Website Updates
September 16, 2024 - I recently picked up another second-hand Rapido model and gave it the usual tune-up and renumbering, all demonstrated on my page in the MODELLING section.
June 1, 2024: Tim shared a writeup and photos of his latest Rapido RTR CBC 6403 tune-up and weathering project. See his page in the MODELLING section.
March 13, 2024: add photo of 6445 in love the way wrap courtesy Paul Smith. Also add a comment about the 2023 retirement of REN 6425.
March 4, 2023: add note about VIA 6435 movie rental to Original Scheme page.
April 11, 2022: Updated Special Wraps page to document 6445's newly-applied 'love the way' wrap.
March 6, 2022: Updated my modelling page with photos of the latest two Rapido F40s I just renumbered for CP freight service.
March 2, 2022: Fixed a few bugs on the CP freight and commuter train lease pages. Added photo of undocumented 1990s appearance of VIA 6439 on CP freight.
February 26, 2022: Expanded the AMT lease page by adding photos of VIA units pulling leased GO equipment in 1992 as well as lease for WCE service in 2010.
February 22, 2022: Ray Farand spent some time in the vault and has shared with us two views of the Grey Cup train and unit 6445 in the Ottawa area. Those images are linked from the SPECIAL WRAPS page. Thanks Ray!
February 13, 2022: So much cold and snow these days plus with virus lockdowns there really isn't much to do besides update this website. Today a photo of 6453 leased to AMT was added to the new AMT page by new site contributor Ian McCord. Ian was also a valued contributor when I wrote the CP caboose book in 2017-18 -- thanks Ian!
February 10, 2022: New page added for the units leased to Montreal AMT in the 1990s and 2000s! Q1 22 White River Productions Diesel Era VIA article part 2 (VIA 6430-58) article will appear soon but a few errors unfortunately made it past me and could not be corrected before printing. So I created a new error log page on this website to acknowledge and document the errors. These corrections will also be published in the next issue of Diesel Era.
February 4, 2022: Ray Farand shared an action shot of love the way 6454 on the Alexandria sub and that made the front page of the site. I also updated my Modelling page with some of my own photos of Rapido Coors Light 6408 and 6445 after I refined them a bit. Fun winter project, details on the Modelling page! And White River Productions is about to publish their Q1 22 Diesel Era issue which has the second part of my VIA article.
January 10, 2022: The year 2022 starts off right with some photos shared by a new site contributor. Andre St-Amant lives in St. Paulin, Quebec on the northern CN line which sees regular VIA J-trains before they are split at Hervey before continuing separarely to/from Senneterre and Jonquiere. Andre lives right beside the tracks and frequently films and photographs VIA F40PH-2Ds (along with CN freight trains) and posts the videos to his YouTube channel. He shared with this site some excellent stills of 'love the way' 6416, 6436 and 6437 plus a nice shot of 6454 in the 40 years/ans scheme. Merci/thanks for sharing, Andre!
December 9-21, 2021: Major site update due to cold weather and ongoing virus lockdowns. New photos added, older pages reformatted and combined, fixed some grammar, improved page layout and image quality, added clarifying details, images of Canada 150, 40 years and love the way wraps. Every single page was updated including the navigation menu. Thanks for all the visits!
December 7, 2021: I am pleased to announce my collaboration with White River Productions on a 2-part Diesel Era article that was just published. Part 1 (VIA 6400-29) appeared in the Q4 21 issue, click here to purchase it directly or see your favourite dealer. Part 2 (Q1 22, VIA 6430-58) will be available by March-April 2022.
December 6, 2021: Several more adjustments to the Modelling and Terms pages plus VIA Engineer Terry Brennan has kindly supplied an upgraded photo of wrecked VIA 6430 which appears on the Canada 1998-2012 scheme page. Thanks Terry!
November 28-30, 2021: Several pages were reworked including the modelling, fret and misc photo pages. I have also added a page to document the 1994-95 lease of several VIA F40PH-2Ds to CP Rail for eastern freight service. Tim Hayman now has a dedicated page (accessed via the Modelling page) to display his models. New image for front page plus new shots of and writeups about my improved Rapido F40PH-2Ds on my own modelling page.
