ON THE RAILS:
Nathan's train diary
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A BOY WHO LOVES TRAINS

Nathan is a 13  year old boy from Toronto, Canada 
and he LOVES all trains
Especially CP Rail




CLICK HERE TO SEE A CP TRain

June 04th, 2021

6/4/2021

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Join the Canadian Railway Museum on June 17 for the next online lecture in our 2021 series: The Crowd Went Wild!  Presented by Canada’s premier baseball historian, William Humber, discover the role the railways played in popularizing baseball in Canada. Proceeds from ticket sales will go towards future programming and support the collection, preservation, restoration of Canadian rail artifacts and important historical interpretation at the TRM.
Canadian baseball’s biggest myth is how Americans imposed it on us. Not so! We shared with them the modern game’s evolution from its folk roots. In some ways, Canadians had an even bigger role. The railway system brought this early role to full maturity. Its independent growth in Ontario, between 1854-1873, was railway reliant. Railway porters were likely the first African-Canadian team in 1869. In 1934, Babe Ruth started his epical trip to Japan with a rail stopover in Moose Jaw. The crowd on a Saskatchewan platform went wild! To this day the GO train or subway takes most people to Blue Jays games and the VIA stopover in St. Marys Ontario is a homerun drive to Canada’s Baseball Hall of Fame.
About William HumberWilliam Humber of Bowmanville entered Canada’s Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018 for championing the game’s history in Canada. Author of 12 books including five on baseball, he is often asked to comment on baseball by amongst others the CBC and the Rogers Sportsnet. For the past 43 years he has taught a “Baseball Spring Training for Fans” course, (on-line this year), preparing fans for the season ahead. He is a respected member of the Society for American Baseball Research’s 19th century research community.
About the Toronto Railway Museum (TRM)The Toronto Railway Museum (TRM) brings people together by telling stories of Toronto’s railway heritage. The Museum is located in the heart of downtown Toronto and is typically open year-round. TRM presents exhibits, tours, educational programs and publications that broaden the understanding and appreciation of Toronto’s rich railway history. TRM is committed to telling the stories of the railways, and welcoming conversations of its varied experiences through its lecture series, exhibits and integrated programming with a mission to learn from the past to make the future better.
TicketsVIP Tickets:
$25 (+ fees and HST) with access to Zoom link, plus the live Q&A with William Humber and Toronto Railway Museum Historians. VIP attendees will have the chance to win multiple prizes, including signed Blue Jays memorabilia and Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada tickets! They will also receive a free gift from our friends at Steam Whistle Brewing.
General Admission:
$10 (+ fees and HST) with access to YouTube link
Click Here For Tickets
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The Train Hot Spot

12/7/2017

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This weekend we went to Rouge Park where we walked to the very end of the trail and we saw a railroad crossing. 
We had already seen the end of a train going by so we didn't expect to see another train but we went anyway.
I hadn't been to the track in a long time and the I recognized the smell of tar and I said to myself, 'Oh my gosh I miss this."
And then my dad said, "everybody quiet!" Because he heard something. I thought it was a plane, my sister thought it was a helicopter and my mom thought it was cars but my dad thought correctly that it was a train. So we waited a bit to see if it was a train and it was! (As you can see in the photo my mom took.) And I hadn't seen a train at a railroad crossing in so long. So I got really, really excited. And the train was a really, really big one. The conductor waved at me. I love waving to trains. After the train was gone (2-3 minutes),  my family named this area, Rouge Park, the train hot spot.
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I still love trains even though I'm busy with school and baseball. Thanks for reading. Keep coming back!
Happy holidays to all the train lovers who read my blog!
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Pontypool's Jewish and Train Related Past

2/26/2017

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Hey guys. Near my ski resort we drove around and found old railroad tracks and we decided to look up some of the history of the place. It's called Pontypool and we discovered its train related past.
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More than a hundred years ago a man named Moishe bought 200 acres of land by a lake in Pontypool, Ontario. Jewish people back then were not allowed on the beaches in Toronto so they came up to Pontypool and begged Moishe to let them stay and swim in his lake. They didn't care if they had to sleep in his barn, they just wanted to get away from the city. Then after a couple of years of this Moishe bought 150 more acres of land and started building cottages on that land. When Moishe died his son took over and built more cottages and this was getting really popular, so passenger trains, on the CP tracks, took Jewish people to the resort and back - at least twice a day in the summers.
I thought this was cool and I wanted to share it with you. Until next time...  
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This Makes Up...!

