Thank You.
NDGBrush cutting today is with large rubber-tired brush cutters with hydraulic extending arms with rotors and blades with hinged revolving bars.
We have such an attachment for our hi-rail Gradall. It'll take out up to and including small trees. I refer to it as a weed-whacker on steroids...
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Good news!
The Hudson Bay line will be rebuilt...soon...and fast.
The optics were never good for the Feds if they let this line disappear.
They were hoping to put a scare into OmniTrax and get them to pony up but voices of reason and concern plus it already being September meant the logjam had to be broken up and right quick.
The Canada Federal Government did an about face and is now willing to pour in 50 million right away and 500 million over ten years.
Only stipulations are that OmniTrax sells it for a reasonable price and that the operator be ok by the First Nations folks involved.
It is not a big stretch to fiqure out it is a First Nation group already lined up in place to buy it, they were just waiting for the Federal assistance and assurances with the repairs.
This excerpt explains partially how the repairs will occur.
An Aug. 18 report on the damage caused to the Hudson Bay Railway by flooding that was prepared by AECOM for OmniTrax said there were 20 washouts and extensive damage in 130 locations in the 155-mile (250-kilometre) Herchmer subdivision north of Amery to Churchill and outlined a 60-day plan to repair the line at a cost of $43.5 million. The plan requires a mobile camp car that can be moved to locations close to worksites and AECOM estimated the camp would need to house about 38 people for the duration of the repairs. Repair crews would work up to 12 hours a day. The cost estimate includes an allowance of 15 per cent for contractor profit and a 30 per cent contingency allowance. AECOM said repairs would need to start in early September in order for essential repairs to be completed by November, at which time lightly loaded railcars would once again be able to travel the section of the Hudson Bay Railway between Amery and Churchill.
NDG Just checking in.NOW, that IS good news!! Nice to see progress! in the North. Might get to Churchill someday?? Probably not. With the line still in they may refocus on the Salt Water Port aspect? for more than grain? I do not know if the Pettibone Speed Swing brush cutters still exist. I last saw then c. 1985.Drag east tonite had UP 5518 NS 9168 GEs.Have to go.Thank You.
Just checking in.NOW, that IS good news!! Nice to see progress! in the North.
Might get to Churchill someday?? Probably not.
With the line still in they may refocus on the Salt Water Port aspect? for more than grain?
I do not know if the Pettibone Speed Swing brush cutters still exist. I last saw then c. 1985.Drag east tonite had UP 5518 NS 9168 GEs.Have to go.Thank You.
Pettibone is still in business
http://www.gopettibone.com/products/speed-swing/
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Yes big changes here in the Athabasca Basin and La Ronge Gold Belt as well. We had our hottest temperatures of the year last Thurs. and Friday hitting 30C for the first time all summer...for our American cousins that would be 86F. Then the big plummet down to 1, 0, -1 all around the area...Stoney Rapids, Fond du Lac, South End, Beauval with heavy frost this weekend.
Thus it ends.
We are and have been in full throttle autumn weather for a while now and all trees have turned and the brush considerably thinned out. Will not last much longer, 2 weeks and then bare. Our 12 hour equilibrium will start to shrink right quick. Folks up here actually prepare for winter unlike in Southern Ontario and other places. It comes fast...boom and sooo dark for sooo long.
Back in from the big city 10 hours drive there and back, 5 and 5. for emergency CT Scan. I think they found something...technicians alluded to it without saying anything...told me to call the clinic and see the doc first thing Friday am. Then the doc called...told me to get in tomorrow. Yeesh.
Was a nice day, cool, cold even.
Lots of grain hoppers South of Prince Albert. Leased units in Hague, Saskatchewan, not the Netherlands. Many fields of wheat, canola and hay already cut. Pretty.
Coyotes about in several spots along the unbelievably empty highway between here and Prince Albert. Some big rigs with pulpwood and others going North to the Mines with Uranium Mill flocculants, molten sulphur, lime, H2O2, and hardware items, huge pumps and fans.
Its all very quiet, peaceful, and clean. Rest of the world has gone bonkers.
Discovered by chance from another thread and a link attached to it from the New York Central Historical group that these powerful Alco's were the last locomotives ever ordered by the mighty New York Central and delivered in their paint scheme. So it ends there, all those locomotives, 4-4-0's, 999, Hudsons, Niagara's, Mohawks galore, Mikes, PA's, E7 & 8's, Baldwin, Lima's, all their history and contributions to moving people and freight and building Nations.