October 25, 2021: Tim Hayman has shared with us how he kitbashed a Rapido unit into unique and short-lived CAD rebuild 6400. PDF with photos uploaded to the Modelling page.
September 14, 2021: Add photo of VIA "Love the way" 6420 and front page shot of VIA 15 leaving Halifax, both images courtesy Tim Hayman.
July 13, 2021: Add photo of VIA "Love the way" 6427 courtesy Tim Hayman.
May 16, 2021: Added donation blurb to front page (later moved to contact page)
Jan. 2, 2020: Update AD page for "Love the way" units. Add photo of 6416 to front page.
August 3, 2018: Add photo of VIA 40 6416 and upgrade 6454.
May 18, 2018: First update of the Modelling page in 4 years with the addition of photos of Tim's custom Telus 6429.
May 12, 2018: Excellent VIA 40 photos added to the ad page courtesy Stephen Gardiner. Poor timekeeping on trains 1 and 2 makes it nearly impossible for me to catch the train around here in eastern Manitoba.
April 10, 2018: Canada 150 wraps are being partially updated with "VIA 40" logos. Ad page has been updated to track F40s as they are updated.
August 21, 2017: I am having a lot of challenges getting photos of the Canada 150 wraps on trains #1 and 2 this summer. So many late trains, delayed tracking information and lack of information about what units are headed out this way. So this time I have added 6436 to the ad page courtesy Mark Forseille in Vancouver.
June 12, 2017: modified the ad page to show fullsize photos of the Canada 150 units as I photograph them. Added Terry's night shot of 6459 to front page of site.
May 16, 2017: new page created to track the appearances of "Canada 150" F40PH-2Ds. Looks like 5 units done.
Jan. 1, 2017: Final nail in the coffin for the ren HEP cabinet add-on etch kit -- see VIA Details parts frets page for final project cancellation notice.
Dec. 29, 2016: Using VIA's online tracking feature, I learned that #1 was going to be 4 hours late into Elma, near my home and on a Thursday when I happened to be off work. Stars and planets finally aligned for me to get a shot of the train at this location. The power today was 6458 and 6418 and there were several Prestige cars in the consist. Several passengers disembarked at this flag stop. Below photo of 6458 has upgraded my photo on the REN page.
April 3, 2016: Continuing on the CP SD40-2 theme, I have resurrected an old classic web page from the past. In order to assist Bowser in the development of their beautiful RTR SD40-2, I have restored the CP SD40-2 antenna page to this website. Corrections, questions and comments always welcome!
March 25, 2016: I have just created a new page to show my kitbash of CPRS SD40-2 #5475.
Dec. 6, 2015: I have added links to videos of several of the ad units on the ad page.
Dec. 29, 2014: Chased 6017 and 9157 past the floodway and through Niverville. -25 temp. Also testing out the new Canon pocket-sized camera I got for Christmas from a very special person. :)
Oct. 19, 2014: Nice trio of units was parked in ideal light for me this morning. See CP SD40-2 page for some of the photos I took. Last Saturday VIA train of the year went through yesterday.
Oct. 9, 2014: Most of the VIA trains these days are late and the light is not very good. So let us enjoy these CP SD40-2 pix from a trip through Beausejour on October 4. (see CP SD40-2 page for fullsize images)
Sept 4, 2014: Got a newer and arguably better shot of 6401 today, just before the skies opened up.
Aug. 31, 2014: From the vault, I found some shots I preferred from 2012 and so I upgraded 6402, 6406, 6421 and 6425 on the REN page along with the wish list. I have also updated the photo on front page.
Aug. 30, 2014: Upgraded 6403 and 6458 on the REN page with better versions of older images fixed up in Photoshop Express. Also added an update to the Misc VIA photos page. Good summer light seems to have suddenly died off. Updates here will slow down for the next few months.
Aug. 21, 2014: Took Thursday afternoon off work and upgraded 6453. Three units on the train today.
Aug. 17, 2014: Upgraded 6415 with a shot of it leading Sunday's 693. If you look closely you can see the cabside 15 is cleaner than the 64. This is due to the photo-opp renumbering to 6403 last November.
