Orillia Ossawippi Express - DAR "Nova Scotia" - News

[engineeral]

A couple of email messages from the Yahoo group: cpsig · Canadian Pacific Historical Association

1a.
Orillia Ossawippi Express
Posted by: "kenskickers" kbgrist@cottagecountry.net kenskickers
Sat Jun 23, 2012 11:56 am (PDT)


The Ossawippi cars are about to be moved. I was there this afternoon and talked with is doing work on the cars. He asked if I had information of the cars and their respective weights. He said that 2 of the cars will be scrapped on the site. One is a baggage car and the solarium car. I hate to see the solarium car going to the wreckers. Is there a museum that be able to restore that car? It may be too late, though.
Does anyone have the weights of these cars?
DAR Executive Coach "Nova Scotia".
L&PS Electric Interurban.
CPR First Class Car #1431
CNR Baggage 9i80
Hungerford #65
CPR Solarium
CPR Baggage #4361 154000 lbs.
CNR Reffer 10627

I understand that 4 cars are going to Port McNicoll to be a restaurant there along with the Keewatin Steam Ship for a museum there

Ken Grist
1b.
Re: Orillia Ossawippi Express
Posted by: "Andrew Jeanes" yahoo@jeanes.ca windward_rail
Sat Jun 23, 2012 3:24 pm (PDT)


I think all the arrangements that could be made to preserve these cars have already been made.

Aside from the cars going to Port McNicoll, the "Nova Scotia" will be going to the Toronto Railway Museum and the L&PS electric interurban car will be going to the Halton County Radial Railway.

Regards,
Andrew

On 2012-06-23, at 2:56 PM, kenskickers wrote:

> The Ossawippi cars are about to be moved. I was there this afternoon and talked with is doing work on the cars. He asked if I had information of the cars and their respective weights. He said that 2 of the cars will be scrapped on the site. One is a baggage car and the solarium car. I hate to see the solarium car going to the wreckers. Is there a museum that be able to restore that car? It may be too late, though.
> Does anyone have the weights of these cars?
> DAR Executive Coach "Nova Scotia".
> L&PS Electric Interurban.
> CPR First Class Car #1431
> CNR Baggage 9i80
> Hungerford #65
> CPR Solarium
> CPR Baggage #4361 154000 lbs.
> CNR Reffer 10627
>
> I understand that 4 cars are going to Port McNicoll to be a restaurant there along with the Keewatin Steam Ship for a museum there
>
> Ken Grist

[stem]

Thanks for the update Al. Yet another train restaurant I see. What a shame to scrap any of them. I sure hope the NS gets treated right in TO and not left to languish.

[Dan Conlin]

A neat shot of the "Nova Scotia" car with the old restaurant structure cut away prior to transport. Note the big double door cut in the side for restaurant patrons:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/55976115@N00/7429469428/

I hope the new home works out for this rare piece of of equipment. I understand that the rail museum in Toronto has had a lot of problems with their roundhouse location.

Dan Conlin

[stem]

Perhaps Toronto is just one step closer to it's final destination if the roundhouse doesn't treat her right. Good photos though. If you're an aircraft fan, the photographer has many great shots of the warbirds in the GTA.

[downeastrailfan]

If I ever win the lottery, I'd buy the Nova Scotia and return it home.

Now this is where my pipe dream gets big! I would create a tourist train experience comparable to Conway Scenic or Strasburg, and not a half-assed attempt like the W&H with their patched out Alcos and miss-matched cars.

Here's what I would do:

- Buy the remainder of the Windsor & Hantsport, refurbish the line with new ties and proper rock sized ballast.
- restore and operate a D-10 or Pacific, preferably from the same class that ran here.
- buy the DAR logo from CP
- Grove series and heavyweights would be nice, but any passenger equipment in good shape and a good value would be fine. Steel cars would be painted maroon with gold "Dominion Atlantic" lettering. Stainless steel cars would receive a maroon band above the windows.
- an S-3 repainted in the DAR scheme as back up power for the steamer.
- a small fleet of SW1200RS' for freight and passenger use. Units would wear the original livery, but with DAR lettering, the same as the S3's.
- Eventually remove the steel station at Windsor, and replace with a replica of the last wooden station.
- At least two (possibly more) RDC's for lighter travel days. Bring back 9059, currently VIA 6133.
- bring back freight business and drum up new business where possible. Possibly outbound loads from CKF and inbound feed for transshipment farther down the Valley.

I'd offer different levels of service: an economy class for families, including an open air car. Dining, possibly dome and open observation (the Nova Scotia) for first class. I'm thinking the trains could leave from Windsor, go to Grand-Pre or Wolfville, board busses and go for lunch at a winery or local restaurant, tour additional wineries, Foxhill Dairy, Wolfville Farmer's Market, etc. then board the eastbound for an evening meal. There could also be full tours of the line. Lots of possibilities. I wish someone with money would see the potential and use some or all of my ideas!

[stem]

Way to go Matt. Especially getting rid of that ugly Windsor station. Love to resurrect the old route through Windsor through town and across the bridge (real charm) and get rid of that ugly environmental disaster called a causeway across the Avon too.

Wolfville would be little problem but Kentville? What the heck could we do with Kentville? Once past Kentville could probably successfully run all the way to Middleton and even to Annapolis Royal although Bridgetown might have to be the practical end for a while.