Next stop the ill fated and destitute Penn Central.
Enjoy this last glimpse of the astonishing and grand New York Central.
And how about this rare bird beauty.....not Pennsy but behind our lead Alco.
NYC 2059 one of 10 (2050-2059) Alco C-430 3000 HP
Wrote a reply and posted it but disappeared when system crashed. Will regroup and try again later.
By the time the Penn Central crashed and burned, rail fans and those that marvelled at railroading had witnessed first hand so much ugliness combined with bewilderment that it was quite traumatic, in the way that it was difficult to understand, believe and keep up with. Prosperity was evident and it all worked well and looked fabulous. Then first gone was steam, along with the roundhouses, coaling docks and water towers. The massive and dedicated builders of steam soon fizzled out. Then branch line and lesser passenger trains. Then the express. Then the mail. Then the big named passenger trains. The bankers, lawyers, politicians, investors and top RR execs told us, the lesser ones, those items above were losing money. Many of the folks parroted those words, talking points, and that belief took hold.Good parrot, here's a cracker. They wanted that business.
The ugliness started, gained speed. Pennsylvania Station, one of the most outstanding places in the world was demolished and dumped in a swamp in New Jersey, like a mob hit. Dave Kleppers " Castle Rock" was blown up to widen a freaking highway. Of course the D&RGW ran 2 tracks nicely between it, but that is no longer in the cards, forget that, the highway has a new lane. Personally witnessed this first hand almost daily with the New York Central Canada Southern line. From a very busy and important line to a discarded carcass in a most ugly way. All that infrastructure, incredible engineering, buildings, roundhouses, shops, branch lines, ports and employment, along with the industries they served, all destroyed and removed from the landscape permanently. The Buffalo station NDG refers to had its walkway above the tracks severely mangled and severed as a hoe ram demolished a section so freight cars of a greater height could pass through. It was just left like that. The people of Buffalo were left to see that daily, displayed like a severed head on a pike. The station itself became a hell hole.The Buffalo area railroad scene went from prosperous and numerous railroads to what looked as if an invading army had come through laying waste and looting, leaving behind nothing but wanton destruction. Left it like that. The not that long ago beautiful manicured railroads were laid to waste. Make sure the folks see that. Many places have never recovered in both our countries. Instead we are sold cheap defective junk from the third world, hooked on smart phones destroying a generation, here's your welfare check, enjoy legalized drugs and for those of you not playing that game well here's more credit and then even more credit. Debt is freedom. This is not horse and buggy stuff. This was serious infrastructure and engineering built to last ages, built both our nations, won 2 wars, moved everybody and everything very well, domestically as in our own towns and factories. Todays generations don't have a clue what was not that long ago. Yeah, wish I did not see it either. It was shocking and unbelievable. Another round of manipulation will occur. Feudal societies? Import more crackers for the trained parrots.
Now this is one kitbashed, orphaned, strange looking locomotive.
One-of-a-kind Great West Coal 3070 still lettered for WDCM
Manalta Coal (3070) Sheerness, Alberta.
Nice bell if nothing else. Is that thing sticking up on the air supposed to be a horn? Maybe a speaker which blasts "get out of the way". Marker light too. One anyway. Put together in 1951, using Baldwin trolley trucks and n ex Niagara St. Catherine's and Toronto electric cab and frame. Then the rest built around all of that.
I was going to call it Frankie as in Frankenstein but I did not want to disrespect its years of service pushing coal hoppers about and its heritage parts....think I'll call it "The Mother In Law" instead.....has that look!
NDG-- Not sure I follow your first five paragraphs or lines. I take it it was a bad day.
Yes, I am greatly concerned about the upcoming winter...not sure how many more of them I can endure, if any. Could not take the heat and humidity of the Southern 'climes however. Best stay put. Keep going.
Have a problem requiring surgery, thankfully not major and not vital organ stuff but causing crippling debilitating sleep depriving pain. Docs all leary because of blood thinners. Put on a grin and bear it face and teach my classes. It has been difficult, so therefore scared of winter.
Nice scenes around Grandby smelter and Sullivan Mining District.
Great Northern RR played a major role in the development of Canada and the province of British Columbia in a direct and indirect way.
Our American cousins may not know so here is a brief view from a height...It starts when Great Northern Empire Builder James J. Hill saw a way to undermine his nemisis/counterpart Van Horne.