Aug. 14, 2014: REN collection completed! 6404 came through as the 3rd unit in the consist on Thursday afternoon. Now that I have them all, my focus turns to upgrading the 14 I have in trail position. That will probably not happen this year, so that will be the project to finish out 2014 and into 2015. At least I have them all for now, in case any more should be damaged and retired. Additions to the REN page today are 6404 and 6456.
Aug. 11, 2014: Upgraded 6437 with an even better shot.
Aug. 9, 2014: Upgraded 6445 and noticed that 6415 was dropped off in Winnipeg. Hoping to get that one on 693 soon. Also upgraded the photo of 6448.
July 20, 2014: Finally a shot of 6459. I would like to upgrade it with a shot of the unit in lead position but at least I have this one for the time being. I also upgraded the REN shots of 6403, 13, 6418, 25, 29, 33 and 6445 and moved my photo wish-list to the REN page. I also upgraded 6447 in original scheme and changed the front page image. In local news, VIA service to Churchill resumed last week, so the back-to-back consists may come to an end. I did note 6449-6448 back-to-back on 693 on Sunday, July 20 even after the service resumption.
July 12, 2014: Finally a shot of 6433. Of course, this will need to upgraded with a shot of it in the lead but this is at least a start. Only missing two RENs now! I missed 6459 leading twice so far this year. Hoping a better opportunity presents itself soon. Please head over to the REN page to see today's 6433 in the meantime.
July 3, 2014: Finally managed to get a decent upgrade shot of 6443 leading (see REN page for fullsize image)
June 29, 2014: added 5792 action/consist shots to CP SD40-2 page, various photos of newly-lettered "Prestige Class" VIA cars to the "Misc VIA photos" page, including upgrade of 6425 on the REN roster page.
June 22, 2014: upgraded 6452 ren on rare back to back coupling with 6428 on 693 (no service to Churchill due to derailment in early June).
June 19, 2014: upgraded 6439 ren, just before the rain came.
May 31, 2014: upgraded 6438 ren, trees and grass are green now.
May 22, 2014: upgraded 6420 ren, was nearly blocked by CN 347
May 19, 2014: Big site update today. What better way to spend a rainy Victoria Day holiday? I upgraded 6408 with a shot of it leading in the rain. It was leading a 24-car train that included deadheads LRC 3472 and two "Prestige Class" cars. These cars are shown on my new "Misc VIA photos!" webpage linked above. I also updated the page widths across the entire website to accomodate and better utilize widescreen monitor real estate. Whew!
April 10, 2014: Spring is finally here - I decided to save a tank of gas and try for the shot of the Canadian closer to home. 6455 ren has been uploaded. I think I might try to get my shots here this year instead of driving all the way to Portage. Gas is expensive now.
April 6, 2014: I caught a couple of SD40-2s doing local switching this morning and managed to get them underneath the Disraeli overpass. See CP SD40-2 page for the shot of 5759 and 5756. Snow melting nicely after a very long and cold winter.
Mar. 6, 2014: Added 6425 ren from an 8-car "Canadian" I took in WPG today. Will this winter ever end?
December 30, 2013 : Added a shot of 6440 REN. I took this one in tough conditions, with low December sunlight and really cold temps. So this is a best effort that I'll attempt to upgrade later. I really prefer overcast light to sunny when the weather is like this. -40 with windchill last night. Brrr. Is it May yet? Happy New Year!
December 27, 2013: changed out the photo of 6448 REN and added 6426 REN, both taken in Winnipeg for a change.
December 21, 2013: updated the fret, for sale, Canada, contact pages. Mostly minor tweaks. Looking forward to next May when I can get back trackside and hopefully complete my REN photo collection in the summer of 2014.
November 9, 2013: VIA season is over for me here so I dug up some CP SD40-2 content from the vault.
August 12, 2013: added 6414 ren (only missing 6 units now!) and countdown on front page. Also added two photos of CP 5863 and 6063 to the SD40-2 page. Comments welcome.
August 4, 2013: upgraded 6449 ren on 693 today (Sunday). I also added a blurb to the front page of this site showing my progress on these RENs. Only missing 7 units as of today!
August 3, 2013: added 6457 ren - I hope to upgrade this one later with a shot of it leading.
