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