With the nice weather approaching, it's time to get back at the restoration of equipment at the site. Work has already begun on the exterior cab of HEPC E-7, removing 7 layers of paint in order to return it back to it's original black paint.  There has also been progress on the Whiting 2TMA Trackmobile.  The engine was cleaned up, and tested, and turns over very well.  Next is to test it with propane, see how it fires.  Bearings are being sought for the gear case/transmission, and providing that search goes well, this very useful piece of equipment will be back up and running for service at the shop, and for demonstration to the public on how this versatile piece of equipment operates.

In other news, it's that time of year again.  That time of year where we plan our Spring cleaning weekend.  Scheduled for April 13th & 14th, the plan is to get the inside of the shop ready for our upcoming display season, clearing out the garbage and scrap which litters the shop floor after cleaning out the drop table pit in the fall of 2012.  The Museum is looking for help with this weekend, so if you'd like to come out and give us a hand, send us an email.  You will require safety glasses, steel toe boots/shoes, and gloves.  The clean up starts at 9am, and will go rain or shine.

And don't forget our first open house weekend on May 25th & 26th, 10am to 4pm.

The first week of March has proven to be the busiest of 2013 thus far. Saturday March 2 saw the arrival of our Whiting 2TMA Trackmobile to the shop. It was moved from storage in Thorold at Lucas Lift Truck to Attar Metals, in the old Fort Erie car shop.  Attar brought the machine down Saturday morning and placed it inside the shop.

The Trackmobile having arrived at Attar Metals, awaiting movement to the shop(left). With the door partially open, Milton uses Attar?s loader to move the Trackmobile into the shop for restoration (right).

And then on that same weekend, the NEW Niagara Model Railway Show was held at the CAW Hall in St. Catharines.  We had an almost record amount of tables booked for the show, with 35 vendors from across Ontario.  The show started out with a lineup before 10am. The crowds were steady throughout the day, with vendors reporting great sales.  Our ever popular chili was sold out before 1230, and by 145 we had gone through 3 boxes of hotdogs!!  The hall was great for the show, and despite a few minor glitches with the vendor placement, everything went very well. This was the first time in an all new venue, and we are already planning for the October show.  Somehow, throughout all this, we didn?t get a single picture!! My thanks to all the vendors who came out to this show, to our dedicated Museum volunteers who worked the door, food booth and NRM table, as well as coming in at 530am to set up tables.  And to the public who came out to support this show. In all, over 600 paid admissions came to the show, that doesn?t include the kids. We look forward to October.

And the work week finished off with more work at the shop, as we started restoration on the Trackmobile. Rick started to piece together the transmission parts, to assess damage, and see what was required for replacement.  We also removed the shroud from around the engine and pulled the rad off.  This will allow us easier access to the motor itself, which we were able to bar over, so that?s a good sign. The drive chains were tightened and the road wheels were lifted and chained off the ground.  For the first time in many years the machine was back on the rail. We were able to move it back and forth by hand, and a little lubrication on the chains will help.

Rick works on the bolts to remove the rad (left). The machine looks strange without all the engine covers (right).

The Niagara Railway Museum Inc. extends our deepest thanks to Lucas Lifttruck in Thorold for all their assistance over the years, and for moving our trackmobile from Orillia to Thorold, and then to Fort Erie.  And also to Attar for their continued help with moving and storing things for us at their shop.

I am pleased to report that the Niagara Railway Museum?s 1970 Whiting 2TMA Trackmobile is one step closer to arrival at the NRM Shop.  The TM has been stored in Thorold since moving from a site near Orillia, and was delivered to Attar Metals in the old CNR Car shops in Fort Erie until we can move it into the shop.

Trackmobiles are designed to move cars around facilities where a locomotive is not required, or wanted.  They operate on rail, but have rubber tires lowered to lift off the rails to move out of the way. Our unit is designed to move about 2 loaded cars, with a coupler on one end only.  Tractive effort is obtained when the TM coupler lifts up on the freight car coupler, thus transferring the weight to the rail wheels. Work on the unit will begin when possible, and we are currently seeking donations towards this project.

      With the winter snow finally upon us, I think it?s a good time to show some of the Niagara Railway Museum?s artifacts.  There are many items that just can?t be shown because of their size, or condition. Some of them are even too new to really show off.  However, for part 1 of this series, we will look at some of the items from our Great Gorge Route collection, including the International Railway Company (IRC).

      One of the many postcards we have will be first up.  This card, mailed on February 8, 1910 shows the grade going into the gorge on the American side.  Note the 2 men working on the up-bound (right hand) track.

