Train of the Week

Last week, I disappeared for a little while. But rest assured. I have brought great experiences to share. Succumbing to the craving for some mountains and snow, I decided to head south (yes, south), to where the majestic mountains met the white fluffy. Into the Alps, I went. Conveniently, I had also in my possession, an Austria-Germany rail pass with 3 days still unused, 2 weeks from its expiry. It took two trains (both InterCity Express), and the better part of a day to get to Vienna, where I chose to host my overnight stays, from the NRW. Despite all that I’d heard about German efficiency and precision, 33 minutes proved to be not quite enough of a layover to change trains. As I watched the ICE 3 that brought me to Würzburg depart towards its final intermediate stop of Nuremberg before reaching Munich, 40 minutes behind schedule, an extra 2 hours had befallen into my hands. No love lost at this point, Würzburg had been on my bucket list for a day trip, I just needed to make ...

I didn't have much time to write much this week as I just completed an almost-transcontinental move from Alberta back to my homeland of Ontario (over a distance of over 2 000 miles). I spent 3 days driving and 2 nights staying at campsites along the way. On the second night, I camped at the beautiful Neys Provincial Park on Lake Superior, somewhere along Highway 17 between Schreiber and White River (it's about a good 12 hour drive from the Toronto Area). The northern border of this park is defined by the right-of-way of the Canadian Pacific transcontinental mainline (well, yes, there's the possibility that you'll be woken up by a really long freight train snaking their way through). Anyway, the footage below was shot by a fellow camper at the park 2 years ago. Hope you enjoy it.

Remember the Flying Hamburger (or well, a better translation, Hamburg Flyer) I wrote about on this blog a while ago? The good ol' SVT 137 high speed articulated diesel multiple units from the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft  (German Imperial Railway) era? The trainset had also been used for an international service called the, Berolina, introduced in 1959 between Berlin and Warsaw. They weren't replaced by locomotive-hauled trains until the 1970s. Given the trainset was designed in the 1930s, that was quite the life it had. Anyway, I found some more old footages of the trainset on YouTube. The second video on this page is a documentary on how the SVT 137 was made in the factory. It's in German but it's quite entertaining to watch.

In the late 1960s, the Canadian National Railway bought some new passenger cars for intercity services between Toronto and Windsor/Sarnia. These cars were called Tempo cars. Unlike most other passenger cars in North America (especially from the time) that were inadvertently somehow a Budd or Pullman of some sort, the Tempo cars had aluminium body shells and were built by the Canadian division of British builder Hawker Siddeley in Thunder Bay, ON. " Ski Train Tempo cars (2851886846) " by vxla from Chicago, US - HPIM7117 . Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons . " D&RGW Ski Train 01 " by NateBeal - Ski Train . Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons . " CN Tempo service to Windsor " by Robert Taylor from Stirling, Canada - CN Tempo service to Windsor Uploaded by Skeezix1000 . Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons . The Tempo cars were one of the earlier examples of passenger cars with inboard bearings with outboa...

We are going Polish this week again, since we have so little exposure on that part of the world regarding their railroad equipment (I mean honestly, until I started looking for things to fill this blog with, I didn't even know they made locomotives and trainsets). So the feature this week comes from the same manufacture that has been gaining some more attention in recent time. This locomotive has also been on display at the InnoTrans in Berlin, it's called the Gama from Polish builder Pesa. According to the Polish Wikipedia page of this locomotive (thank goodness for Google Translate), the Gama has quite a few variants, which makes me think that this locomotive is still work in progress. Nonetheless, it's interesting to see different manufactures coming up with their own designs. In the most part, the Gama is a pretty standard product you'd get from builders today. I'll leave it up to you to have a look at the locomotive's official site on their market...

I missed a week and I'm late for this week... I would've been fired if I was writing for somebody else... Anyway. I was traveling a little, in a big metropolis, but believe or not, I didn't have reliable internet access because of a few hiccups here and there. Anyway. There is some big changes coming up in my life, and I think I might do a few things differently here. So yeah, this week's blog has pretty much pictures and a few words descriptions only. On a foggy day, in front of Toronto Union Station on the renovated Front Street On the right is the former Canadian Pacific Royal York Hotel. Now a Fairmount property The front of Toronto Union Station This is looking east, with the gold plated Royal Bank of Canada buildings in the center Looking out the window of my intercity train, a GO commuter train in the recently updated new color scheme This is the AMT Roxboro-Pierefonds station in Montreal. This is the only electric commuter rail in Ca...

So at this very moment that I'm getting ready to update my blog for this coming week, I am fascinated by this Wikipedia page on the list of InterCity Express services offered by the Deustche Bahn. I know this probably makes me a total weirdo and nerd, but I just think the numbered lines are so neat. " ICE-International 1826 Bahnsteiganzeige " by Lüko Willms - eigene Aufnahme (german for: I took the picture myself). Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons . " Db-401064-01 " by K. Jähne - Own work . Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 de via Wikimedia Commons . It amazes me how many places one can go from Frankfurt by train (if you take a moment to look at the actual routes, wow), and in the very near future, there is supposed to be a direct service from Frankfurt to London St Pancras International. " Db-403xxx-09 " by K. Jähne - Own work . Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons . Yes, many of the romantic and nostalgic long...