Trainspotting in Temagami, Ontario

After the Northlander experience in North Bay, I knew trainspotting in Temagami would be very anticlimactic, but nothing would stop me from trying anyway, including the long drive...

Endless forests on the Trans Canada...

Bigger than life fish, tall tails in the making...

Cabins with garages for boats on small islands in endless lakes...

Temagami

Once in Temagami, 1.5 hrs north of North Bay we parked the car and began exploring.

Theodore's Chip Stand in front of the train station

Theodore Moose? Looks almost like a classical African statue.

Here the train station in Temagami while still working as such, from the wiki page.

The train station looking north. Single track mainline, with passing siding.
Passenger service ceased in 2012. The Northlander would have stopped here.

A group of Keewaydin campers portaging through town to put into Lake Temagami.
Great to see for myself what my daughter did several times a day for years... The little kids with big loads and big smiles were inspiring and reassuring. Hard work but loving it.

 

And crossing the tracks to go 2 more blocks to the lake, then back for another load.
My daughter just had her 5th summer with "rival" camp Wabun based on the same lake.
Her trip was 6 weeks and 1000km+ in the sub-arctic.

Oh, you were expecting to see pictures of trains...?

These decommissioned freight cars now serve as storage units for a hardware store...

 Was told the afternoon Ontario Northland train could arrive around lunch (a two+ hour window). Parked myself next to the tracks, talked to the campers and other locals perplexed to see someone waiting for a train that may or may not come, and read John Water's Carsick (also this). Just like going fishin' on a hot summers day... S  l  o  w ... Was a good chance to work on my "librarian's" tan too (long sleeved tee-shirt and pants with hat)

Was a l o n g wait, but then a rumbling, quickly placed two Canadian quarters on the tracks and snapped it coming and going. Not a terribly long train, but there it comes...

 ... and it's gone again... Back to sleep/reading.

And this, watched it flying circles over the lake with tourist...

Here a map of Temagami... 

Click here for a great richly illustrated trip report (in German) on railroading in this part of Canada posted to the Drehscheibe Online forum. Link goes to the last of five posts but has index with links to the other posts at top. Enjoy.

Northlander in North Bay

Waren in North Bay, Ontario, Canada um unsere Tochter auf dem Temagami See von ihrer 1000km+ Canoereise in der fast Arktis abzuholen und haben uns auch in dieser Stadt umzusehen... Bahnanlagen großenteils abgebaut, aber der Bahnhof steht noch mit Mobaladen und Museum. Also, kommen an und parken... In der Ferne dieser Anblick, also nichts wie hin... Die Lok 503 der Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railroad. Gebaut wurde die von den Canadian Locomotive Company in Kingston Ontario.

Were in North Bay, Ontario, Canada to retrieve our daughter after her 6-weekm 1000km+, sub-arctic wilderness canoe-tripping experience Out of Temagami, and decided to poke around North Bay... The railyards that used to dominate the lake front are gone, but the train station is still there and harbored a small model railroad hobbyshop and local history museum. Parked the car, and in the distance spotted what turned out to be engine 503 of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railroad.

Blick in die Bahnanlage |  View into the railyard

Hinter gittern... | Behind barbed wire...

Nanu..., und was stand hinter Gittern daneben? Steuerwagen und Mittelwagen vom SBB RAm TEE / NS DE IV, der an die Ontario Northland verkauft wurde und als Northlander verkehrte. Ontario und Arktis sind nicht Mitteleuropa und das Material kam mit dem Klima nicht zurecht. 1997- wurde was noch brauchbar war zurueck nach Europa gebracht... Diese wurden zurück gelassen...

Once we got to 503 we noticed the real gem hidden behind gates and obstructed from view... The control-cabbed coach and another coach of the SBB RAm TEE / NS DE IV that had been sold to the Ontario Northland railroad and ran as the Northlander between Toronto and points north up to Hudson Bay. These consists were, however, no match for the brutal climate... In 1997, what was left and salvageable was brought back to Europe, with these poor orphans left to rot.

