Michel Boucher's Delaware and Hudson Railroad - The Adirondack Branch

Gentlemen, this past Friday we visited Michel Boucher's newly re-incarnated railroad, the Adirondack Branch of the Delaware and Hudson. It was a great opportunity for the Friday Night Boys to operate a layout from outside the "round robin" cuz it "keeps ya honest!" There were two or three newer members of the Friday Night Group who had never operated your layout before and you made the evening very relaxed and comfortable for all! Thanks must also go out to Chris for the video footage seen at the end of this posting.

Michel is noted for three things in my books; the speed and quality at which he produces his fine model railroad, his ability to face change with "no fear"...and his enthusiasm for the hobby as a welcoming ambassador to all!

Model railroaders around Ottawa-Hull are very proud of Michel's accomplishments and his layout graced the cover of and was the feature article for Railroad Model Craftsman's September 2004 issue. In fact, the "shark noses" in the first image above were our "cover shot" actors! This train has just returned to Corinth on what looks to be a special excursion run.

Michel hosts regular operating sessions on Monday evenings and he has found that his crew has become very comfortable in their chosen jobs each session. Always one to "mix it up a little", Michel has devised a plan to keep operators on their feet, so to speak...and the plan was utilized Friday night. Before operations begin, he prints out the train number for all jobs, cuts them up and places them in a hat. Operators now "draw" their assignments!

The train in the image to the right has just arrived and taken the siding at Sanford Lake. The locomotive will cut off the train and runaround the consist to perform its switching maneouvers. The multiple tracks to the right lead into the National Lead Company, a large complex at Sanford Lake near Tehawus.

It takes considerable time for a train to traverse Michel's layout and he offers one section of hidden trackage which climbs a lengthy run between North Creek and the Glen taking trains eventually up to Corinth.

Today we spot a duo of D&H units blasting out of the tunnel and out onto the elevated trackage above the large plant at the Glen. These two brethren attest to the fact that this northeastern railroad is a colourful one and a favourite among railfans!

When Michel changed his layout from the freelanced Ontario Central to the D&H...little, if any trackwork changed. To learn of his philosophy for the change, read RMC Sept. 2004 pages 48-54.

Years ago, Michel wrote an article in RMC focussing on the aspects of a successful yard and how it could best operate on the model railroad. Well, here we see an excuisite pair of units in that beautiful lightning stripe scheme with the narrow band of yellow handsomely separating the grey from the blue about to enter onto the turntable at the north end of his yard. Gotta like that Jordan Spreader as well, Michel!

The North Creek yard is quite lengthy, but the yard is not as busy as it was in older days as the hub of operations for the Ontario Central. Michel likes the laid-back flavour of operations on his new D&H branch RR.

Here's another shot taken at the north end of North Creek yard. That's a Lehigh Valley diesel parked in behind the all blue D&H locomotive. The road switcher in behind is painted in my favourite version of D&H's colours.

After Michel decided on a change of railroads, it wasn't very long before he had sold off his engines and rolling stock and purchased D&H units for his stable.

One thing is for certain...Michel's layout is a joy to operate!

In this image we see Sanford Lake which was formally called Marmora on Michel's older layout. The change was easy as MIchel swapped Ontario industries for New York ones here.

The Arthur White & Sons lumber mill now resides here. Those loaded pulpwood cars are being serviced at a team track at the log loading operation. Michel used the stems from his lilacs out in the garden to create those fabulous looking pulpwood loads. That big machine in the background is working Whitehead Bros. Aggregates. Michel also planted tons of trees in this district to help give it that rural Adirondack look!

Aah...here's our good friend Norm! Norm spent his career working for the railroad up here in Canada...so he is a natural for the dispatching duties. While Michel's operations on the new D&H branchline are less hectic than when his theme was the Ontario Central, a good dispatcher is still a must!

Norm is called upon to dispatch other layouts as well including the immense setups our local Ottawa HOTrak group can amasse.

You'll never meet a more pleasant individual than our good friend Norm. Yes, the computer is used by the dispatcher throughout a typical session! Because there were a number of fellas on this night unfamiliar with Michel's layout, Norm took a more relaxed approach on this evening as he guided operators along directly in the layout room.

And...here's Michel! The genius behind the operation. Michel is spotted standing in the crew lounge where he recently extended the layout another 40 feet or so! When operating sessions recommence in the fall, the new and expanded layout should be ready to see traffic. What Michel has done is simply lengthen the mainline. The National Lead company will be brought out into the lounge area and trains will enjoy a lengthy and scenic run up to this locale! Well Michel, we'll have to get back to your place in the fall to run the "new and improved" Adirondack Branch of the Delaware and Hudson!




Here we meet Michel Boucher in his layout room and we are given the opportunity to see his layout in action. Bill is quite occupied performing a runaround move up at Sanford Lake.