1/19/2017

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We saw 16 trains but we had no camera for pictures (stock photo below).
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On the way to the place where I go skiing we were driving by many different train tracks. They are CP, CN, GO Train and VIA tracks (and the subway train too). It was a big surprise that on the way there we saw 13 trains in one hour of driving.
The trains included 6 GO trains and 7 freight trains.  The first freight train we saw I thought was never going to end. We went under a bridge and 20 minutes later when we caught up to the engine the train was still going over the bridge.  I predict it was about 5 miles long!

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When we finished skiing and on the way home we saw 3 more trains. This time there was 1 GO train and 1 freight train. That made 7 Go trains and 8 freight trains. And when we got off the highway we saw one subway train. Which totals 16 trains in two hours of driving. I think that's a record.
This makes up for not seeing our usual amount of trains in Florida (see my last post).
So this was a surprise and a happy two hours of train spotting.
​Until next time!
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Tri-Rail

1/16/2017

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Over my winter break I went to Florida. For the holidays, before I went to Florida, I got a new radar gun (see it in the photo below). I was really excited when I got it. Even though it's for baseball, I thought I could also use it to see how fast trains were in Florida. In Florida we didn't see a lot of trains but one day we got really lucky. We were playing catch at the beach with my radar gun to see how fast we could throw and on our way back we were first in line when the bars went down at the railway crossing.  It was for the Pompano Beach Tri-Rail commuter train.  
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My family shouted: "NATHAN, RADAR GUN! QUICK!"
I got the radar gun as fast as I could and I pointed it at the train and clicked the trigger. I found out after the train went by that it was going 24mph (38.6km).  (The photo below is of my throwing speed, we didn't take one of the train's speed).
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We didn't see our usual amount of trains of Florida, but I'll write about seeing trains in my next post. Stay tuned!
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The Town Worth Living In

10/18/2016

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It's been a while since I've written in my blog.  I've been caught up in lots of baseball and i haven't found the time, but here I am, writing again. 
This story involves baseball and trains - my two favorite things.
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I was on my way home from the Ontario Baseball Championships when my family decided to stop at the Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Mary's, Ontario. (Totally worth the trip, by the way!)
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On the way we saw an old train station and we decided to stop and take a look.
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It was a little VIA train stop.  Trains didn't pass by very often though.  We didn't see any trains but we did see inside and we took a look at the schedule. Me and my sister also signed the guest book. 
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It was a good trip and I hope to write more because my baseball is done for a while now.  
Happy Trainspotting!
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What I'm Doing Now

6/21/2016

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Hi, this post is not about trains. I just wanted to say what I'm doing that's keeping me too busy to blog very often.  Well, I know this is a post...But I've got baseball, and I'm going to do lots of summer camp.  I'm going to try to find some time to blog some more soon. 
Thanks for visiting my website.  I'm still a boy who loves trains. I also love baseball. Come back soon!
​Nathan
P.S. In the photo below there were train tracks behind those trees!
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Long Ago

4/14/2016

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The Beltline trail in Toronto used to be a railway track.  Now it's a long path to walk on or ride bikes on.  Long ago there was a train derailment. Here's a photo.
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 It happened in December, 1946.  It was a CN train.  It was a big derailment.  Let's hope no one got hurt!
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ThrowBack...Saturday?

4/2/2016

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If you've been following my blog for a while you may remember this song.  I was singing it this morning in my kitchen and I thought I should put it on my blog again for you to hear.  My friend John wrote it and recorded it and even made the video.  It's really great.  I hope you like it as much as I do.  Enjoy!
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I'd Like To Be a Conductor Some Day

3/18/2016

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CP sent me this video to show me what a day in the life of a train conductor is like.  I'd like to be a conductor some day.  They're not hiring right now which  is okay for me, but I thought you'd like to see the video anyway.
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    About Nathan

    Nathan is a 13 year-old boy who loves ALL trains. Especially freight trains. And especially CP Rail.
    This is a blog about  his journey to discover more about the trains he loves.

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