first time yesterday and brought back the images seen here of the museum and #6218. In this images we find that their collection includes #6218, a wood-sided CN Caboose, a fireless steam engine and the very classic Ridgeway railway station. Fireless engines were filled with steam or compressed air and then used in plant facilities where the existence of a fire would be very dangerous. The museum will open for the season on Victoria Day weekend.
.
Also found below is a video of #6218 operating in October of 1969 on one of the many excursion trips which she pulled at the end of her career, several of which I thoroughly enjoyed as a young railway enthusiast.
.
Posting and Pictures by Russ Milland
.

.

Click on each image for a closer look!
.
Well, you couldn't ask for better March weather, it was sunny, windy and hot at +18.5C!
.
The project for the day was to accept and erect a pair of crossing gates donated and delivered by PNR Railworks. They also promised to help us install them. PNR are the folks who installed all of the standard gauge trackage throughout the park last year.
.
The crane-equipped delivery truck arrived about ten-fifteen and the PNR install crew arrived about noon by which time our team of TRHA volunteers had matters well in hand. All told, it took about us about six hours to get both masts bolted to their mounts. We waved goodbye to the PNR truck driver just before four p.m. In support of the installation, our TRHA team put in a full day's work drilling concrete, epoxying holding studs and pulling wires.
.
We had the work area cordoned off with yellow tape as the park was very busy with families with small children visiting Skydome and a sharp lookout was needed to ensure safety.
.
Posting by Michael Guy; Pictures by Jon Hull & Sandy Wetherald
.

High Speed Rail Canada is a citizens' advocacy group dedicated to making the public and other stakeholders aware of the potential for high speed rail in Canada. Their website is a great portal to prior studies and well as other web based resource for those interested in the potential of high speed rail in Canada. Click here to visit their website.
.
Click here to view quite an interesting video of the evolution of high speed rail in Europe. Hopefully, despite the long intercity distances, we too will experience such high speed rail travel in North America in the near future.
.
Finally, below is an interesting video documenting the retirement of the Type 500 Shinkansen train from Japan's TOKAIDO main line. These trains have been operating at speeds of 300 kilometres per hour in the western part of Japan since 1997.
.
Posting by Russ Milland
.

Click on each picture for a closer look!
.
We had yet another productive weekend with progress on a number of projects.
.
The TH&B van is looking very trim. The west wall is a complete structure again and the steel sheathing has been screwed back into place from the outside making the wall straight once more. Next week the interior T&G (tongue and groove) panelling will start to go back on. Work continued on the priming work on the interior of the F7 Cab and it is looking quite handsome as can be seen in the picture below.
.
In the miniature railway depot building we installed four eight foot long fluorescent light fixtures to dispel the gloom. These were recycled from the roundhouse stalls 28-30 prior to the renovations. Wiring is yet to be completed but the fixtures are in place and ready. Our team also cut and drilled nearly a third of the track supports needed to support those tracks in the depot which will be elevated to provide access to engines and rolling stock from underneath.
.
Posting by Michael Guy; Pictures by Stephen Gardiner and Lance Gleich
.
.

Click on the image for a closer look!
.
Derek Boles, TRHA's historian, publishes a daily posting on the Toronto Railway Heritage Yahoo Group List. These postings document major railway oriented events that happened on that day of the year. One of today's items is as follows:
.
"March 13, 1978:
.
GO Transit introduces its new bi-level coaches (actually three levels including the intermediate level at each end of the car) in regular service. After experimenting with earlier models of bi-levels with partial upper levels used in Montreal and Chicago, GO developed an original design that featured a full-width upper floor. The cars were built by the Canadian Car Division of Hawker Siddeley Ltd. in Thunder Bay, Ont. and sat 162 passengers instead of the 94 passenger capacity of the original single-level c ars used by GO since 1967. The design of these cars was so successful that only minor modifications have been made in the past 32 years. The bi-levels are now manufactured by Bombardier and are used by several transit systems throughout North America."
.
If you wish to read these daily postings from Derek, simply join the Toronto Railway Heritage Yahoo Group List by clicking here.
.
In the pictures above, we see black and white photos of the original passenger cars used on GO Transit's very first day of service on May 23rd, 1967. Also shown above at right is a picture of the bi-level cars in operation on an westbound train just west of the CNE grounds in Toronto. Below, we find a route map which shows how the GO Transit operation has expanded to cover a large part of southern Ontario centred on the GTA (Greater Toronto Area).
.
For more about Go Transit, read the extensive Wikpedia article and visit the Go Transit website.
.
Posting by Russ Milland; Images by John Vincent, Wikipedia and Go Transit
.