He correctly saw that the CPR built too far to the North, leaving the Southern tier of B.C. wide open. The Great Northern built right along the border in as many places as possible and built many fingers into Canada to tap into the rich and quickly developing and numerous mines and lumber industries.
American miners and business's, suppliers, banks, the works, flooded the entire Southern Tier and in fact it caused and was an "economic annexation".
Alarm bells went off back East in Parliment Hill in Ottawa and the Provincial Legislature of B.C. in Victoria. Southern B.C. sovereignty could be lost to America, threatening Confederation and the Dominion.
A real annexation was very possible.
The response was to build the Kettle Valley, eventually under 100% CPR control, so build it they did and the Great Northern eventually waned and the Spokane International became an important chess piece in the game. Still is!... but different reasons.
I write this simplified broad overview for our readers that do not know.
...and today? Canadian Algoma lifted rail from Prairie branch lines providing D-Fence for the USA with Mexico.
Who says NAFTA doesn't work!
The building of the Kettle Valley line had a major side effect that proved to be detrimental to Canadian railroading for decades. One of the conditions of the Federal funding for that line was a restriction on grain rates that hardly seemed onerous at the time. Further discussion of the Crows Nest Pass grain rate restrictions would be redundant.
Those were some nice looking bathtub coal hoppers that meant business.
The multi mark looked good on them but my understanding is that the red did not hold up well and they went to black.
CP put forth great optimism during this time.
Airlines, Ships, Railroad, Hotels, These were heady days and the future looked bright.
Both CN and CP went the opposite to all the dreariness and ugliness in the industry.
It did not last long but they gave it a good try.
Very cool beans NDG.
Had no idea of this existence of this method.
Quite the thing.
Kaslo & Southern #2 a wood-burning Mogul (note the link and pin coupler) hauling regular passenger train through the rugged Kaslo River Canyon 16 miles west of Kaslo in the Spring of 1896 on the newly-opened line of 45 lb. steel rail layed without tie plates, the normal practice at the time. BC Provincial Archives
Great Northern controlled
The rush was on.
NDG--Great story about the waterpipe ....at least it's safe and preserved now.
Thus was born the "Iron Engineering Ring", made from the bridge parts that fell, so that only qualified engineers would design and oversee construction, work out and do all the proper mathematical stress and structure calculations, statics and strength of materials, and legally be able to sign off and take responsibility.
Engineering graduates upon completion of a specific length of time in the workplace, 4-7 years, and sponsored by 2 other Professional Engineers, and then writing and passing a rigid exam, were then designated as a Professional Engineer and recieved the "Iron Ring" made from the bridge. Designation P. Eng. In later years there came designation P. Geo., Professional Geologist.
I linked this video on the "Classic Trains" sight for all to enjoy, so check it out and see if what's pictured MAY have been inspired by Great West Coal's self-propelled Normandy bunker of a diesel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhURhaIRdqI
Isn't that something?
That is a great little video...and it is truly amazing!
Laser powered rocket with a shark nose face...wow!
Youth is wasted on the young! What do they know?
Thanks Firelock
That "Normandy Bunker" kitbashed thingie is preserved! In Alberta.
Toiling away tirelessly in obscurity since 1951, in a very remote area, orphaned twice, and finally left on rail connected to nothing and it still survives.
That is almost as far fetched as a laser powered rocket! Amazing.
MiningmanThus was born the "Iron Engineering Ring"
I hadn't thought about those in a long while.
When I was still working in the petroleum industry, we had many Professional Engineers. Because of the ring, they became known as "Ringers" and would sign their names on memos as "Joe Blow P.Eng."
Now, you promote one of thees guys to management and they sign themselves as "Joe Blow P.Eng., Mngr." Leading of course to the infamous "Peng Menger"!
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
MiningmanToiling away tirelessly in obscurity since 1951, in a very remote area,
I thought about adding this after I posted about Sheerness on The "Mother in Law" locomotive thread over on the Classic Trains forum.
Sheerness is located in what we in Alberta classify as a Special Area. The rankings go; Cities, Towns, Villages, Summer Villages, Hamlets, Localities, and Special Areas.
Sheerness is located in Special Area 2. For the benefit of our US readers the land area of Special Area 2 is larger than either RI or DE. Its' population, however, as of 2016 is only 1,905 living is 648 of 750 total dwellings.
Sheerness itself is classified as a Locality.
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