A Solid Right Cross

Back in the 1950s the CNR was starting, in a substantial way to dieselize it's locomotive fleet but still had many Steam Engines running. Where I worked, at Bathurst St. was a very busy hub on the afternoon shift when I worked. We had trains going to Capreal, North Bay, Vancouver, Stratford, and Montreal. The two trains to Montreal were 1st 444 and 2nd 444 commonly called the first and second bullet. Bathurst St is the low spot in the Toronto area and in fact was filled many years ago. Where the Yard Office then stood previously was the shore of Lake Ontario. To get away from Bathurst St in any direction a grade has to be climbed, and the steepest and longest is the Kingston Sub which the Montreal trains would have to make. The bullet would leave Mimico leaving enough room on it for the tonnage it would pick up at Bathurst St. When to train would arrive at Bathurst St the Locomotive would uncouple and a yard engine from Bathurst St would back our lift on the train. The mainline locomotive would re couple on to the train and pull out. In the office we were expected to have the bills and lift ready for the Conductor when the train went by, which it would at 40 to 50 MPH. We would have to hoop the bills and journal to the caboose on the fly. There we two types of hoops, the bamboo one which most people know of but if we didn't have a bamboo one we had to use one that was like a big Y. The top two ends of the Y had a slot in it so we would tie the bills so the rope fit in the slots and formed the Y which the tail end man would put his arms through when going by. I was hooping the bills on the Bullet one day standing beside the speeding train a little to close while the tail end man was leaning out to far, and he connected with my jaw. I turned around to see Mike Veale laughing his head off, I yelled if the brakeman lost the bills which I thought he might I was going to punch him, but the bills were caught in the crook of his arm and he didn't have to dump the air and come back for them. I was mad and said next time I would hoop up the Bills and anchor the rope to a switch, but calmer heads prevailed and I saw the humor in it. But at least I was not put off my feet.

Hurricane Hazel

Back in 1953 a short time after I started on the CNR Hurricane Hazel came through Toronto doing a great deal of infrastructure damage. One of the damaged bridges was the Queen St Lakeshore Rd road and streetcar bridge. It is my understanding that when he heard of the damage to the road bridge, JD Hayes Superintendent of the CNR in Toronto, ordered that several cars of OCS coal be taken to the railway bridge and left on top of the bridge to hold it down, so it couldn't be washed away, which it wasn't. Because I worked in Mimico at the time and didn't have a car I was relegated to using the streetcar to get to work, which I and anyone else in my position would have to do. The CNR then ran a caboose from Toronto Bathurst St. to Mimico which we could get on a Sunnyside, at Queen St. and Roncesvalles Ave. At this time there was a popular amusement park at Sunnyside. A Story goes back to the late 1800s when horse died on Roncesvalles Ave, around the corner from Queen St, and because a report would have to be filled out by the Police Dept. at the time, the policeman on duty dragged the horse around to Queen St because he couldn't or didn't want to spell Roncesvalles. Anyway I go to Sunnyside and get on the caboose as it comes in. When the train gets to Mimico I go to jump of the train while it is still running and my foot gets caught on the step and I fall between the caboose and the engine, while still holding on to the hand grab. My life went racing before my eyes as I saw that rail moving below me, but I managed to pull myself back up and was promptly given hell for jumping off the moving train in that manner. I was told in no uncertain terms always face the train when jumping off and that was a lesson I never forgot.

Richard's Return

Richard and Jenine had to go home to attend a function that they did not want to miss and when they were gone was when all Hell, [the storm, power outage, and fire happened] broke loose. When they returned to the cottage, Richard asked me if I would like to inspect the fire scene with him, which we did. We walked the entire site and when we got to the outer limits and were looking across the water in the small bay there were two deer standing at the shore browsing. Our arrival spooked them a little at which time they trundled off into the bush.
Anne had, gone to a pre-planned trip to England to meet with her sisters Maureen from Vancouver and Marian from Perth Australia, Dot who lived in Dagenham, Essex just outside London, so Anne was not at the cottage for the yearly Pig Roast put on by Dee and Ken Baker at Wanakewin Lodge. The Bakers have invited the surrounding cottagers to this do for several years now, and as usual it was a marvelous fete. The problem was when the thunder and lightning started we thought we were in for another bad storm so left and went home a little early,and all the weather did was threaten, nothing actually happened but we heard that south around Parry Sound and Midland they got it pretty good. Richard had some stuff for the dump and ascked me if I would like to go, and being on my own and getting a little bored I went with Richard to the dump in hopes of seeing some bears. I was not disappointed. When we got to the dump, there were four bears furiously turning over garbage, looking I suppose for you, yes you Stephan Colbert.