     Railroad passes were often given out to officials of other railroads to allow them to ride for free.  The NRM collection includes 2 such passes, one for 1903, issues to a Mr. George E. Merchant, and one from 1925 to Mr. F L Wilson, the Division Passenger Agent for the New York Central Railroad. Of note on these passes is that in 1903, Bert L Jones was the General Manager, and in 1925 he was still with the company, but now as a combined Vice-President and General Manager.

     The Museum was lucky enough to acquire some rare paperwork, right form the GGR?s (IRC) Whirlpool Car Barns, which at one time were located across from the Spanish Aero Car (which was built in 1913 and opened in 1916) on River Road near Victoria Ave. These numerous pages of documents show what cars were out of service, and for what reason.  Some of them were in for the same repairs many times.

     As part of that collection came an original International Railway Company button and switch key.  The NRM also has this rare button (below), which we believe was warn through the button hole of a jacket for use when crossing the border to show where you got on the train. One of the key pieces in the collection is the Conductors hat badge.  If records could ever be located, it would be great to find out who #23 was.

     We also have numerous postcards and brochures from throughout the life of the line, some of which can be seen on our main page at:

http://nfrm.ca/galdisp.php?TitleID=4&ampresultpage=1&pagesize=4

     No cars from the GGR survived the scrapping but the line does live on in photographs and artifacts. There are 2 books out, one of which is very difficult to find by Peter Watson, which covers the entire line in a now and then style. The NRM sells the other book, from the Niagara Frontier Chapter NRHS, in our store.

Rick and Ken ventured out to the shop through the snow and cold to work on a few projects. Rick has been working on our large generator, as a replacement motor was located and installed.  The only thing remaining is a tune up on the motor, and it will be ready to go.  A new door motor has also been acquired, which we plan to install on the roll up door of the south track, which is the door we use during the open houses.

One of the other projects has been to get the privately owned ex-CP Rail Woodings CBI motorcar back in service. The Museum currently has no cars in service, as our ex-CN Fairmont M19 suffered a failure of some sort in September. Anyways, after some battery work, we finally managed to get the car started, and it moved under its own power for the first time in 4 years.  It was only a short stretch of operation, but it?s good to see the car operating again.  We also managed to get the dwarf signal working, and the Woodings is seen beside the red light of the signal.

NRM?s ex-CP Rail Woodings CBI idles beside the lit dwarf signal.(left)  And the Flanger awaits a call to duty to clear the snow out of the shop. (right)

Because the shop was so vandalized over the years, it is difficult to keep the weather out.  The ex-CN Flanger sits in the heavy repair bay under a few inches of snow. At this rate, the NRM could be the first Railway Museum to use equipment like this to plow out the inside of the shop!

And on a final note, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our dedicated members and volunteers who come out to the shop during work sessions and open houses, and help staff our 2 annual Model Railway Shows and other off site displays during the year.  We are always looking for new members to help with the many ongoing projects at the shop.  On behalf of the Niagara Railway Museum Inc. I wish everyone a very Happy New Year, and look forward to greater things in 2013.

There hasn?t been a whole lot to report recently.  Mostly just puttering around the shop, covering over equipment for the winter, and getting ready for the arrival of our ex-CP Rail boxcars, which we hope will happen in January.  In order for that to happen, we have to prep the track outside the shop to allow the float trailer to straddle the rail, which means filling everything in with stone, flush to the rail head. Some stone has been donated, and through the help from Attar Metals, has been dumped where we needed it on the track. Ken Sr. and Rick spread out the stone, while Marcel and Ken Jr. did some track work on track 2.

There is still a bit more stone needed,

but its coming along well.

The current plan calls for the display car and the storage car to be located behind HEPC 46 on the south track, while the final storage car will remain outside until it can be moved over to the middle track behind HEPC E-7.

Other work that has been done includes the movement of our ex-CNR Fairmont A4D gangcar (left) from the centre track, over to a storage track between the Flanger and E-7. It is now covered, and out of the way.  It is a difficult car to move around because of its size.  The smaller, more easily moved motorcars are still on the centre track. On Saturday December 15th, the morning sun shines through the haze inside the shop.  HEPC 46 (right) is covered over for the winter while E-7 is to her left.

