Visit to Barry and Bonnie Birkett's in Belleville
A "Group of Seven" made it up to Belleville from Ottawa for Barry's annual "Invasion" open house for interested railroaders.
Folks in attendance also came from as far away as Pennsylvania and as near as from Kingston.
Even a local Belleville resident or two made their way to the "Boyce Backyard"!
Always the affable host, Barry is all smiles on this fine morning!
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From our Ottawa perspective, a number of us met at Fred's place around 6:40 AM to carpool together.
I got in with chauffeur Chris.
Pat drove Fred, Gerry and Moe. Here we are arriving Moe's home.
Lovely gardens Moe!
From my perch in the passenger seat of Chris's van we spot Pat's van up ahead passing a 26-wheeler on the 401 heading west.
Upon arrival at Barry's Fred has already found a seat on the lower patio with Chris and Grant. Grant hails from Kingston.
George is in the orange vest seeing as he will be able to make a single run at best as he is scheduled to drive a "real" CN train from Belleville into Toronto on this day.
Yes, George is a CN engineer. He is also a member of Ottawa's HOTrak.
That's Roger from Kingston in the blue shirt behind Grant and we see Eric in the distance.
It was so nice to meet up with Tom from Pennsylvania once again. We have shown Barry's pictures of his magnificent layout on this blog before.
Diane borrows my camera to snap the group picture of the assembled railroaders.
From left to right that's Eric, Tom, me (in back of the seated Father Fred), George, Barry, Moe, Grant, Roger, Gerry, Pat, Kurt and Paul who is also seated. Yes it was a "blue sky" day!
Barry was tickled pink when this car arrived with our group from Ottawa!
He couldn't believe his eyes when he read the billboard message on the side of the car - "Borden's Fine Cheese" seeing as Kurt had built this cheese factory for Barry's layout in recent times. This is indeed serendipity at its finest!
Speaking of Kurt, here he is in Cumberland handling the driving chores aboard Train 401 out from Belleville and bound for Brockville.
Barry calls Kurt over to pose for a picture in front of the cheese factory he built as Kurt's crewmate, Tom, looks on.
Beautifully built Kurt! Now Barry has a "true" cheese car to head to the Vollenwyder Cheese Factory!
TH&B diesel locomotive #402 holds the honours on Train 401 this day...a near coincidence of numbers!
This railfan likes the appearance of this Shawmut Line gon!
Meanwhile, up in Ottawa, my crewmate, Chris, acts as the Ottawa yardmaster assembling our first run out from the nation's capital; Train 601 bound for Trista Center via Orleans, Cumberland and passing by the large Hayes Fuels dealer.
I take note of a staging track named in my honour! Nice! Thanks Barry!
We slowly block our train in readiness for the run.
Train 601 is underway out from Ottawa!
Video footage of 601's departure out from Ottawa.
To engage the video click on the white arrow in the center once and then again.
We take the cutoff for Orleans and rise above the falling landscape atop the gorgeous trestle Barry had built from scratch.
It is clear that many, many hours of passionate labour on Barry's part went into the creation of this remarkable railroad.
601's entry into Orleans is captured on video.
A trio of tank cars reside on the siding in Orleans. We will be lifting the first one on this facing spur.
We now have the car in our consist and are ready to move on to Cumberland.
We power by this railfan as we step on to the bridge to the east of Orleans.
There's our lift in the train.
Orleans video action!
Paul's Canadian Pacific GP30 #8202 is a dependable yard switcher - quite suitable for everything Belleville Yard throws its way.
Paul spent the day making up trains which originate here in Belleville, blocking traffic for incoming trains and breaking down consists of trains terminating at this busy yard location.
The locomotive passes by the Trevor Tattersall spur to the west of Belleville. We miss you Trevor!
Love the Corvettes on this flatcar.
How about these jalopies!
Or...these more modern rascals!
We are out from Cumberland with the junction in our sights.
We meet an opposing Train at the new junction trackage Barry installed in the off-season.
Our headend takes the bypass as our tail end clears the turnout.
The colour of railroading is clearly evident in this image taken near Juliana Junction.
Continued video efforts with Train 601.
We take the crossovers at Hayes Fuels.
Very short video at Hayes!
The East Broad Top steamer handles cars at Shaanenville East.
George gives us a "thumbs up" as the railroad is running beautifully!
Video review with George.
It's wonderful to see an Ottawa Central unit hauling lading along the route through Orleans, one of the suburbs of Ottawa!
Barry's fine efforts have resulted in a great looking railroad that keeps many crews busy simultaneously.
We see Pat aboard 404 off in the distance with Gerry working 403 in the further distance.
As a New England modeler I am totally enamoured by the discovery of this Rutland 40' boxcar!
The Armour Yellow and grey of the UP always manages to capture the attention of railfans and this specimen 'sans' stanchions holds this photographer's interest!
We find ourselves at Juliana Junction.
Such a gorgeous property Bonnie and Barry have conceived!
There's skipper Pat now!
Conrail GP38-2 #2028 is in good hands with this crew in the cab!
Now, that's one beautiful diesel locomotive!
Having departed Kamaron City, this crew makes their way through the tunnel and now through the bridge girders aiming for Shaanenville.
Bridge video.
They call this photo "Mellow Yellow"!
Video from the bridge.
Lunch Time!
Shade is provided by Barry with his tent canopy.
Ed is entertaining the crew with no need for a chair.
Bonnie is a most gracious host as Eric digs into a slice of watermelon and Diane enjoys a beer.
This Rio Grande diesel rules the kingdom around Belleville post lunch hour!
The crew runs around their train in hopes of departing to points east.
Paul gets a turnout for the crew.
Video action at Belleville.
Chris and Paul look on as Barry's grand daughter, Shaanen and her friend, Ali crew Train 802.
Shaanen checks her train orders as Chris and I push our train along the far track to bypass the action in the yard.
Busy times for sure!
Still more Belleville video work.
Barry poses for a picture with Ali and Shaanen.
Moe, Pat & Gerry relax near the end of the session as Gerry signs the guest book.
On our way back to Ottawa we stopped off in Brockville for some fish'n'chips which we brought to the railway station to consume as we railfanned the passing trains.
This eastbound was 'at speed' barreling through Brockville.
Brockville freight train video.
Continued video of the train.
Mere moments later Ed waves to the crew aboard an eastbound VIA run highballing through.
Railfan Pat is thrilled.
Gerry too as Moe watches on from the bench.
Highballing VIA video.
Aha! A train from Ottawa arrives the scene!
6408...she's got a dirty face.
Indeed, we are VIA Rail Canada.
Beautiful!
Ottawa train action as captured on video!
The turnout has been thrown and now another westbound arrives Brockville in this video coming in from Montreal in the east.
Even with the arrival of this Montreal - Toronto train we have a "green over red" for the Ottawa line.
Video of the approach.
Taking Track 1, the Station Track on video.
Down by the station.
This video will attest to the volume of the horn on departure.
Note too the green aspect turn to red once the headend passes by!
Thanks for checking in on this "first entry" from our wonderful day at Barry's and Bonnie's in Belleville!
Thanks go out to them both for the great effort they put forth in hosting us.
The train ops session was highly successful and most enjoyable.
Barry tells us that next season may act as the "finale" for the railroad as it is getting to be too much for him to maintain.
If so, Barry, we'll hopefully increase our numbers of visitors for the spectacle!
We are the OVGRS of Belleville and Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
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