July 29, 2013: upgraded 6452 ren with the unit leading this time.
July 27-28, 2013: Added CP 6054 and upgraded 6427 ren with a shot of it leading and with new numberboard. Also changed the photos of 6403 and 6449 ren.
July 24, 2013: upgraded 6406 and 6432 rens plus added a slot for newly renumbered 6459.
July 21, 2013: added 6449 ren (needs upgrade) and CP 6023.
July 15, 2013: Today's additions are two upgraded shots of 6435 and 6446 ren. 6449 was supposed to come through on this train but was probably set off in Winnipeg, perhaps for Churchill train service? I guess we'll soon find out. I also updated the FRET page with a delayed ETA for kit release.
July 14, 2013: upgraded 6454 ren and added ex-SOO SD40-2, now-CP 6609.
July 13, 2013: added 6432 ren.
July 7, 2013: added 6419 ren, upgraded 6445 and 6453 and added an awesome SD40-2 consist.
June 22, 2013: upgraded 6420 ren with a shot of it leading and added CP 9015 with plain nose.
June 15, 2013: another stunning weather day resulted in my upgraded shot of 6451 ren leading this time. This train was affected as a strike had been narrowly averted on Friday and consequently very few people were on board. I also added a solid CP SD40-2 consist from today as well. Nice to see the site getting a few more hits these days. :)
June 13, 2013: I have updated the AD page with links to newly-released Diet Pepsi decals. Thanks to Sandro Schaer for pointing them out to me and to Highball Graphics for producing them. I am also watching the strike situation at VIA as this may impact my efforts to get photos of all of the remaining ren F40s in the short term.
June 8, 2013: Had a great day railfanning today, +21, a few clouds in the sky, nice light for photos, no bugs, not much traffic. Perfect. The weather many of us look forward to all winter is here! And so are two ren pix for this site - upgraded 6416 and added 6454. Check 'em out.
June 1, 2013: Happy June! I added CP 5544 and 6427 ren. Enjoy.
May 27, 2013: added 6444 ren with thanks to Walter Pfefferle and also fixed up the CP SD40-2 page with thumbnails to all older images previously shown on that page.
May 25, 2013: Completed all upgrades (including thumbnails) from old print scans and added 6424 ren plus a shot of the cab roof showing the two new GPS antennas now being added. Only 12 more rens to go plus upgrades.
May 21, 2013: replaced, upgraded and added to the DETAIL SHOTS including several roof shot detail views of the RENs for all you dedicated modellers out there.
May 20, 2013: added 6445 ren.
May 18, 2013: added a couple CP SD40-2 shots to that page and upgraded REN 6412 and 6442 plus added REN 6434 and 6451. Only missing 13 ren photos out of 52 remaining units now!
May 14, 2013: upgraded a few more Canada units (6412, 18, 19, 26, 27, 33, 35, 45, 46, 49 and 54) plus added a shot of CP 5875 to the SD40-2 page.
May 13, 2013: Added 6428 REN and upgraded 6438 REN and 6421 Canada.
May 11-12, 2013: A new railfan season has officially begun and I have added a photo of 6407 ren and upgraded the one of 6410 ren. I have also re-upgraded the photos I thought I had upgraded last fall. I was on an older computer with CRT monitor and the scans looked good on that machine. This March I finally got a new machine with LED LCD monitor and those scans look terrible now. I rescanned all 6256 of my negatives and posted the VIA roster shots here for all to enjoy. All of these upgrades were made possible with my new scanner that scans directly from negatives and I have replaced all of my older images around the site with nicely photoshopped scans. Have a look around and let me know if you like the results!
April 7, 2013: 434109 caboose model sold, for-sale page updated.
March 2, 2013: Last of the rebuilds, F40PH-3 #6453 on the point of Churchill train 692. See ren page for photo.
February 16, 2013: updated the For Sale page with Overland brass CP Rail wide vision (rebuilt) caboose.
November 26, 2012 : added a few more youtube links to the grey cup page and updated 'for sale' page.