The Museum has also managed to find and purchase a slide showing our actual ex-CNR Flanger in storage in Peterborough, Ont., back in 1958.  This was a very lucky find, and the above photos show it in storage, and as it looks now inside our shop.  Our goal is to restore the body of the car to the appearance at left, which will be no easy task.  We are looking for any financial contributions, or materials to be used for this project.  The body is all wood, and will need all windows and doors completely rebuilt as well.  If you would like to contribute to this project, please contact us or make a secure online donation by clicking on the link on our main page at www.nfrm.ca

The final Niagara Falls Model Railway Show to be held in Niagara Falls, is now over.  

Our October show is usually the smaller of the 2 shows we hold, but it was still well attended by vendors and visitors.  A total of 5 layouts in 4 scales were at the show, along with a small set up of the wooden Thomas The Tank Engine toys.  Just over 300 paid adults (not including the kids) attended the show, which was fairly decent considering the weather, and such. Sales were up at the NRM store table, and some of our new items were hot sellers.  We are the only show to sell chili, and it was as always, a very popular item with the vendors and attendees.  The Niagara Railway Museum Inc. would like to thank all the vendors who came out, many have been with us from the start, and to those who joined us for the first time.  We could not have a successful show without the vendors. But we also thank everyone who came out to look and shop, and support both the Museum and our vendors.

Jim Cherry brought out a great layout in 5/8? scale,  which makes O scale track 2ft gauge.  The cars are all scratchbuilt, and the locomotives are kit bashed from Atlas Plymouth MDT locomotives (left).  Jim brought his scratchbuild G scale LRC to the show once again this year.  This is an exquisite model, and is one of a kind.  He currently has 3 coaches built as well, and one of the painted ones can be seen in the photo with the locomotive.  Because the curves are such a tight radius, the loco and coach could not run together, but the locomotive was running around the layout for quite a while (right).

The show was fairly busy off the start, and a lot of people were buying, many walking out the door with boxes of trains (left). The Southern Niagara Model Railway Club, who we reported on in another blog post, showed a few of the cars that were completely destroyed by a fire at their club earlier this year.  They managed to raise a few dollars to help towards the rebuild of the club layout.  If you would like to help, please contact us and we?ll tell you how to reach them (right).

After 12yrs the Museum was told last year that this would be the final show at the hall, and we would have to find a new location.  That deadline has since been extended into next year, but the sow planners decided to keep with the new plan, and move to a new location.  Optimist Hall was the most reasonably priced hall in NIagara Falls, and it is a big loss to the many charitable and non-profit groups that have been able to benefit from that.  As for our show, we were not able to locate another hall in Niagara Falls that fit in with our budget, as we wanted to keep our table prices the same. Because of this, we have decided to move the show out of Niagara Falls, and into St. Catharines, where a suitable hall was located.

So, the Niagara Railway Museum Inc. hopes you will join us at the all new Niagara Model Railway Show, at the CAW Hall on Bunting Road in St. Catharines, Ont. On Sunday March 3, 2013 from 10am-3:30pm.  We look forward to having a bigger and better show, and to continue to build on our past 12 years of success.

The past few weeks have been fairly busy out at the shop.? It all started on October 8th with Ken, Ken, Aaron and John heading out to a friends farm in Niagara Falls. We were offered some used railway ties, which were in a rather large pile outside. Thankfully we used his John Deere skid steer to sort through the pile, and inspect each individual tie.? What we were able to gather were about 100 fair to decent relay ties, which will be more than suitable for our use out at the shop. 30 ties have been moved to the site and laid out in preparation for continued track construction.? Despite having a bearing disintegrate on us while we were on our way back for another load of ties, getting 30 out to the site and somewhat in place was pretty decent.

Ken Jones operates the skid steer, pulling down the pile, laying out the ties, and discarding the defective ones back into another pile (left).? Aaron White and John Weylie inspect each tie as its pulled from the pile.? The final result was about 100 ties to be used to finish off the middle track to the turnout, and some track beyond the points (right).

30 ties, ready for the rail to place on top and spiked down. This will allow us to get closer to our goal of being able to move equipment from track to track for display and work purposes (left).? The new window covers on the west wall of the shop. This is a test to see how the corrugated plastic will hold up over the winter (right).

?October 20th started out cloudy, but then the sun came out and despite a bit of wind, it was still a good day to work.? Unfortunately, that was not going to last, as the clouds and rain rolled in.? Still, a small crew of Rick, Aaron, Karen, Ken & Ken came out to put up some corrugated plastic on the west wall.? The window was framed with 2×4?s and the plastic secured to that. This will be a test to see how well it actually works.? Even with a pretty good downpour, we still managed to get the windows covered in.? There is still about an hours worth of work to be done, but this is a great start.