Incident at Pickerel River

If you read the comment from Gary, he is actually mistaking an incident I believe that happened to my brother Max. Many years ago the CNR would put a special coach on the train, for the use of CNR employees only. The train left Union Station at 2300Hrs bound for Vancouver. When it reached Pickerel River, at approximately 0700hrs, the coach would be set off on a siding that was just north of the bridge. When setting off the coach a freight train came thundering over the bridge and just about rammed the Passenger train setting off the coach. I forget if the block was missed or if the conductor on the passenger train thought they could set the coach off and be gone in time. Needless to say many of the people on the train had to make a quick underwear change. Gary is quite right though, many things have happened that bare relating and in fact I have the beginnings of a book of funny, in retrospect, happenings in my railroad career. Perhaps I will mention them from time to time.
Allan

Even More Pictures of the Fire etc.

Further Editor's note: These are some of the pictures taken from our deck of the Waterbomber's etc.

More Pictures of the Fire

For some reason the blog would not allow the addition of further pictures with the article of the fire so I have added them seperately. Editor's Note!!

Storm of the Century

Mid July the Bailey's had to go home and asked us to keep an eye on things and keep their tomato plants watered, to which we said no problem. Little did we know. July 17th around 4pm a storm broke out and the wind blew, it rained, lightning struck and it thundered. The wind blew very hard and had the floating dock which is hinged in the middle, just a dancing not to mention my 16ft aluminum boat tied to the dock for which I was very worried. We were all looking out the front window at the storm, when lightning struck a tree across the river about 250 yards away, which instantly burst into flame. A short time later the power went out, and phones went dead. An hour or so later when it calmed down we made our supper on the Barbecue, at the same time trying to survey the damage. We didn't do anything right away about the power failure but decided to limit our use of the refrigerator in case the power was off for a while. Very good decision. The power never came back on that night, so the next day, we had to get out the generator to keep the refrigerator going and its contents safe. We had to call the Bailey's and tell them of the power failure and ask them what they wanted us to do for them. We thought they would want us to start their generator as well, which they did and we decided to run the generators 4 hours on and 4 hours off. Anne had to go to the MDS Lab in Sudbury to have blood taken for her doctor in Toronto. I went across the river to check on the site where the lightning had struck and at the time it did not look to dramatic, the lightning had struck and actually seemed to have exploded the tree it struck, blowing he trunk about 20 ft from the base, but there was nothing else unusual. I went back to the cottage and tended to things there. When Amanda Marilyn and Anne returned from Sudbury they said they couldn't believe the damage they saw along the highway and in the south part of Sudbury, and then there was no power in Sudbury as well. After the report about the damage along the hiway we figured the power would likely be off for a while. We had gotten out the transistor radio and got conflicting reports as to how long the power would be off. I had gotten a couple 5 gallon cans of gas prior to the storm, so the fact the marina could not pump gas did not worry us to much as long as the generator did it's job. July 18th went by with no sign of the power coming back, so the generators kept plugging away. July 19th we got up to a nice day, did a little swimming and anything we could do without the power. About 3pm on the 19th after coming down from tendidng to the generator Marilyn says Allan there is a fire accros the river, to which I ran to have a look. Sure as hell there was a fire and by that time we were all looking. I told Amanda to get one of the cell phones and call 911 which she did, and I told the operator of the fire which was 1 mile west of hiway 69 on the north side of Pickerel River the cite of which has no road access. The operator ask me if it was a forest fire or a bush fire, at which time I ask her what was the difference. As the wind seemed tp be blowing north east at the time I thought that I should go and keep an eye on the Bailey place which I did. When I got there though the wind seemed to have changed and was blowing north, so I returned to the cottage. Amanda said the 911 opertor called back for a clarification of where the fire was and said the police were on the way. I said that I would go to the hiway and get the police. When I got to the Marina the police pulled in and I took him down to the fire. The officer double checked that no one was in the cottage near the fire and put a couple propane tanks on the dock to keep them safe,and reported in by radio. I ran the officer back to the Marina and returned to the cottage, except that on the way back a fitting on my gas tank broke, the motor quit and I had to be towed to the dock. By the time I got back to the dock a Water Bomber had showed up and was dousing the fire with water scooped up out of the river just west of our cottage. We had several boats tied up to our dock watching the air show as well as ourselves,as we had the best location from which to watch. Before all the action started I gave the video camera to Amanda, and the digital camera to Allison and told them to keep filming until the batteries went dead. Allison and Amanda both got some nice shots of the action. The Water Bomber made about 8 passes and then a heliocopter turned up and dropped a crew in to manually tend to the fire. July 19th went by with no sign of the power comming back on . We got up on July 20th to a nice, but hot day so did some more swimming and felt sorry for those workers at the fire site with their heavy protective clothes.
The fire fighters worked all day in the heat dragging hoses around dousing the smoldering ashes until there was no more signs of smoke. They seemed to finish around 5.30pm and the heliocopter came in and picked them up at 6pm. A short time later Richard phoned on the cell phone and asked if the power had come back yet to which I told hin that it hadn't, but that, that was not the only thing that had happened, and when I told him a forest fire had just occured, I thought that he was going to come through the phone. I assured him we were on top of everything not to worry and that we would have a story to tell when he got back, with pictures.
An hour and a half later the power came back on much to our relief. Just think our own person al air show and we didn't have to go to the CNE.

