Mark's Morning Reflections of Belleville

Morning Reflections of Belleville From Mark

Mark has kindly forwarded these great pictures and story lines from the morning ops at Barry and Bonnie's place in Belleville.  

Thanks so much for taking the time to do this, Mark!  From the introductory image it would appear the weather was ripe for train running upstream in Belleville!

This was Mark's note to me...Hi Mike, I owe you a LOT of pictures!  I am a couple of weeks behind on my photographs, probably 3-4 Saturday sessions’ worth.  But here I start off with PART 1 (morning session) of the photos I took at the lovely day hosted by Barry and Bonnie Birkett in Belleville (huh, that’s a lot of “B”s eh? Quite a tongue-twister).

The picture above shows how I arrive to find everything already nicely laid out - am I in a garden, on a railroad, or in paradise?  Must be all three.  :-)

A pair of orange CN hopper cars just peeking out from amongst the beautiful orange-coloured flowers.  See if you can spot them.

The crew is deep in discussion.

That’s Bernie, checking up on his run.

Can I take this boat and hit up the lake to cool off a bit after the party?  She looks mighty fine!  There are those two orange hoppers once again!

I had the wonderful opportunity to try out three locos today.  First up is the PIKO GE 25 ton yard switcher that comes fully battery & R/C right out of the box.  We are going to test her chops by assigning her as the yard engine at Ottawa.  Can she actually assemble a train?  Here are the yardmaster’s orders.

Barry giving the all-important morning briefing, while everyone listens on.

Little red has assembled her first consist of the day - Sid’s outbound train.

And there she is, little red riding hood herself!  She can pull a half-dozen cars with ease, and I would say has passed her yard-switcher test most handsomely.

Yes, this PIKO loco has definitely earned its credentials today!

But who is this train for?  Ah yes, it’s Mark’s morning run on his TH&B Geep.

Love the variety of colours, and it ‘aint even autumn yet!

Marcel performing some complex switching maneuvers while Sid is running his train underneath.  Talk about multi-tasking!

Marcel’s fabulous UP unit at West Ben

Coffee break time!! (or are we taking lunch orders already?)

Gorgeous view of the “split” at Shannenville.

The waterfall (Mount Kamaron) is truly the centrepiece of both garden and railway.  Any train unfortunate enough not to be scheduled to run through its tunnel must be mighty jealous indeed…  Look at that water cascade, and the droplets are all 1:1 scale to boot!

After a long delay caused by tie-ups in Orleans, Mark’s train is finally able to hit the road.  Beautiful trestle, Barry!

A crowd gathers to see the excitement.

Bernie snapping a few pics, railfanning his own creation (hey, I am guilty of that all the time!)

 

Sid is hard at work while we roll on through Cumberland.

Forget “Santa Claus is comin’ to town” (plus it’s the middle of August anyways).  A CP GP30 must mean that  “Paul Anderson” is comin’ to town!  We narrowly avoid a collision at Hayes Fuels (thank goodness, as that would have resulted in quite the firestorm indeed, what with all the fuel around…)  It would also have meant that the Grinch must've stolen Christmas!   But...alas...all was well at Hayes Fuels!

Lovely couple, lovely sight.  Sid and Jean admiring the view.  And yes, in case you ask, that stock car is empty, so it’s ok that I placed it at the rear of the train (it really isn’t ok, but that’s the excuse I made for myself).

There is that Mount Kamaron view I have been waiting for.

Belleville and the end of the line is in sight.

Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to make it all the way to Ottawa.  Four trains on all four tracks?!  Must be lunchtime...

And indeed it is.  Johnny Chuff Chuff and Noel enjoying their lunch while I am very much enjoying Johnny’s latest creation!

What a peaceful spot to enjoy my lunch.  Honestly, the day was like an experience at a spa - a train spa!  Thank you so very much to Bonnie and Barry for your most gracious hospitality!

Love that cascading water!

After-lunch discussion…  Two very fine gentlemen.

We thank Mark for this first section of his photos from Belleville.  Check in soon enough for the coverage of the afternoon train ops!

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