Ontario Northland

[charland]

Here are a few shot from an Ontario Northland route I first laid the tracks for back in October 2011. The route is set in the early 1960s and will be about 46 miles long when complete. I have 8 miles completely finished now, 2 miles in each direction of Porquis Junction, ON.

Train 50 arrives in Porquis Junction from Timmins in late evening.



Train 151 waits for 50 to pick up a couple of cars they brought down from Cochrane before heading back to Timmins for their last run of the day.



On a cold winter morning the crew of Train 314 wait in the Welsh Yard for what will become Train 414, the Paper Train to enter they yard from Iroquois Falls before heading down the branch themselves.





Paul :-)

[cn bala]

Paul-- you sure did a good job working on this route and look forward to get the download when it's available. I know it takes time to work on this route but it's worth at the end to get the download route.

John

[Mile122]

Exciting news, looks great so far well done!

[Train-a-Mania]

It's always a good day when a new Paul Charland route is announced. I will love to see the progress on this!

[charland]

I might be screwed. I've been using a windows 7 desktop to do all my work seeing and most of my editing and imaging programs don't work on Windows 10. When they stopped supporting Windows 7 I unplugged it from the internet and bought this laptop to go online with. When I wanted to post something made on the 7 machine I've been using an external hard drive to move the file to this computer.

This morning when I turned it on it appeared to be starting normally, but then hit this black screen and eventually a cursor appeared... but nothing else. After a few minutes I shut it down. Turned it back on and hit F8 to get into Safe Mode but that never happened either, just the black screen and moveable mouse cursor.

I've taken it to the shop and hope they can get it into Safe Mode and go to the restore point that was made Sunday evening.

I do have the ONR power and rolling stock I've made for the route on this machine and uploaded to Dropbox for testing, but hadn't uploaded a beta for the route, so might be screwed.

Paul

[charland]

I have my computer back and it's working fine. Strange thing is the paths to the routes and other files in Open Rail were broken so I had to reinstall it. The only other thing I've found (so far) is that when I plug my external hard drive into it it's not recognized in the "send to" dropdown menu and I have to copy the file and manually paste it into Drive: G.

Paul :-)

[R. Steele]

I have my computer back and it's working fine. Strange thing is the paths to the routes and other files in Open Rail were broken so I had to reinstall it. The only other thing I've found (so far) is that when I plug my external hard drive into it it's not recognized in the "send to" dropdown menu and I have to copy the file and manually paste it into Drive: G.

Paul :-)

Paul, I believe there is a method to add the drive to the "send to" context menu, although I don't remember the exact procedure...I do remember performing it in the past...***WARNING***...I only play a computer expert in the virtual world...in real life I am a provider of quality nutz to squirrels in the park. So happy you got the machine back, with most everything still intact...route looks to be of your usual awesome quality. Gerry

[charland]

Hi Gerry,

Just finished doing this. You have to plug in the external hard drive, go to the Windows shell file, and add a shortcut pointing to the drive.

I've sent the power and rolling stock out to be tested, but the route is going to take a while. Glad it wasn't lost.

Paul :-)

[charland]

A couple of shots of Ontario Northland train 313 along Highway 67 between Iroquois Falls and Welsh. After a little switching in Welsh yard the train will work it's way to Timmins as 311.





Paul :-)

[charland]

At the end of the Ontario Northland's Iroquois Falls Sub is the Abitibi Power and Paper mill. The mill is large enough that they had their own plant switcher, in the 1960s that was an MLW S-4. Here are a few screenshots of 80 taking loads from the mill back to the interchange track.









Paul :-)

[jonpd]

Looking forward to this route. In my childhood we lived for a time in Northern Ontario (although not near ONR) so this has some interest for me.

Jon

[charland]

Just starting to put together the town of Iroquois Falls, the mill was the hard part and it's finished now other then a couple of parking lots and a few cars and trucks.

Paul :-)

[charland]

I'm just about completed the six mile long Iroquois Falls Sub, Just have to go through and make sure everything that needs a winter texture has one and it's working. The following is a typical 'day in the life' of the traffic too and from the Sub.

P01 0405 Train 417 arrives in the Welsh Yard and drops off what will become the Paper Train later in the morning. With the train dropped in the yard 417 will continue north to Cochrane.



P02 0505 Train 415 arrives in Porquis Junction and drops cars for Iroquois Falls and locations between Porquis Junction and Timmins to be delivered by 311 on their return trip to Timmins.



P03 0740 Train 312 arrives in the Welsh Yard.



P04 0800 Extra 1308 East takes their train of empty boxcars to Iroquois Falls.



P05 0835 Extra 1308 departs Iroquois Falls for Welsh Yard with 20 loads of paper.



P06 0845 The Abitibi Power and Paper switcher brings ten loaded paper cars to the interchange and lifts ten empties to bring back to the mill.



P07 0900 Train 414 departs Welsh for Englehart and Train 314 heads east to perform local work on the Iroquois Falls Sub.



P08 0945 Train 413 returns to Welsh Yard with a few cars from Abitibi and from local work.



P09 1100 Train 311 departs Welsh Yard working it's way back to Timmins.



P10 1540 After lifting the cars left by 312/413, Train 416 waits for 47 to head west to Timmins and 147 to Cochrane before they can head south to Englehart.



Paul :-)

[charland]

As it turns out, not only did Abitibi Power and Paper have an S-4 plant switcher, they also had a 70 ton 3 truck Shay. The engine was bought third hand in 1947 when they had tracks going into the bush. The log traffic from that area was turned over to trucks and the Shay was kept as a standby engine into the mid-1970s.

APP 70 pulls a cut of loaded paper cars out of the mill.



70 heads south through the yard on the way to the interchange.



&0 struggles up the 2.6% grade in their yard, passing the shops and APP 80.



Almost to the interchange with the Ontario Northland, passing the businesses along Ambridge Drive.



Paul :-)

[lineman]

Love that Shay!!