And here are more close up and distant action shots from Michel's session. It's a great layout, Michel, and a true joy to operate! Once again, thanks for hosting the boys of the Friday Night Group!

May Long Weekend - Talk of Visitors, Gardens and Streetcars

Gentlemen, with the May long weekend already here, there was no Friday Night train operating session this week! Yes, all the lads are suffering from train ops withdrawal...so I felt a posting was in order anyways!

Earlier in the week, Chris Lyon's good buddy, Kenny King arrived for a short visit in Ottawa...his first time ever in the capital region. Chris organized a full day layout tour where he took Ken to Scobie's, Boucher's, Hood's and Hamer's model railroads during a whirlwind of a day. Oh yes...they even had time to run Chris's new layout over the dinner hour!

Ken has posted some great pics like the couple I've selected here to showcase what he does for a living...and what a way to earn your keep! Ken is an engineer/crewman for CN out of Edmonton...so we have a rare friend here...a railroad employee who is also an avid railfan..and soon-to-be model railroader! Hmmm....shades of our good buddy, Don Hills!

The first pic shows a train Ken managed to lens in the yard at Jasper. Ken tells us that apparently the weather broke five minutes earlier and the sun illuminated this single CN locomotive in care of a lengthy container train. Yup, Ken is one lucky fellow, for sure!

The second image shows Kenny's "workdesk" so to speak! Yes, we'd pay big bucks for an adventure like this and Ken gets paid to ride in the cab!

Hey Bill...doesn't this shot look familiar? Remember the "bridge scene" I posted last week after we visited your place?

And here is Kenny in my crew lounge. Hmmm...Chris must've been thinking he was taking a shot of two movie stars, he was a-shakin in his boots! Still I wanted to post this shot of two "hazy characters". Kenny and Mike became friends right away!

Ken shared the plans for his new layout with Chris and I and he was very interested to see the staging concept I have utilized. Like all of us, Ken has another room he could use for staging purposes, but, like most of us...he has a wife...and he wants to keep things that way. Hmmm, maybe just a shelf for staging in that other room, Ken? You can scenic it and it would look very appealing for the missus!

Feel free to check out Ken's weblog at www.kootenaywestern.blogspot.com where you'll see more of his amazing photographs from on the job!

Okay, okay...so the real reason we did not run trains this week is due to the fact that it is the Victoria Day long weekend...otherwise known as "Gardening Weekend".

Well, having three days off from work does help provide a large chunk of time to be diligent in the great outdoors and to help our significant others with the "sprucing up" of property and gardens...read...staying in the "good books"!

Indeed, gardening is a passion of mine...but not, and I repeat...not...in the rain...especially the persistant rain and greyness found across the entire northeast of the continent this weekend! Oh well...I guess I'll just have to head down to the train room and run a short local freight or a commuter train!

So, while I do not feel like enjoying a mudbath, I thought I'd share a couple of colourful images from my property and gardens.

The first you see is of the wonderful daffodils I've carefully tended over the years! Nope...couldn't fool the Friday Night boys! That's one of the latest banners Lisa and I bought and it hangs out front the house. I think we have something like 40+ of these banners in our collection now...and I thought model railroading was my top priority as far as hobbies go!

Gotta like the new shutters, mailbox and address plate that fellow FNG'er Mike M. put up for me.

In fact, the daffodils have now finished their "show" and the tulips are in full bloom as is Ottawa's renowned annual "Tulip Festival" which ends this weekend.

That white flower that hangs down from a its stock is Digitalis...and, yes...the famed heart drug is derived from this flower. Now don't go chewing away on this plant or you'll need more than digitalis to survive!

We all know those ubiquitous brown-eyed Susans you see en-masse in our gardens. Yes, if you don't have a green thumb, you can still grow these flowers...in fact...you can't kill 'em!

No fellas, I don't use either of these flowers to scenic the model railroad. I prefer to use the flower of the spirea and hydrangea shrubs as well as the autumn perennial known as "sedum" for my layout trees...but that's for another post at a later date!

Before I close off this post, I'd like to remind everybody that they can help support the streetcar restoration group headed up by Mike M. and Barry. How? Well, to start...for $50.00 Canadian, you can purchase the latest hardcover book titled "Ottawa's Streetcars"...a fantastic history of streetcars in the nation's capital filled with over two hundred pages of interesting stories, maps, and many black & white and colour photographs.

While I know I'm sounding like a salesman, this book is a "must have" and it's a real beauty. There are also limited edition prints of the painting fellow FNG'er Peter Cunningham created of the 696 passing over the bridge between the old Ottawa station and the Chateau Laurier Hotel. Peter's rendering of the 696 will be a collector's item!

