A Documentary Project

[daniel.higham]

Hi, my name is Daniel Higham and I am a student at NSCAD University in Halifax. I am working on a photo-documentary about train travel, train stations, and rail lines in Nova Scotia; focusing on the people and communities involved.

I'm looking for people interested in sharing their stories, aren't afraid of being photographed, and who might be able to show me around or point me in the direction of some locations.

If anyone is interested, has any suggestions, or has anything they would like to share, it would be greatly appreciated!


Thank you for your time,
Daniel Higham

[Ric]

Daniel
Have a look around here
http://novascotiarailwayheritage.com/index.htm

You can see the major RR oriented museums around the province and is a good place to start.

[stem]

I guess the best observation and therefore question for you Daniel is this a photo documentary that you have to create with current day people.

You can try to tell the story of days gone by as we and many other site are attempting to, by collecting artefacts, interviewing folks and gathering recollections OR

You can tell the story of how railways continue to impact our lives today using folks who currently work the freights, the passenger trains, and the stations and facilities.

I'd vote for the latter. In the years to come it will stand as a much more interesting piece for someone to find - an unexpected time slice - a more accurate, realistic and human slice. You also have a lot more material to work with. You can tie in the economic times and how the railway continues to make money on these line versus the other line that have vanished. Take a ride on the train or the Rail-liners! Take a pile of film or memory sticks. Do video interviews while you ride. Try to get in the cab of a Dash-9 or similar 4500 HP monster locomotive. There's lots of angles and lots more photo opportunties to make a piece that seem to tingle it's so alive.

[daniel.higham]

You can tell the story of how railways continue to impact our lives today using folks who currently work the freights, the passenger trains, and the stations and facilities.

I'd vote for the latter. In the years to come it will stand as a much more interesting piece for someone to find - an unexpected time slice - a more accurate, realistic and human slice. You also have a lot more material to work with. You can tie in the economic times and how the railway continues to make money on these line versus the other line that have vanished. Take a ride on the train or the Rail-liners! Take a pile of film or memory sticks. Do video interviews while you ride. Try to get in the cab of a Dash-9 or similar 4500 HP monster locomotive. There's lots of angles and lots more photo opportunties to make a piece that seem to tingle it's so alive.

Steve, I think you are on to something very important.

Do you have any suggestions as to who I should contact, ie. people who work for CN, VIA or WHRC (others?) that might able to get me into facilities, talk about what they do, take me up for a ride in a Dash-9?


Thank you for your input!

[stem]

Daniel:

Funny enough, as most regulars in this community know, I live in Alberta so I have no local contacts for you. However, give this message a few days, even until the weekend, and I'm positive that someone here that lives in NS will have a contact or two for you to persue this. There are nothing but very nice people here with lots of local connections and they'll end up suggesting something very useful to you in this regard.

PS guys:
What are the largest road units running the mainline into Halifax these days?

[Ric]

On DAR GP9 , ON CN EC44, Dash 9 SD70/75