Bytown Railway Society

Running behind this week! As the holidays approach, check your local museums and heritage railways for festive events. Here in the GTA, the Halton County Radial Railway is running their "Christmas on the Rails" events the next two weekends, December 5/6 and 13/14 from 1pm to 8pm both days. Details can be found here. If we get some snow it becomes a magical place as can be seen in today's photo of ex-TTC Snow Sweeper TP-11 and Rockwood station taken last December under freshly fallen snow.

You might think that between the left and right photos was a bog standard day at the paint booth...but I could only wish for that! I've been working on some resin boxcar kits from the now departed Yarmouth Model Works, in this case a pair of New York Central cars. I wanted to get them along together so I could use the same paint mix on them.

As the days get super short and winter closes in on us, one from last fall of an eastbound CPKC intermodal blasting out of the setting sun into the fall colours outside of Brighton.

I've had a good 2024/25 in terms of travel, with three trips to the UK, and all of them reasonably train heavy, though in very different ways. From our 10th Anniversary Trip that was train heavy visiting an old friend (LSWR 563) and experiencing Welsh Narrow Gauge for the first time, to The Greatest Gathering in August and…

Its that time of year again! The CPKC Holiday Train is commencing its run across the continent on an ever growing tour with the combined CP and KCS networks. The first official stop is tomorrow, November 19th in Montreal, and the last stop is December 21 in Vancouver. The schedule is here on the CPKC website. The two trains pass through Toronto, the "American" train first this Thursday with stops in Milton and Hamilton, and the "Canadian" next Friday/Saturday with stops in Bowmanville, Oshawa and Toronto on Friday, and Vaughan and Barrie on Saturday morning.

The last 24 hours of my short 5 day second trip to the UK was spent in London. After returning my rental car at Heathrow, it was onto the Heathrow Express to Paddington, and across the road to a Premier Inn right next to the station. From getting into the City at around 5:30 Monday, I had 24 hours until my flight home lifted off at 5:40 on Tuesday (recognizing that I needed to be back at Heathrow around 3pm on Tuesday to make sure I got checked in and bags dropped off).

Take two minutes to pause and remember. Today is Remembrance Day. As this post goes up at 11am, it is the moment of silence at Remembrance Day ceremonies, honouring the time the guns on the western front of World War 1 went silent. As I have written about before, my Great Grandfather served in the British Army in both the First and Second World War.

So what to do after three days riding trains at the Bluebell? Well, first up was to lighten my wallet with a trip to the Kernow Model Rail Centre in Guildford. After that, it was to a motoring and aviation museum that I have never had the chance to go to, the Brooklands Museum, home to one of Britain's first race tracks, and now to a retired Concorde.

By mornings first light. GO 564, an F59PH pulls the first train of the day into Kipling en route to Union Station, overtaking a CPKC freight that was slowing to a stop to allow the GO train to overtake it and move onto the south track the freight is on to get to Union Station.

Yeah, I know, its a bit of a humble brag to be writing about my second vacation to England in under three months having been over at the start of August for Oasis and The Greatest Gathering. This second trip came about because of a bunch of factors, not least of which the fact that I have been a member of the…

Are you troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night? Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic? Have you or your family ever seen a spook, spectre or ghost? If the answer is "yes," then don't wait another minute. Pick up the phone and call the professionals... Ghostbusters. Unlike many modellers, my feelings of hobby dread aren't in the basement or attic...there in a converted 3rd floor bedroom...

Something ghostly with Halloween coming up on Friday. A CPKC Intermodal heads east from the Mactier Subdivision onto the North Toronto Subdivision at Osler Street in Toronto's west end after dark.

Giants of “New Build” Steam was the theme of the Bluebell Railway’s 2025 ”Giants of Steam” autumn steam gala. I have been a member of the 6880 Betton Grange group which built one of the locomotives since 2009. I’ll have more to say on my trip once I’m home, but for now, Saturdays Grand Lineup of 21st Century Steam at the north end of Horsted Keynes Station.

The Bluebell Railway in 2004. Not a gala, just a random September Saturday visit, my only one until next weekend and my impending trip for the Giants of Steam Gala. On my visit in 2004, I saw ex-Great Western Railway Dukedog 9017 "Earl of Berkeley", Ex-British Railways Standard 4MT 75027, Ex-London Brighton & South Coast A1 Terrier 72 "Fenchurch, and NS7742 "Bello" visiting from the Netherlands operating a three train service with Fenchurch on Footplate Experience duties.

Nearing the end of the line. A matched set of an F40 and LRC coaches in the same (as close as you get anyways) these days. As all the new Charger-Venture sets have been delivered, the days of the LRC coaches are numbered.