Until next Friday, have a great long weekend and a super week!
Cheers, Mike

L'Occasional L'Orignal - Stand By Me!

Wow...it had been quite some time since we last visited Bill's L'Orignal Lines and there were some changes in evidence...three, in particular.

Bill has been playing around with the placement of buildings in the Glen and he's now mapped out the house and road locations which help to give a feel for how things will appear the next time we visit.

I also noticed some new additions of rolling stock to the fleet...in fact, all yard tracks in staging seem filled with overflow cars populating the secondary main behind the backdrop. Bill tells us he will be retiring a few cars in short order. Bill, you may consider "cycling" traffic on and off the layout. This will give operators the "feel" that there are new cars from "afar" visiting the area, thus mentally increasing the size of your layout.

Alas, a third change is a brand new furnace in the staging area to keep we operators warm and toasty in the wintertime...not to mention the other members of Bill's family, of course!

"Stand By Me" filmed by Hollywood crew!

While I enjoyed many opportunities to operate last evening, I was having fun with my camera on the "railfan circuit" of eastern Ontario. I drove out to the river crossing on the outskirts of the Glen to find a Hollywood production crew filming a remake of the classic contemporary film, "Stand By Me" ...a film noted for its famous railroad bridge scene.

I was told by the filmmakers that I couldn't shoot any pics of the boys foolin' around on the bridge, so I waited 'til after the scene was shot. I was given permission to walk out onto the tracks and shoot an image through the bridge which you see here. For those unaware, the OC locomotive in "Darth Vader" likeness belongs to a local rail company called the "Ontario Central". Thanks to the production crew for setting up such a dramatic shot for a humble railfan!

I decided to hang around the area for a while longer where I captured the "set-up" shot from another angle you see here. Unbeknownst to me, the Hawksbury local had arrived Hawksbury and began its switching chores, so I was able to capture its van on the back of its train on the railroad bridge above. Two trains in one shot...why a perfect setting for a railfan with horshehoes up his arse!

After capturing those Hollywood shots, I decided to drive up to Hawksbury to see if I could shoot the local in action. Boy, was I ecstatic to find the crew had taken a lengthy lunchbreak at the local Tim Horton's affording me the chance to shoot the train in a "reverse move" , one asked for by the Hollywood crew on the tracks below to create greater interest to the set of scenes they were filming...and the local crew was ever so obliging. You can barely pick out the orange Sclair car in the cut below the bridge. It is the car immediately behind the black OC "star" locomotive! (see earlier images)

After I captured this shot, the CN crew pulled their train back into the siding to begin their work in Hawksbury...a town with multiple industrial sidings.

Wow! Talk about horseshoes...they were golden on this day! Another orange and white Sclair car was spotted beside one of the local industries in town adding a splash of colour to the scene...a dramatic element for sure.

We'll have to notify the local crew of their burnt out headlights atop their locomotive...you know...those shortlines have to lease whatever they can get their hands on...and, in this case...it's an aging CN diesel locomotive in the sargeant striped scheme!

Here we see the local piercing two industries in Hawksbury East as it travels along a rather lengthy siding in town. The siding is long enough for the longest trains that venture up this way and offers the crew "runaround capabilities" as there are both numerous trailing and facing sidings in the area. Once all switching is done in Hawksbury East and West, the crew will then take cars destined for the large IVACO plant the seven or so kilometres to the west where they will spend time exchanging scrap and billet loads for finished coil products...but that's for another day of railfanning!

Hey boys...while shooting in Hawksbury East I spotted a yellow VW Microbus we may be interested in purchasing for our railfanning trips in the summer. Man, those things can go anywhere, and I've heard they never die! A great railfanning compartment for the lads, I believe!

I spoke to the owner and he said he had heard about this entity called the Friday Night Group...but his recollections were that we were a shady assortment of characters!

He also confirmed that a man named Meek had relations in the local area...but you had to watch out for his kin...or they'd be out on your property acting in a covert manner holding cameras with large lenses claiming they were shooting trains...but the locals feel there is some deeper meaning.

He told me that three "suspect" individuals were spotted in these parts recently, all with varying degrees of hair on the top of their heads...one in a green shirt, another in cream and one in a blue top! By the description he gave, I had an inkling...so I showed him this photograph and he immediately replied "Those are the culprits!"

Well it took me some time to convince him of the fact that these "three stooges" were actually good guys just out to have some honest fun snapping pictures of trains and that their names were Jim, Fred and Stanley!

But..and this is a big "but"...no matter how much "verbal gymnastics" I was able to muster...I could not, would not...and shall not...convince this local dude that the next fella from the group was also a good guy!

Apparently, witnesses trackside told him that this "fourth member" of the bunch was spotted along the tracks somewhere near the IVACO plant telling the train crew..."Yes!"...telling the train crew "How" they should do their job in switching out the large plant!!!

