Barry's Final Session of the Season

Final Session in Belleville For This Season

Part One

Barry sent me a number of pictures and text of a final operation he enjoyed on his incredible layout in Belleville.  

(To enlarge images, click on them and to return to the default page, click outside them.)

Here's "Part One" of the story in Barry's own words.

Hi Mike, I saw that we should have at least a couple of days of good weather to start this week off, so I brought out a 2-train set of train orders, and ran both myself.  Since it might be the last for this year, I took some pictures to share with you and all our friends.  The image above shows what you see immediately after coming into the railway property.

Between trains, I made another improvement to minimize bottlenecks around Golding Enterprises and Trista Station, by extending the Trista bypass back to Hayes Bypass.  The operation will be no less challenging, but I don't like bottlenecks much.  We'll see those images later.

The run I chose was train 211 (2 trains-version 1-train #1) from Ottawa to Belleville stations.

With the TH&B locomotive leading the way, Train 211 is awaiting clearance to proceed to Orleans.

Now underway, the train passes Cora's Corners and the turning "Y", where the CP S4 awaits its turn to take train 213 out from Belleville.

We now follow the main to Orleans, leaving the interchange track to Quinte West behind, over the arch bridge and trestle.

We've arrived at Orleans Station, with three setouts and three pickups, some with facing points, of course.

The work all done in Orleans, the train now departs for Cumberland for a single pickup of junk from Eric's recycling to Chuff Chuff Junk's facility in Quinte West.

Of course, the gondola has to be pulled out from the facing point siding.

Oh, I forgot to mention the three pickups at Cumberland too.  Two things to notice in this picture:  

1. Those concrete pavers were used to flatten an old 10' switch I obtained from a friend.  It looked like it had been run over a truck in a farmer's field, judging by the distortion and the muck.  The weights (one pile) worked pretty well, but I still had to straighten it out more by pulling the rails, squeezing them in a carpenter's vise, and bending them the rest of the way by hand.  After sliding the rails back in place, I tested the switch, and it worked perfectly, and now has a place in the new passing siding project I will mention at the end.

2. Most of you will spot the 27Mhz controller I am still using for this one battery car only.  This locomotive and battery car were among the first pieces I bought, and Paul Norton fixed up the messy conversion work I had done by a guy in Montreal.  The whole system still works great, so why abandon it?

Note also that I keep forgetting where the eye of the camera is, and my thumb appears in many shots!

Now, the train continues on its run to Golding Enterprises and Trista Centre.

Taking the main line track around Sandra Bypass.  Sandra is our daughter-in-law.

We are now about to exit Sandra Bypass.  You can see Mount Kamaron, with its waterfall, and Kamaron City in the background.  Kamaron is our eldest granddaughter, and just started teaching school in Kitimat, BC last week.  Her mother, our daughter Wendy (whose farm you can see in the picture), was born in Kitimat.  So, we are pleased to see that circle closed.  We enjoyed our first five years of marriage in that town, at the head of Douglas Channel, and we both worked in the huge aluminum plant there... at that time, the 3rd largest in the world.  Kitimat is the Haida word for snow, and in 1971 we set a new record for the three months January to March that year - 44'-11"!  The other thing Kitimat is known for is the amazing salmon fishing, in the Kitimat river that flows right through town.

Here we are, just passing the entrance to the property.  You can see the beginning of the old passing siding, which will be rebuilt during breaks in this operation.  We are about to do some switching at Golding Enterprises.

Here we are, picking up a boxcar at Golding Enterprises, on our way into Trista Centre.

The schedule called for quite a lot of work at Trista, which is being carried out here.  Some of you will remember the magnificent St. James Flour Mill in the background, but it is no more.  After 5 years, even being stored indoors in the winters, the structure, which was built from materials meant for indoors only, disintegrated.

Would anyone like to build me a new industry type building for this spot?  I would pay for it.

We are now heading for Kamaron City, having been cleared by the dispatcher, Barry.

Thank you so much Barry for these awesome pics and stories.  Check in later for Part Two!

All the best, Mike Hamer, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada