Pillsbury 4-Bay Cylindrical Hopper Blue....Finally!

One of 4 (!) Pillsbury Hoppers bought at Van Horne Hobbies.

You may recall that almost exactly 6 years ago I posted a few photos of brand new Pillsbury hoppers I saw in the Havelock Yard sometime in the mid-1970s. Then in the late fall of 2023 I posted about a micro-layout I built based on a mash-up of my current and old memories of Havelock Yard.

One of many Pillsbury Hoppers seen at Havelock Yard in the mid-1970s.
This photo is a restoration by Gemini of one of my old snapshots.
Yes, the trucks on the prototypes were blue, so the models need a little updating.

I never finished the scenery on that layout. I seemed to be looking for the right inspiration, but couldn't find it. Nevertheless, I've been looking for Pillsbury hoppers for it ever since installing the last piece of track. And John has too!

The Havelock Yard layout patiently waiting on the wall to be finished.

The search came to an end on a recent trip to Van Horne Hobbies when John saw a Pillsbury Hopper in the front row of one of the many, many display cabinets in the store. It turned out there were 4 hoppers: I bought 3 and John bought 1, as a souvenir of the long search for these things finally coming to an end.

The fleet lines up for a glamour shot along the Havelock Yard's display track.

These freight cars are made by InterMountain and are quite beautiful items. I saw their big brothers in Havelock Yard when they were more-or-less brand new, so they aren't going to be weathered. I think the only thing I'll do is paint the trucks blue to match those on the prototype if I can find the right shade.

But before we head back to Havelock via Laval, let's take a side trip to Chicago:

Raiders of the Not So Lost Hobby Store

Spot the model railway store

Getting closer...

Closer...

Bingo!

John and I went out to Van Horne Hobby in Laval the other day. He'd visited in March and was blown away. Hidden away on the grounds of a road sweeping business is this lair of model railway extravagance:

Upon entry ....

Photos don't do it justice.

Your humble scribe points out his personal Holy Grail.
Many years have we searched!
More in future posts. Stay tuned!

R100 in Canada and the CNR Connection

R100 in Canada by Barry Countryman
Published by The Boston Mills Press, 1982

There was a long trail of old mental associations that got me thinking again about this book, R100 in Canada. The short version goes something like this: The Dam Busters -> Barnes Wallis -> R100 airship ->R100 in Canada. Ok, the part I didn't make explicit in the chain was that Barnes Wallis was the engineering mastermind who designed the most advanced British airship, the R100, which, as it turns out, was the only rigid airship to fly in Canada during the classic airship period of the early 20th century.

I've known about this book for a long time, but finally broke down and bought a copy last week after coming across a very good deal at an online seller. 

Layout of St. Hubert airport as of August 1930.
The airship mooring tower is in the upper left.
The CNR track is the dark, dashed diagonal line.
The temporary excursion train station is the wavy line above the 'Spur of Railway' label.

The story of the R100's visit to Canada is actually quite exciting and was a huge event, so I'll leave you to read all about it in the book. However, I'll give you a quick summary of the R100's itinerary: it left Cardington airfield in England early in the morning on 29 July 1930; completed mooring at St. Hubert airport near Montreal 78 hours and 49 minutes later on 1 August 1930; in the early evening of 10 August the R100 cast off for a tour of southern Ontario which included flying over or within sight of Ottawa, Smiths Falls, Gananoque, Kingston, Belleville, Peterborough, Oshawa, Hamilton, Niagara Falls, and Toronto; returned to Montreal on 11 August; departed for England on 13 August.

It turns out the Canadian National Railway had a permanent station at St. Hubert airport, and also built separate, temporary stations at the airport and in downtown Montreal to handle the crowds expected to see the R100 when it was berthed in St. Hubert. It was estimated that around 600,000 people visited the airport while the R100 was there (for comparison, the population of Canada in 1930 was 10.2 million), so they certainly correctly predicted the enthusiasm of the public.

From the book I get the impression that the CNR had a big role to play in the visit. One aspect that surprised me was it provided you-are-there radio coverage of the R100's approach and landing:

"The Canadian National Railways Radio Department in Montreal, believing Canadians would not be satisfied with colourless government bulletins from the mooring mast, decided to report as much of the R100 flight as possible, following the airship up the St. Lawrence until she moored in St. Hubert.

For the 15 station coast-to-coast hook-up it hired Andy W. Ryan of the Department of Agriculture in Ottawa and Charles Findlay, a former Royal Navy wireless operator, to man a broadcasting outpost at Laval University in Quebec City; established an observation post on the roof of its downtown Montreal studios in the King's Hall Building at 1231 St. Catherine Street West; and erected a 60-foot-high wooden tower composed of two telephone poles on St. Hubert Airport property between the main entrance and the CNR excursion train station.

From the tower, W. Victor George, a programmer and announcer at CNRM. Montreal, with other duties at CNR Radio headquarters, and Captain John A. Barron would describe the R100's arrival at the mast."

I was also quite surprised to learn that FROG released a 1/500 scale plastic kit of the R100 in 1965, and Barnes Wallis himself (!) consulted on the kit's development. And as a bonus, a model of the mooring mast at St. Hubert is included. Apparently the kit has been re-popped over the years, so if I ever find one for a reasonable price it might show up here.

Rooms with a view on VIA Rail's The Ocean train

 

When we went to Nova Scotia we took VIA Rail's The Ocean. The service runs from Montréal to Halifax and takes 22 hours. For us, living in Ottawa as we do, the trip took a bit longer than that once you account for the train trip from Ottawa to Montréal, a couple hours or so of layover in Montréal before The Ocean's 7pm departure, and around 3 hours of delays on The Ocean part of the trip. I can't complain though because it was a great experience.

We booked a cabin in one of the sleeper cars. They're small, but comfortable for two. There're two seats, two fold down bunks, a fold down table, cubby holes for storage, and a toilet room - it's hidden behind the open door to the corridor in this photo.

Speaking of corridors, here it is. There were a few sleeper cars in the train. Maybe 4 or 5, I lost count walking through them all. A crew member told us the train was 19 cars long.

As well as the chair and sleeper cars there was a dining car, which if you're staying in a sleeper, eating here is included in your ticket. This meant dinner on the night out, and breakfast and lunch the next day. I think my Uncle Bill would have enjoyed this.

Contrary to the image on the menu, there isn't a dome top observation car - the so-called 'Park' car - attached to this train. According to Wikipedia and the crew VIA got rid of it a couple years ago due to some operational problem with no longer having access to track they needed to turn the train around. I can appreciate the technical issues, but look, if there is anyone from VIA reading this, you really need to figure out how to bring that car back. The views from this train are one of its draws, so I suspect you're losing out by not having it. Think about this: it only took us 1 hour and 25 minutes to fly on Porter airlines on the return trip from Halifax to Ottawa, so it isn't travel time that attracts the long distance traveller. 

Ok, so enough grousing :-) The dining car has a lounge car attached to either end. One has an operating canteen and the canteen in the other car is closed. That photo up there is of the one with the closed canteen.

Here's that same lounge car, but looking towards the other end. It turns out Wifi seems to be only available in these two cars. It might be available in the chair cars, but it certainly didn't work in the sleepers. 

And here we are in the second lounge car during the night leg after I had had a couple of 'beverages' from the canteen :-)

The most unusual car had to be this 'Transition' car. Basically it's used to couple dissimilar cars. For such a prosaic car it's very nicely appointed with wall-to-wall carpeting and framed pictures on the walls.

I didn't get any photos of the train when we got in to Halifax station as it was late and cold and we were focused on getting to our hotel. But, the next morning I got that shot of the train in Halifax awaiting its return to Montréal.

Would I do it again? Probably not, but I had to do it once and enjoyed it very much. Although, VIA Rail, if you're listening, I'd be glad to return and do a 22+ hour build of some sort of railroad model streamed on YouTube live from The Ocean, with proper sponsorship of course :-)

Canadian Pacific's Montreal Windsor Street Station & HQ

I found this postcard* in amongst the family photos I've been sorting through. The caption reads:

Windsor Street Station and Head Office Can. Pac. Ry., Montreal

There's an interesting Wikipedia entry on this old station. I'm glad to see the building still exists. I'll have to visit one day.

*It isn't actually a postcard. The photo is printed on a card, but it's about the size of a playing card or a pack of cigarettes, and its flip side is blank. An internet search shows this image did appear on postcards, so this example does have postcard DNA.

I got excited there for a minute ...

 ... but no, it wasn't some sort of new space hopper sighting in Montréal.

Although this ape and the black loading door with a bulbous pseudo star field painted on induced a 2001: A Space Odyssey reaction in me. Wishful thinking. 

The search continues.

Band Car

A couple of weeks ago Vince gave me a copy of a book called Montreal's Electric Streetcars: An Illustrated History of the Tramway Era: 1892 to 1959 by Richard M. Binns, published in 1973 by Railfare Enterprises. It's excellent and I was surprised by what seems like a lot of unique rolling stock. One item is this Band Car. The caption below the photo has this to say: A happy little Car! The MTC Employees' Band had their own travelling bandstand during the early 1900s. One of its final runs was to advertise the "Alexander's Ragtime Band" movie in the early 1930s. Elsewhere near the photo it's stated that: The Band Car was 26 feet long overall by seven feet wide and weighed 15,100 lbs. It was painted light yellow and carried no decoration or lettering. I can imagine an unpowered, narrow-gauge version being built by E. L. Moore for his E & K RR, in the spirit of the Spumoni Club Coach, a powered vehicle that was - inadvertently I admit - built as an unpowered coach. Or, building it as a powered trolley for an electric street railway, would open-up a lot of good stories. And speaking of stories, I leave you with Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Jack Haley, and Ethel Merman....take it away Irv....