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November 22, 2015

Recent News – Part 2 – Niagara Central Hobbies

Over 2 weekends, museum members helped move some rather large items from the now closed Niagara Central Hobbies in St. Catharines, ON. Owners?Mark & Cheryl Lounsbury donated an ex-CNR baggage cart, the store’s HO layout and scaled down trolley replica coffee bar.

On November 14th, we were able to?move the HO layout and baggage cart to the museum. Manouvering the layout out the back doors, up the stairs and into the trailer was a tricky job. Many of the buildings and some scenic items had to be removed, but they have since been replaced on the layout for pictures. The layout is?temporarily sitting on tables, but will be put back together with?the end cabinets and?will take up residence in the office.? The baggage cart was moved in 5 pieces, and has also been reassembled at the shop.

November 21st was moving day part 2, when we moved the large trolley.? The trolley was built in 1974, on site, and has never been outside.? It was not meant to move, and it was certainly never meant to go through the front doors.? Mark was able to carefully remove the roof and our crew disconnected the electrical. Using heavy duty rollers, we were able to roll the body to the front door, only to find out, it would need to have a bit more removed.? The counter was taken off for the width, and we were able to sneak it out the front door and into the daylight for the first time ever. It took 9 of us to get the trolley out of the store and into the trailer. Needless to say there were a lot of people slowing down to see the car outside, and even those walking down the sidewalk stopped to take a look (of course they didn’t have much choice, we had the sidewalk blocked!).

It was a fairly slow trip to the Museum from St. Catharines, and thankfully the weather held out for the day. Our small Clark forklift came in very handy during the unloading, as we needed to spin the body 180 degrees to go up the ramp and into the front display area. Using the equipment rollers, we were easily able to roll it up the ramp and to the office door, where it just managed to fit through.? The body was moved into position against the wall by the entry door. The roof and counter (both removed to get through the door), have since been put back in place, as has the roof top trolley pole. Like the layout, the trolley will be worked on over the winter, including new electrical, and repairs to some of the minor damage sustained during the move.

Thanks to Mark & Cheryl for passing these items on to the Museum to allow the legacy of Niagara Central Hobbies to live on.? Thanks also to our members who gave their time over the 2 weekends to get everything moved out to the museum.

Come out and see all our new displays in 2016.

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Recent news – Part 1 – Train Shows, Donations and Around the Shop

Its been extremely busy around the Museum the last month, and I’m a bit behind in posting updates. The October Model Railway Show is now behind us, and I’m pleased with the results. We are now looking forward to our next show on March 6th. Other shows we’ve been taking part in were the Woodstock Show in October, and the Ancaster TH&B Flea Market, which was one of our best Ancaster shows ever.

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The Weekenders N scale layout.

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Show floor nearing the end of the day.

We’ve also had some great donations, including a rare set of items from the Royal Train in June 1973 from the family of Murray and Morley VanAlstine. Murray & Morley were twin brothers.? They both worked for CN out of Niagara Falls.? They hired on, on?the same day, got their engineman papers the same day, and retired the same day. They were in Ripleys Believe It Or Not, and were also both part of the crew on the Royal train. The donation included 2 photo albums covering the brothers careers, a menu, complete set of train orders and other paperwork from the Royal Train.? We also have a set of book ends cut from a piece of rail showing the brothers on their last trip. This is a great addition to the Museum and the items will be on display in 2016.

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The last run banner.

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The VanAlstine Brothers on their last trip.

After many years of work, we have finally finished the largest part of our track construction, and now have 2 tracks to the shop which we will be able to move between. Our track crew was often only 4 people, but thanks to Wayne Ettinger of Trillium Railway Co. Ltd, we were able tocomplete the job easier as he loaned us the companies hydraulic track tools.? We pre set the spikes then drove them in with the spiker. There is still some work to do, just some fine tuning, but we expect to be able to get our final boxcar inside for the winter.? We also thank Bill Snow and Doug Campbell of Rankin Construction for donating 2 truck loads of ballast, and Milton and Clayton from Attar Metals for moving some ballast and adjusting our track. Clayton brought theskidsteer over to assist us with some basic work. Without the generous assistance they frequently provide, ?we would not be as far along as we are.

As a surprise to our members, our November meeting was held in a special location at the Niagara District Airport. Genaire Ltd has former CN flanger 56323, which was converted to an open conference room many years ago.? It is identical to the car we have, except where we have from the frame down, this car has the body we are missing. A big thanks goes to Lorraine Warner of Genaire for allowing us to have our meeting in their former CNR wood body Flanger. It was a big hit with our members, and it’s still being talked about as the best meeting spot yet!!

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