Flight in Beaver

The owner and operator of Samoset Lodge on the West Arm of Lake Nippissing, Peter Scott, operates a Beaver aircraft in which he takes out parties for flights over the area. I decided to go on a flight over the cottage area with a few friends. The flight was very enjoyable and informative as we don't get the chance to see the area by air often. It goes without saying that it is even more beautiful by air.

Rosemary and Emile's visit

In early July Rosemary and Emile came up to the cottage for a visit. For Rosemary it was the first time since before we got the hydro which was about 14 years ago. They seemed to have had a good time. At the same time we were baby sitting Buddy an English Black Lab, Female who also seemed to have a good time. Buddy had a visitor from time to time, an American Black Lab, who she learned how to jump off the dock from. Buddy was no problem at all until she caught sight of Max Kevin's Golden Retrievor who she constantly wanted to jump.

Annes Garden

When we went to Noelville for our weekly grocery shopping trip, Anne stopped in the garden centre outside Noelville, and purchased some plants as well as tomato and cucumber plants so we had our own gardens on the deck of the cottage, and spread around a few other selected places. The cottage is in the Canadian [ Precambrian Shield] Shield, so there is not much loose dirt around to plant in, so we have to place dirt in strategic spots. We had a pretty good crop of tomatos and 1 cucumber growing, but our tomatos paled and were enemic in comparison to Richard's who brought something called an Earth Box. He had a veritable jungle of tomatos growing so I will attempt to replicate the earth box for next year. Annes flowers did quite well though.

Moose on the Hiway

I had to go to Alban Ont, to the harware store this morning April 22/06 to pick up a part for our water pump. Ont the way, on hiway 69 about 2 miles south of hiway 64 there were 2 moose grazing, but being in the middle of a mini traffic jam I could not stop and get a picture with the digital camera I had beside me and was very disapointed. I continued on and bought the part at the Home Hardware store and went in to see Lyman who lives nearby and told him about my encounter with the moose. After chewing the fat for a while I left and went back. About a half mile north of the French River Bridge I saw another moose grazing on the side of the raod and this time there were no cars around me, so I could stop and click to my hearts content, or as long as the moose would let me. The moose hung around for a while, so I got a couple good pictures one of which I attach. A few weeks later on our way to Alban Anne and I saw two deer at the same place I saw the two moose, and later that year when going to Alban again, Anne, Jeannine and myself saw a bear crossing the road at approximately the same place.

Opening up spring 2006

We got up to the cottage a little early this year April 07/06 and there was still ice on the river as can be seen behind Anne on this photo. It is always great to get up there as the winters seem to be getting longer and longer. We have several projects, including, installing a new front window and getting the Boler down the river, as I could not get what I thought it was worth. We have been on the lookout for another boat to use as a roust about, that we don't have to be to careful with, but no luck as yet, because the price has to be right.

The Gang's All Here

This summer July long weekend we were really fortunate to have my Sister and Brother-in-law from New Brunswick visit the cottage. This is a picture of Bo, Allison,Myself, Rosemary with Oliver the dog and Amanda on the front deck of the cottage. Our family used to vacation at the cottage together all the time and it was the first time in years that Anne, Amanda, Allison and Myself, Bo and Dave and Rosemary and Emile were at the cottage together.

Well it has definitely been an eventful summer at the Pikerel River. Between seeing the river from a Bush Plane (Beaver) to Forest Fires complete with Police and Fire planes and helicopters and Water Bombers... it seemed to be a never ending summer of excitement.