November 13, 2012: Upgraded photos of the majority of the original and ad units with rescanned higher res versions, less the ugly watermark text. Original: 6400, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55 and 6456. Ads: 6400 pepsi, koolaid 6404, 05, 06, 11, 24, 32, 33, 39, 53 and 6454, 6411 lifesaver 1, 6429 telus 1, 6429 home hardware. Whew!
October 31, 2012 : Fixed up the modelling page a bit, revised the wording, consolidated the documents list.
October 28, 2012: After nearly 3 years I have finally finished models of 6417, 6429, 6442 and 6453. I have updated the modelling section of this website with the final batch of photos of completed builds. As well, version 5 of the Kaslo fret application documentation has been uploaded to the FRET page. Please replace all documents up to version 4 with this new version and ensure you always work off the latest version when using frets. Lastly, I have updated the Grey Cup page #2 with a couple of new YouTube video links.
October 22, 2012: I have upgraded the photo of REN 6458 plus uploaded new 999 pixel rescans with more attractive watermarks of the following CANADA units: 6400, 6401, 6402, 6403, 6405, 6406, 6407, 6408, 6409, 6410, 6411, 6413, 6414, 6415, 6416, 6417, 6422, 6424, 6425, 6432, 6434, 6444, 6446, 6448, 6450, 6452, 6454, 6457 and 6458. As well, my four F40s are almost finished -- watch this website for final update, photos, documentation and writeup for these four models. It will have taken me 3 years by the time I finish.
October 17, 2012: Fixed some of the wording around the site (grey cup, fret, CP SD40-2 and canada pages)
October 13, 2012: Added new photo of REN 6410 and upgraded the resolution and size of REN 6405. Also replaced the backlit roof shot of REN 6443 with a ground level roster shot from Gladstone, MB (route of the Churchill train).
October 8, 2012: Fixed up the text on my writeups and added links to blogs and other details about grey cup train.
October 6, 2012: Upgraded REN 6401, 6402, 6421, 6441 and 6456. Also updated my CP SD40-2 "blog" page with a stunning consist and deleted the older content that dated back to April as I assume everyone interested has seen those photos by now.
October 5, 2012: added extensive writeup and photo page showing 6445 on CP tracks with the Grey Cup train.
September 29, 2012: added photos of REN 6420 and 6435.
September 22, 2012: I fixed up the wording on the Advertising unit page and converted the image display to full browser rather than nesting in frame.
September 21, 2012: update on the REN HEP kit on the fret page.
September 18, 2012: Andrew Castle completed his models of 6419 and 6436! See Andrew's page (linked from my modeller's page) for final photos of these excellent builds.
September 13, 2012: added photos of REN 6408, 6431 and 6438. Also tweaked the image display to show a full-browser (instead of a nested) version of photo. Some people commented there was too much scrolling when clicking on images. Hopefully this improved things. I also updated the CP SD40-2 page, front page image and tweaked the ad page a bit to highlight the Grey Cup train page.
September 11, 2012: upgraded photos of original scheme 6407, 6411, 6416, 6423 and 6458 plus a better photo of 6458 in the Canada scheme as well. Fixed up the menu a bit as well as the contact and update pages.
September 3, 2012: added photo of REN 6429.
September 2, 2012: added details about the Grey Cup cars to the ad page, changed photos for 6436 Canada and 6406, 6408 and 6434 'Spiderman 2' on the ad page. Added link to Steve Boyko's website.
September 1, 2012: Upgraded ren pix of 6409, 6412, 6417 and 6452, added Grey Cup page (accessible from Advertising page which was also updated with photos of 6445), added more CP SD40-2 pix, changed front page photo, reorganized contact and updates pages.
August 26, 2012: Original page replaced photo of 6418, Canada page replaced photos of 6420, 6431, 6433, 6437, 6439, 6440, 6441, 6442, 6443, 6449, 6455, Ren page added photo of 6400, replaced photo on front page with shot of 6425 heading west past Dugald elevator, via fret page slightly rearranged, menu tweaked, sale page and created this website update page.
August 18, 2012: added photos of REN 6413 and 6446.
August 11, 2012 : added photo of REN 6416.
August 6, 2012 : Updated CP SD40-2 page, updated modelling paint/finish/letter page with progress photos of my 4 Kato models. Almost finished!
© Manny Jacob
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