"Well!...I responded to this fellow..."Did he wear glasses?" "Yes." "Did he have a mischievous grin on his face?" "Yes." "Did he happen to be wearing a very light blue - almost white shirt?" "Why, yes." "Is this the man?"...as I displayed this next picture. "That's the character all right!" "Oh...he's harmless," I replied..."Why, that's skipper Bob. He's up into his sixties now, you know...so he should be given all rights to tell us all how it's done!"

We both laughed our heads off and I promised the local eastern Ontarian that he'd certainly be seeing more of this clandestine group trackside in Hawksbury and L'Orignal on the odd "occasion" they make it down a railfanning!

Cheers, Mike

Postscript: Trevor just e-mailed me from Toronto warning against the FNG members purchasing said VW Microbus due to the fact it has no windows in the back. My response was..."Hmmm...yeah, you're right, Trevor...no windows for the lads. Well, our four stooges can sit back there and Bill and I can have window seats up front!!! " (big grin)

Love Those Industrial Layouts!

Gentlemen, We had a fine evening of train ops on Howie's Ontabec Central...a model railroad with an industrial based theme. While Howie's RS1 is in the shops, CP came to the rescue with a loaner locomotive...sans handrails on the front and rear ends. To say the least, train crews took great care when walking along the locomotive.

Here we spot the train piercing a couple of buildings as it has just left staging to the left taking the curve as it enters the visible portion of the layout. Notice how Howard has managed to use buildings to create a strong vertical element to the scene.

Here we spot our CP diesel crossing the road behind Rob's snack stand. Yes, that CP paint scheme must be one of the finest ever applied to a diesel engine!

This close-up view of the snack stand shows how a simple structure can help create a nice vignette on the layout.

Notice the tower guarding the entrance to the yard. Hey, Howie...does that Corvette belong to you and the missus!

Here we see the same scene from yet another angle. My new mini-tripod with rubber tipped legs allows me to get into areas of the layout that would otherwise prove very troublesome.

This image attests to Howie's great modelling skills. He sure knows how to bring a scene to life! These pictures contain all of the standard elements of a great model railroad scene!

Hey Howard...who's that fella up on the roof of that building?

The pit in the ground to the centre of the image is a coal dealer. This shot to the right is a good overall view of the "left" end of Howard's layout. The strong vertical dimension provided by the buildings in this scene is evident. Yes, you feel like you are beside an urban cliffside!

Note how Howard has blended all elements of his scenes with just the proper amount of weathering.

We spot the town switcher going about its duties along Ontario Street below the elevated trackage of the Ontabec Central. That white MDT car has visited North Dover a number of times on Mike's New England layout! Yes, not only do the boys of the FNG interchange ideas, they actually interchange traffic as well!

Scoddy Industries is the largest single complex on the layout taking up most of the "righthand' end of the model railroad. The Scoddy complex spans Ontario Street and it proves a challenge to switch with trackage on both sides of the main street in town.

Today we see the town switcher spotting a loaded coal hopper to the plant...an interesting move as the hopper enters the building where it will be emptied.

Howard's choice of colours of brick throughout the layout offer a soothing appearance to the eye even though the majority of the scenes are of the industrial nature. Howard, you've got quite the beautiful layout on the go!

Indeed, a master modeller is at work here! Cheers, Mike

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to an Operating Session!

So...here we were. Chris and I driving over to Howie's place for his train ops session with the dark rainclouds covering the city. "Why don't we take this route," I suggest to Chris. "It'll take us by the trainyards. We can check out what's on the headend of VIA bound for Montreal (East) and Toronto (West). It's not even out of our way to Howie's...in fact, it's a shortcut to his area of town!"

Well, horseshoes of horseshoes! Just as we round the bend in our approach to the station tracks, the setting sun falls below the cloudline basking the entire station in that warm glow of brilliant orange.

"Hurry, Chris..." I call out...over to the western parking lot...I should be able to capture a shot of the Toronto bound train.
Knowing I have maybe three minutes at most in my race against the sun, I haul out my tripod and attach the camera to it while the car is still on the move. I can see by Chris's railfan experiences that he is eyeing possible photo leads even before he parks the car...but no time for that tonight. Just a quick shot through the chainlink fence! (You don't want to know about our alternatives, believe me!")

So here we have it...two "imprisoned" railfans laughing their heads off as the shot is taking through the "prison" fence. Too bad it wasn't one of those dasterdly painted locos! (In fact, the Montreal bound train had the green Telus unit on the headend...but a photo of that ugly puppy would not be warranted in the time allowed.)

I kinda like the first shot where the three "diamonds" of the chainlike fence focus on the front of the unit and the words VIA on the locomotive and first car. Not the greatest shots, but lots of fun anyway!

Cheers, Mike & Chris.