The Hudson Bay Railway in HO Scale

This past weekend the annual Vancouver Train Exposition (VTEX) was held at the PNE Forum in Vancouver.  I attended and had an enjoyable time catching up with people, browsing the sales tables and visiting the various layouts and displays around the show.   Talking with my friend Al (who happens to also be the chair of the Canadian National Railways Historical Association  cnrha.ca  ) he mentioned he had some CN ore cars from the late Ron Keith collection - my friend Rene has a nice post about Ron < here >. I only met Ron a few times but his scratchbuilding work was outstanding. Al pulled a couple of the ore cars from a case and showed me.  They were scratchbuilt models of CN drop bottom gondolas used in ore service.  As usual for Ron's models they were very nicely rendered representatives of the cars, complete with interior details and full underframe brake gear.  Al said he didn't have a use for them and asked if I might have a spot for the...

Mike Barone's excellent modelling.  Most interesting to me is the first CN diesel switcher in the background.  Can't wait to see it in finished form. This past weekend (May 26 to 28) we had the latest edition of the Railway Modellers Meet of BC at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby.  The event was well attended with roughly 100 people in attendance over the 3 days.   Events included a prototype tour of the new G3 grain facility in North Vancouver, Operating Sessions, Layout Tours and two days of clinics, displays and camaraderie.  We also had a very interesting Keynote  address by Tony Thompson to kick things off.  Overall it was a very successful return to an in person event.  By all accounts it was very well received by attendees. I was the clinic coordinator for this year's edition and spent much of the meet running around trying to ensure that the clinic program ran smoothly with minimal hiccups.  Thanks to assistance by Mike and Lar...

I posted on my other blog about a derailment that happened while I was working in Flin Flon.  I was fortunate to be there during the clean up and got quite a few photos of the action.  Lots of modelling potential.  The post is here:  https://ageologistchasingtrains.blogspot.com/2023/05/flin-flon-derailment-on-hudson-bay.html When the long awaited rebuilt M420 arrives from Rapido Trains I will be custom painting HBR 3548, the lone M420 painted into the Hudson Bay Railway scheme.  

The Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Railway in Flin Flon Manitoba (the town named after a science fiction novel) has been in continuous operation since about 1929.  They have used a motely assortment of used equipment from all over North America including former interurban steeple cab electrics,  a Minnesota logging Shay and GE 70 Tonners (see https://hudbayrailway.blogspot.com/2023/01/hudson-bay-mining-and-smelting-ge-70.html ).  As well they have had a wide range of second hand freight cars, many likely rescued from the scrapper.   Among these refugees were a pair of wood truss rod flat cars, #136 and #137.  Their history is unknown, but based on their design features they likely are a product of the early 1900's.  They rode on arch bar trucks and had no hand brakes.  They did have early air brake equipment, and the wheels were chocked when they were parked.   Exactly how these cars ended up in captive service at a smelter in northern M...

I have had a long term project in the form of a Kaslo Shops GE 70 Tonner kitbash that I started eons ago.  I initially focused on Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting GE 70T #1 as it was the longest lived 70T in the HBMS fleet.  However more research has led me to realize that for my earlier 1981-83 modelling timeframe that either #2 or #3 would be a better prototype to model as it had the carbody filter arrangement that I kitbashed for my modelling timeframe.   I had originally planned to model the late 1990's so #1 after it's rebuild was my plan.  However #1 had a different filter arrangement during the early 1980's.  HBM&S swapped around doors between the various units, so photos are the best guide to use.  So now we're doing #3.   HBM&S operated a total of 9 units, #1 was purchased new while the balance were purchased used in the late 1960's and 1970's.  The fleet lasted until the early 1990's basically intact with only #4 being sc...

I was invited to do a Zoom presention to the St. Lawrence Division of the NMRA in Ottawa.  I spoke about my modelling focus on the Hudson Bay Railway.  Around 35 or so attendees managed to stay awake through my presentation.  If I ever figure out how to link my presentation to this page I'll post it for people to see. This type of presentation helps me to focus on the overall layout plan and see where I need to do further work.  Now to get to item #439 on the list...

Since I started building the layout I have been expecting to use either the MBS (Manual Block System) or OCS (Occupancy Control System) method to control train movements.  My initial era (mid 1990’s) put it squarely into the OCS era.  I knew that CN used Time Table and Train Orders (TT&TO) until the early 1980’s but this was a bit of esoteric information for me when construction commenced.  Since then I have backdated to the 1980’s for my era, but I continued to expect to use OCS.     An email conversation with a friend caused me to stumble into something I hadn’t been thinking about: also changing my train dispatching system.  Part of the email conversation caused me to refer to the CN Lines website ( http://cnrha.ca ) to check something.  While there I happened across the CN employee timetables:  ( http://www.cnrha.ca/node/976/ ) that have been scanned by the good folks at CN Lines.  I thought it would be interesting to see what wa...

A little background on the prototype: The Hudson Bay Railway (HBR), owned by Omnitrax, took over Canadian National’s lines to Flin Flon (Flin Flon Subdivision), Lynn Lake, Thompson and Churchill Manitoba in 1997. These lines were built to access northern Manitoba’s mineral wealth and forest products. The Flin Flon Subdivision was completed in 1928, the line to the Port of Churchill in 1929, Lynn Lake in 1953 and Thompson in 1958. Another line to Snow Lake was built in 1960 and abandoned in the late 1980’s. Major traffic generators for the northern Manitoba lines include outbound concentrates and ingots from Flin Flon, Lynn Lake and Thompson, predominantly Copper, Zinc and Nickel. As well, inbound concentrates, mill and smelter supplies for the smelters and concentrators at these mining centers is shipped by rail; raw logs and chemicals going to, and finished wood and paper products coming from the Tolko lumber mill and pulp mill, frack sand from Channing, grain loads going to and grain...