I Live 20 Minutes from....

I knew there was a railway museum north of our city, but I didn't have any idea how close we actually live to it. Looking at the map, it looks like we're 20 minutes away by car from the Alberta Railway Museum. Here are two great videos of the museum's steam locomotive. Watch for the ending of the second video - very cool camera work




I've seen Z scale CN and CP diesel locomotives, but I haven't seen any Canadian steam locos. Does anyone have information on Z CNR or CPR steam locomotives, if they've been made?

Beverly-- Next you will want a Meteor-- Only kidding! In the fifties Canadian cars were a little different from thier American cousins, changes in chrome and other details- not sure about gas tanks to recieve Imperial gallons- Is it still that way today?
BTW a Meteor was a Canadian Ford. Alvaro can make one for you.
Fred
It should not take much to convert a black steam engine to a Canadian railroad, maybe change the lettering on the tender. The Diesels are different when each company has thier own color scheme and logos.

What a nice collection of videos, thanks, I enjoyed them.

BEVERLY, HAVENT SEEN ANY CANADIAN STEAMERS BUT YOU CAN SEE 2 CN GP9s PULLING A SLO FREIGHT IN 'Z SCALE METAL WHEEL TEST RUN' IN THE ZCS VIDEO SECTION AND OR 'YOU-TUBE'
STOJINY

STOJINY,

I'm not really into diesel, though, but I'll have a look at the video. Thanks

Terry,

You're welcome The Museum isn't open until mid-May so Chris and I'll have to wait for it to open. He'd like to go on the train :B So do I. Mid-May is such a long way away.

Fred,

Thanks for jogging my memory about what a Meteor is. I think they were made by Mercury, a division of Ford, right? Really, don't ask me any questions about cars. I'm totally dumb in that department - big surprise, eh? About the gas tank thing. We buy our gas by the litre now, but I doubt that Canadian gas tanks have changed in size to accomodate litres. Gas is gas whether purchased in litres or gallons. The size of our gallon used to be the same as the gallon in the US, though.

I looked up the NAR (Northern Alberta Railway) steam locomotive that's now at the nearby Alberta Railway Museum. It's a 4-6-0 and was built by Locomotive Works in Montreal in 1913. I don't know if I could just slap a Canadian decal on a American tender and call it Canadian when, for instance, this Canadian locomotive wasn't made in the US.

I haven't done any research at all on the subject of who built the Canadain locomotives used on various Canadian railroad lines at various times. If a locomotive was built in Canada, wouldn't it be different from an American locomotive built around the same timeframe?

Beverly- about 2 months ago the History channel had an hour program on the Canadian Railroads and the building of the steel rails across Canada-- very interesting. It was similar to our quest to connect the east and west coasts. Both had similar and quite diverse problems. Maybe if you check your TV listings or go to the History channel site you might ba able to see it or get a copy.
As far as Specific Canadian locos-- suggest checking out internet- Google- whatever.
Several years ago we had a family reunion in Calgary and enjoyed the Stampeed. We also went train watching at the spiral tunnel that's near Lake Louize.
Fred

Fred,

Google is my friend I Google everything. Right now I'm reading about the Mikado 2-8-2s in Canada. Both CN and CP used them, particularly in the Rockies from what I understand. The only problem is that Marklin Mikado production only includes American lines. I can understand why - the US has a much larger potential customer base because your population is about 10 larger than Canada's. That's good for you, but not so good for me. Sigh

I've found a couple of C&O Mikados sets that include locomotive, tender and caboose, but they're not Canadian Not that I have anything against the US or even Germany when it comes to my Z scale layout(s). It just would be nice to go Canadian because this is my milieu and I have so much more common knowledge about Canada than I do about anywhere else. Sure, Canada and the US are quite similar, but geographically and socially there are vast differences. We're mostly a northern country and the US is partly northern and partly southern. Both countries have an east and west, but those areas in the US are also divided by north and south.

Alberta is bordered on the west by the Rocky Mountains. The Alberta Rockies are different in Alberta based on north and south. I don't even want to guess what the Rockies are like in Colorado or similar states because I'm sure they're different from other places in the Rocky Mountain range.

I think I need to get back to my knitting before my brain gears jam up. I can let some of the information I've been reading sink in while my afghan keeps growing.

Beverly, I have that Marklin set with the Mikado 2-8-2 engine. If you would like I could post some pictures for you.

Terry,

It would be great to see photos of your Mikado on your layout. Post as many as you want. I'd love to see both the train set as well as the details of your layout. Explanations of certain scenes would be valuable, as well

Beverly,

Not much on my layout at the moment as I took everything down to terraform it first, but I will setup some track and take some pictures tomorrow when I have more light and post them.

Terry

Beverly

I thought this might interest you

marklin.over-blog.com/photo-235954-140-4099_jpg.html
There is plenty of photo for this small round layout.

Ben

Terry,

Thank you for posting photos of your train set as well as the scratch built houses. The houses are great!

Ben

Thank you for posting the link. If you click on the links above the photos, there are other pages with other inspiring photos.



Chris and I drove out to the Train Museum yesterday on our way home for doing errands. It's only 1515 minutes away. There are a lot of cars to see. I look forward to when it opens in mid-May