We should buy 999 from Delson and run a 10 wheeler for sure too.

[downeastrailfan]

In regards to relaying track through Kentville, the original route is no longer an option, as its been redeveloped. A friend sketched a route to the immediate north between Brooklyn and River streets, and rejoining the mainline perhaps through the site of the old cannery and roundhouse.

However, I don't think it would be necessary to extend the mainline beyond Greenwich to make the operation viable. Relaying track would require major bucks, and what I'm proposing will be expensive enough! Most tourist trains run pretty slow, so I'd also keep speeds down. The majority of riders would be tourists and families with young kids. I doubt neither group would want to be on a train all day, so I see the ride tying in with other attractions.

[stem]

Ahem.. stepping on to my soapbox...

Funny now that the original bridges are almost all down that Acadian would decide to terminate services to so many communities that they helped destroy the train business to. Then the feds cut back on the Ocean. It seems like everyone is determined to cut off and isolate the province. The economy of the province as a whole is already broken. How do we get back 150 years ago when entrepreneurs were stepping all over each other in the race to develop the province and build rail lines? Even more absurd is the fact that the rail companies took care of their own roads and now that they are gone, the province has to subsidize the transportation industry. Something they had no interest in doing with the railway companies they now cheerfully do for the bus and trucking companies.

Stepping down now, I return to the topic at hand.

Thankfully, the Avon bridge is still up. Any talk of getting rid of that or can we refurbish the rail bridge? The province can build a proper bridge across the Avon in the same spot as that ugly causeway that should be blown up. For a minimum of enviromental impact they can make it a suspension span with the main supports on land so nothing goes in the river. In actual fact though, we might still have to run the rail line across it as the town redevelopment wouldn't let us run through the town again. Alternatively, we could cut short at Pemberton's or Curry's Corner and head straight for the old rail bridge that way. If the mines still required a rail line at some point it to could be rerouted up the Curry's Corner or if we have to use the new bridge, then it's a no brainer as long as the province builds a bridge with a rail line on it for us.

As for Kentville, point taken. As this is the modern reconstituted DAR, I guess we may just have to bypass the town that so willingly tore down their railway heritage and redeveloped the land. Let's take it across at Port Williams, run it around the north of Kentville like through Chipman's, Steam Mills and and back down to Coldbrook. That should cover the most beautiful part of the lower valley. We won't even put a station at Kentville because they wouldn't be interested anyway.

Well now we're on the way back through the Valley again. Where else do wee need to go to encourage ridership and industry?

[downeastrailfan]

Our country long ago switched out one transportation system for another: railways for highways. This was due to the post war boom and cheap oil. We've now entered the age of higher cost oil (never to be cheap again) which is due to peak oil production. Rail is the most efficient form of land transportation, and I think that makes it extremely important for our future.

I've worked with non-profit groups to increase the awareness of rail, but the general population of NS is mostly interested in twinning highways and cars. Although, the issue of commuter rail in Halifax never seems to go away. The North American rail system is so big, its difficult to address at a local level. For example, its much easier to lobby for more bike lanes more frequent bus service in HRM. I'm among the last generation to remember local passenger service in the Maritimes, as anyone younger would have been born after the 1990 cuts.

I drove through Kentville yesterday and saw a building on the site of the former roundhouse:-(

[stem]

That's why we're going to bypass Kentville in the resurrected DAR.

Surprisingly, many people do not own cars and have no intention of getting one. Getting these folks out to meetings however is difficult because of our crippled public transportion systems. I'm sure if we could get a representative percentage of them out to most of these public forums on transportation, they would be the ones that would would prefer rail to building more highways and vote as such.

[SamuelMClark]

Hey Matthew, I'm in the same boat as you if I ever won the lotto, I'd be buying the rights for the Windsor and Hantsport Line too, at least now if I ever win, I am going to hire you to help with restoring the line to be used as both a tourist line and hopefully for public transit after Acadian Lines stops running!

One thing I would want is to be able to have a tourist steam engine train with period cars (maybe retro fitted with better suspension for a smoother ride) that would go from The Via Rail station in downtown Halifax to Windsor out to Mantua (area with gypsum mine outside of Brooklyn) back to Windsor then up to Wolfville then back to Halifax. Though the part I haven't figure out yet is to either have a dinning car or have a stop in Wolfville and let the passengers go to what ever restaurant they want to go to (thought maybe to spread the money around). Though if I did that then I'll open my own restaurant and offer some meal items off my DAR Dinning car menu using local food. Though I might have a dinning car but offer snacks and drinks.

I agree that metal Windsor Train Station needs to go, I was up in Windsor there last week and yeah it just is an eye sore. And it was sad seeing all that track rusting out not being used for trains Same thing with the gypsum ore cars that's just rusting on the track.

I wonder if we could form a DAR heritage group maybe we could buy the line for a dollar and start preserving the line.

[downeastrailfan]

Hi Samuel,

It would be fantastic if the province would buy the tracks and rail bed. Then a heritage group could be formed to operate and own the equipment. This is exactly how the Belfast & Moosehead Lake RR operates in Maine. I think the Downeast Scenic (also in Maine) operates the same way.

I think operating into Halifax would be an operational nightmare, dealing with CN, but who knows? When railfans think about running trains, we think long runs are better, but when you look at the length of tourist train runs, many don't run long distances.

Running a tourist railway or working in a railway museum would be my dream job!