Virtual Railfan Tour - Thurso and Nation Valley Railway - Car 27 part 2

Several years after we had commenced work on car 27the Bytown Railway Society acquired CPR caboose 426426. Car 27 was fully operational although there was still a lot of work to be done. We then approached the railway about the idea of hooking the two cars on the back of an empty train leaving on Friday and putting them in the siding at the top of the hill at Iroquois. The train on Monday afternoon would return us to Thurso. The company readily agreed and so began a few weekend working parties in the Quebec bush at Iroquois. The above picture shows car 27 and van in the siding and the main line in front.
This was the weekend that we lettered the car,
I am relaxing while the lettering is being prepared. One of our group had acquired a railway emergency kit (hanging on the coupling) which included flags and torpedoes/detonators. On our first trip to Iroquois we protected our equipment by placing three torpedoes on the rail. The brakeman on the returning train nearly fell off the rear car with fright when he exploded the first torpedo. Turns out the TNVR never used torpedoes!
The finished lettering looked really good.

During the weekend no trains were running so we took the opportunity of testing the BRS velocipede.

Or do some sketching

For these weekends the stove in the tiny kitchen produced some excellent meals

Dinner time

he caboose provided the additional sleeping capacity


These trips provided an extraordinary opportunity to stay the weekend in the bush to do some work as well as to relax.




The view from car 27 at Iroquois.

WE even went up in the middle of winter and found the heating to be quite satisfactory. The snow shoeing was excellent.


Much of the time our return was in the dark. On one occasion the train brakes went into emergency. All we could do was to hold on tight. The train came to a quick stop and we were still on the rails. All we could do was to let the train crew do their job. It turned out that a large log had fallen off one of the cars and in doing so had broken the brake line but bounced clear of the wheels. All the plates, glasses and cutlery had fallen to the floor with the sudden stop but there was no other damage - a nasty experience.   











 



 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Railfan Tour of Switzerland - Wednesday - Zurich Hauptbahnhof Part One

Image
Zurich Hauptbahnhof  Paul has prepared some extensive notes and photos of the Zurich Hauptbahnhof.  This will be in several parts.  The busiest station in Switzerland is Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Zurich HB) which is used primarily by the SBB. It has 26 tracks serving almost 3000 trains daily and it is one of the busiest stations in the world. It was built in the 1870s and is a main shopping destination as well as a transport hub. There are three levels for platforms and the "Shopville" shopping plaza.  The river Sihl river passes right through the station with platforms passing above and below the river. This shows the general layout of the station with the surrounding tram tracks shown in purple Tracks 3 to 18 are terminal tracks located at ground level, served by two side platforms and seven island platforms. These are used by long-distance trains from throughout Switzerland, and by international trains. Tracks 21 and 22 are underground terminal tracks, served by a single island
Read more

Journey to Zurich Hauptbahnhof, Dolderbahn, Wiedikon and Wallace Fountain

Image
 Tuesday 23 August Paul and I travelled to Zurich on Air Canada via Toronto. The flight from Ottawa was over an hour late - luckily we planned for this with a three hour connection in Toronto. Toronto airport was disgusting. It was overcrowded and there was nowhere for people to stand while waiting to board their flights. Obviously the Toronto airport focusses on relieving passengers of their money. Once aboard the plane things went well. There was plenty of space for carry on and the flight was excellent. It seems that the problem with airline travel is the airports rather than the flights. Our flight landed four minutes ahead of schedule (Wednesday) which was 0800. By 0820 we had cleared passport control and by 0840 we had taken a connecting internal tram and found the tram to downtown. We could have taken the SBB trains but we were in no great hurry and we enjoyed the 35 minute tram ride to close to the hotel. At Gladbrugge we passed two SBB 6/6 locomotives on the main line close by
Read more

Coming Home - Wrap Up - Sunday 15 Setember 2024

Image
This video, by Noel Wyler,  shows what we have just missed. Last Saturday (14 September) the Oensingen Balsthal  Railway organized an event to commemorate 60 years of the Re 4/4 locomotives. They brought together 24 of them and ran them as one train. Paul and I flew home on KLM from Schiphol Airport. We took a train from Den Haag directly to the airport. The trip back was marred by a couple with a young boy who was obviously teething. He cried almost continuously for the full six hours. I found I could tune him out when I dug deep into the KLM sound system and found a treasure trove of classical music. Bach violin concertos, Mozart piano concerto No. 23, Beethoven symphonies, Schuman etc. We survived the stupidities at the entrance of the Montreal airport and caught the KLM bus back to Ottawa where we arrived precisely on time. A good ending to a wonderful, tremendous, trip  
Read more