Die netten Mitarbeiter der Bahn gefragt ob wir aufnahmen machen konnten, und schwups waren wir drin.

Asked the nice people from Ontario Northland if we could come in and take some pictures..., and we were in.

Übergangskupplung zwischen Scharfenberg und nord-amerikanischer automatischen Mittelpufferkupplungen

Adapter from Euro-style Scharfenberg coupler to North American-style knuckle coupler.

Und alles war hier zu finden, aber wie lange noch...

And all this can be found here, but likely not for much longer...

Genau meine Gedanken nach diesem Fund!
Exactly my thoughts after this find!

Click here for a great richly illustrated trip report (in German) on railroading in this part of Canada posted to the Drehscheibe Online forum. Link goes to the last of five posts but has index with links to the other posts at top. Enjoy.

Buchbinderei and Berlin Stadtbahn

Several years ago I found this image floating around the web with no attribution, date, or description but was immediately drawn to it because of the stark imagery, the decay, and the fact that it was (once?) a bindery...

Searching in Flickr just now, I found another image of the same bindery, in color no less, that provides a bit more context in the form of the concrete protrusion at the top right. Image below by Markus Mayer from 2009 with the same graffiti and a similar reflection of a Plattenbau in the windows...

Flickr had a few more images of it such as this one that clearly show a railroad trestle above... A bit more searching brought me to Berlin, right near the iconic (for train geeks) Jannowitzbrücke and the Berlin Stadtbahn. This is along the Spree in what was once East Berlin.

A link to a quiz of the "where is this" sort provided a bit of history from a genealogy forum. This indicated that this was once the Buchbinderei Scholz. Interesting story for those that can read German ending with success in tracking down a relation/ancestor.

Click Google Maps Street View to view this July 2008 image,
spin image around to see the reflecting Plattenbau...
The TV tower at the Alexanderplatz is at right.

Click Google Maps Street View to view this July 2008 image,
spin image around to see the reflecting Plattenbau...

Would love to have a bindery at that somewhat desolate location. Combine to passion at one location, books and trains.Could even be something to model...

Humorous Evening for Railway Workers 1914

Am methodically going through early 20th century German bookbinding journals by Ernst Collin for a bibliography I'm working on - Just found this among examples of graphic design in Archiv für Buchgewerbe, 1914.

Finse

Winter hitting hard in Finse, looks like something from Hoth in the Empire Strikes Back, wait was filmed there...

Christmas tree up and down and up and down... due to to wind. Here it is being righted again by some kids with saucer type sleds...

And down again a few moments later...

and 15 minutes later, webcam set to night mode, ... a train!

 And 1/2 hour later we hold hands and dance around tree...

Finse – 02.09.2013

First time back in Finse in ages and was able to catch a freight heading for Bergen and see the first traces of slushy snow on the platform... Welcome back.

Foreground Flats

Wolfgang Krolow

Facade without a building, Berlin Kreuzberg, late 1970s/ early 1980s

From the Betonbabe tumblr.

New York, Susquehanna and Western

Heading home from an errand, caught this NYS&W train powered by SD60 3802 heading up the hill to the Hanson quarry in Jamesville, NY. After passing the siding into the quarry, the train will push the cars in for loading. While I hear trains here regularly, I never seem to see them...

Posten 210 - Final Corner 2

First placement tests...Obviously, the corner still needs to be glued down, pink painted black, structures and yards detailed and fixed... Still, great progress considering how long it took to get to this point. Time to do some bookbinding for a few days. Exhibits to work toward this year.

Enjoy!

Posten 210 - Final Corner

This is the only part of the layout that saw no scenery, ever! Posten 210 was described further down here, and will be paired with the little schrebergarten shacks from Joswood below. Scenery will be easy, but I've been saying that for at least the 8 years that I began the layout ago and the 1.5 years since getting the posten... Here goes nothing, or something...