Colin Churcher 2020

  Fan Trip October 1970 My introduction to the Thurso and Nation Valley Railway was on a fan trip in October 1970. Being newly arrived in Canada I had no idea what too expect from a logging railway using GE 70 ton locomotives for road power and with equipment, much of it with archbar trucks which were outlawed  in main line service around 1940. Kevin Day photo Two gondolas had been "borrowed" from Canadian Pacific to supplement the limited capacity in the TNVR caboose and private car 27. This worked well in warm, dry, autumn weather. TNVR No. 12 had recently been acquired from the Canadian National Prince Edward Island operation where it had been No. 6. The TNVR kept the old CN color scheme for a time. No need to spend money unnecessarily. On subsequent occasions my father enjoyed these forays into the Quebec woods. In the early 70s my son Paul also enjoyed the baked beans at end of the line. In later years Car 27, a former Canadian Pacific Superintendent's car built in 1...

 I had terminated my Virtual Railfan Blogs because is looked as if we were coming out of the covid lockdowns and because I was running out of material. But here we are at Christmas 2021 with the threat of another wave of the virus so I will see what I can find. I was heavily involved in the latter years if the Thurso and Nation Valley Railway, a logging line which ran into the Quebec woods about an hour east of Ottawa. It closed in 1986. Nik Delja recently forwarded to me some interesting videos of the line after it had been discovered by railfans in the 1965-1986 period. Here they are: https://churcher.crcml.org/thurso/tnvrvideo.html