Click on each picture for a closer look!
.
In this final series of weekend report pictures, we find Michael in the miniature railway train shed laying the track required to store our rolling stock. This went well and we now have two-thirds of the passenger car storage trackage bolted down and ready to use.
.
Finally, Michael reports that "It was a pleasure to see that the new railway-themed children's playground in the south east corner of the park (see pictures below of the "GTRR 1929" plastic engine and families playing on the equipment) was a popular place all weekend. Lots of young family members were enjoying climbing around the plastic engine and using the adjacent slide and climbing equipment. All dressed in winter clothing mind you but the sun was shining and fun was being had while it did."
.
Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Bob Dickson and Russ Milland
.

Click on each picture for a closer look!
.
As can be seen in the photographs above, work on the TH&B caboose is proceeding very nicely with the wall reconstruction nearly complete. Remember that this caboose had a wooden structure with a metal sheathed exterior so lots of woodwork was needed to restore it.
.
Below, we also see that the development of the miniature model of our CLC Whitcomb is proceeding as time permits with its now having a fine front grill in place at both ends. A team of volunteers also worked on the Sweet Creek steam engine's wiring, cleaning of the Romulus chassis and reworking of the boiler (see below). Work also began on completing the miniature railway depot which will be the topic of our next post.
.
Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Stephen Gardiner & Lance Gleich
.

Click on each picture for a closer look!
.
This past weekend again saw progress on several old and new fronts with work continuing on the TH&B Caboose, the F7 Cab, the miniature railway engines and depot. On Saturday, Michael and Dave made a long trek to Sudbury to pick up much needed parts to restore the Pyke Crane
.
As shown in the attached pictures, the F7 Cab is progressing nicely as one of our teams continued to do the "dirty work" of grinding away and sanding the surfaces inside the cab. As can be seen in the pictures, the exterior has also had its surface dents and dings filled in and sanded. Various compartment doors can also having been cleaned up and primed. We also addressed the cab with a welding torch to finish up the framework. In one of the pictures you can see the fireman's side of the front windows looking great after having been primed.
.
Watch for more weekend progress reports in Part 2 of this posting!
.
Posting by Russ Milland; Pictures by Stephen Gardiner & Lance Gleich
.

Click on each image for a closer look!
.
I recently received a call from a Mr. Tim Irish, who advised that he had two authentic Canadian Pacific Railway trainman's uniforms and he wanted to find them both a good home. After a brief conversation, he agreed to donate the uniforms to the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre. It turns out that Tim is Sergeant Tim Irish of the Toronto Police Service Forensic Identification Services and we can certainly appreciate his sensitivity in not immediately identifying himself during a cold call on the telephone.
.
Sergeant Irish delivered the uniforms to Derek on March 1, 2010 and advised that they belonged to his uncle, Ross Michaelis, who was a trainman on the CPR's Parry Sound and Cartier Subdivisions between Mactier and Cartier. The uniforms are in pristine condition, each with jacket, vest, pants and hat and with CPR brass buttons. One is a single-breasted summer weight uniform (shown at left above) and the other a double-breasted winter uniform (shown at right above). Both were made by Tip-Top Tailors here in Toronto, a massive 1929 building at Bathurst Street and Lakeshore Boulevard that was recently converted into a condominium. Both hats were also made in Toronto at Stokes Caps and Regalia, a company still doing business manufacturing uniform paraphernalia in Mississauga.
.
The map above shows the CPR line that Mr. Michaelis would have worked while wearing these uniforms. Cartier is west of Sudbury at the end of the double track section. Mactier is 130 miles north of Toronto.
.
We thank Sergeant Irish for his generous and thoughtful donation to the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre.
.
Posting and pictures by Derek Boles

Click on each image for a closer look!
.
In a previous post, we featured the dramatic lighting that has been installed to light up the roundhouse. In this posting, we show two images above of Cabin D and the Toolshed quite late in the day which displays the dramatic lighting installed for these structures as well.
.
Posting by Russ Milland & Images by Stephen Gardiner

Click on each image for a closer look!
.
Despite the late winter dump of snow on the Roundhouse property as shown in the picture at the left above, our determined volunteer crews once again put in a great work effort this weekend indoors at the roundhouse.
.
One of our two crews continued to work on the restoration of the interior of the caboose. We got the sills cut for the windows and the new flooring laid up to the floor sill. We also continued to strip the doors down in preparation for new paint and reinstallation.
.
On a second front, we covered the miniature turntable with some recycled Caboose shrinkwrap that we luckily kept in preparation for the Mini Depot to be painted on the inside this week. The end of the day was spent cleaning up after ourselves in preparation for the contractors coming in to install the heating in the stalls - this is good news!
.
Meanwhile, on our third front (the F7 cab restoration front), our team primed the rest of the electrical compartment doors, as well as the insides of the exterior side doors. We also prepared two plywood patches on the engineer's and fireman's risers. Both are finished and ready to install. Three of our volunteers then started to cut the metal frame supports to support the sofa enclosure at the back of the cab. All pieces are cut, placed and ready to be welded.
.
Posting by Russ Milland based on information from Dan Garcia & James Rasor; Pictures taken by various volunteers using Lance Gleich's camera.
.