Officer Ron Morrison of the CP Police was a good guest to our school. He taught us all about rail safety.

He taught us to not take short cuts through train tunnels, bridges, under trains or climbing through train cars. You never know when trains are going to move.
And officer Morrison taught us a saying: Any Time Is Train Time.

Which means you can walk across a crossing 10 times and you wouldn't see a train, and then tomorrow you could come to a railroad crossing and a train could be coming. There isn't a schedule for trains.

Officer Morrison showed us a video about a fox and a bird. The fox was doing all the stuff you shouldn't do, like putting stuff on tracks and throwing things at trains and walking on train bridges and through train tunnels. And the bird seemed to be much smarter than the fox.

Officer Morrison taught us a lot. I think the grade ones enjoyed it. We made him a thank you card. He gave us activity books about train safety and CP pencils.

Thank you Officer Morrison!

I met Kenny. Kenny is from Newmarket and he read the article in the Toronto Star about me and he emailed me. Kenny is a boy who likes GO trains. In fact I am meeting the GO train people soon. They invited me to see the trains in about a week from now.

We played with my model construction train (the one in the other blog post from my birthday). And we looked at my CP engineer outfit and we looked at my CP and CN maps. Kenny's mom came over with him and we had lunch. And then we went downstairs (after we were excused) and we started making a wooden train set.
I hope to see Kenny again and maybe go to his house one day when we're finished with my sister's horseback riding lesson.
Keep reading my blog because something else is coming up (I don't want to ruin the surprise!)

We had a very special visit to the train museum. We met the manager, Bob and he gave us a tour.
The museum is in an old round house in downtown Toronto.  It was built in 1929 for steam trains. Now it's a national historic site and it was donated to the museum by CP Rail.
We saw Bob's office. It's in a train car that was from the actual 1917 Halifax explosion. The train car saved the life of the general manager because he was inside eating breakfast at the time. 
Here is what it looked like back then:

There was lots to see at the train museum.  I did like the lego train. It was cool. Bob controlled it and made three trains go at one time. One of the volunteers made it in his parents basement but lent it to the museum until he has kids of his own. I would like a cool train like that.

I played the train simulator. It was really difficult. I got to honk the horn (but not in the stations! Only ring the bell there) on the simulator and use the real train controls from a GE U33 Locomotive. I learned a lot about driving a real train. 

The top speed is 70 miles per hour. Also, there's no steering in a train. It just follows the tracks but the engineer controls the speed. And it takes more than a mile to come to a complete stop if you're driving 65 miles an hour. That's because there's nothing to stop the wheels from sliding on the tracks. Like a sled on mud. I never knew I could drive a train!

Then Bob took us outside to see more.

We saw the old train station. Bob said that people used to gather around and sit in the train station and drink coffee there because there would have been a radio so they could all hear the hockey game.
I had a fun time at the train museum. I would like to go back in the summer to take a ride on the mini train.
 If you want to visit too, just go to www.torontorailwaymuseum.com
 Thanks Bob!

On Thursday, January 29th I was in the Toronto Star. I was in the Life section, on the cover.

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I went to a level crossing and Kevin from the newspaper took pictures of me

But we didn't see any trains. That was too bad.
 But I saw many other trains that day on the way to skiing. We saw about 8 different trains. We saw 6 CN trains and 2 CP trains. There were tracks on both sides of the road. My mom and me were on one side and my dad and my sister, Noa Rae, were on the other side and we all looked for trains.
It was very nice of the Toronto Star to put me in the paper

I got lots of awesome emails. I am still working on answering them. Thank you for reading my blog and thank you to the Toronto Star!
Here is the article:

 I was in the newspaper last week. I am working on a post about it. But I got distracted by this awesome video. Take a look!

For my birthday I got a construction train set with a level crossing. I put together all the pieces and now I am having a fun time with it.

It was from my grandparents while we were out for dinner. A share of CP means I own a little bit of the company now. I feel lucky because I own some of CP. I had a great birthday with lots of train presents.

I got a great gift for the holidays. And it was all about trains.

When I got this DVD set it had some of the different railways in Canada and the U.S. I chose to watch the CP one first and on the screen we travelled with Canadian Pacific 2816. 

It's a steam engine and it went through the Canadian Rockies. 

I had lots of fun seeing the photographers and the friendly sick kids hospital. It's a kids hospital that when kids are really sick the train carries them to a different hospital, or it's a little ride for fun so they can forget about their sickness. 

On the photographs on the box there are different railways and there is lots of scenery. There are lots of mountains in the background. When I watch the videos I feel like a real Canadian hiking on the mountains and seeing the trains go by. I'm very excited to finish watching all the DVDs. There are 6 Canadian and 6 U.S. videos. For example, Kicking Horse Pass, Tracks of the Beaver and the American railway videos include: On the Road with Frisco 1522 and America By Rail: Winter Wonderland, and many more.

There are 12 movies and more than 15 hours of video. I got lots of presents for the holidays and I like this one the best.

When we drove up and saw the holiday train there were beautiful lights in red, white, pictures of Santa and snowmen, there were lots of colours. 
I was shocked when I saw it. I've never seen such a thing in my life. 
Click on the first picture below for a slide show:

Then Salem came and gave us a tour. There were sleeper cars and there was a lot of being careful when we were walking from car to car. 
Queen Elizabeth and Winston Churchill have ridden on the cars we saw. They were about 100 years old. And some of the wood on the cars you can't find anymore. We went to the back car. It was named after the boss of the railway, Van Horne. It was decorated really well. 

There were lots of decorations, there were even Christmas balls hanging from the ceiling.

When we got off the train it was called 'detraining.' I learned that word.
There was a big crowd. We got to sit on the rail tracks with the other people from the holiday train.
I just liked the scenery. There was a box car that came down and it made a little stage and all the musicians sang songs and played beautiful music, Rock and Roll! 
Here's a video:

It was really fun.
We stayed until the train left.
Here's a video of the Holiday Train leaving:

The Holiday Train travels across the country collecting food for local food banks.  At this stop they raised money too.  15 thousand dollars!

We gave our big bag of food to Bruce who drives the food truck. On the back of the truck it said 'Fighting Hunger'.

It was awesome.
I felt happy and I felt good to donate something to fight hunger.
I had a great time.

On November 29th I will be riding on the CP Rail holiday train. 
I hope I like the journey from the  CP General Yard Office in Scarborough across to Lambton Yard.

CP is collecting food to give the food to local food banks.  
I will be collecting food for people who can't afford to buy food. I hope my food gets donated and I hope people get a good meal.
That's why I like donating for the holiday train. 
Each and every year since I was 2 or 3 we've collected food up and down our street, but this is the first time we've ever been on the holiday train. We send flyers up and down our street and ask for donations. So this year we are going to bring all the food we collected up and down our street to the holiday train to donate.
I think donating food is a great way to give people who have literally nothing more food. 
I am very excited about donating food and I want to hear how much food they raise this time.
CP has been collecting food for 15 years now. 
They've collected so much food and it's so big of a number I can't remember.
I looked it up and CP has collected 3.3 million pounds of food.
You can donate food and you will fill another person's bucket somewhere and they will be happy with a meal.  
Here is a link to the book How Full Is Your Bucket: For Kids:

Print off eight pages of CP Holiday Train themed colouring and activity pages. 
Once the sheets have been coloured, have kids use them to decorate boxes to be filled with donations to your food bank. It's a great activity to teach kids about the importance of giving before they attend the event.   Here is the link to colouring pages:

I can't wait for my ride on the CP Holiday Train.  
I will tell you all about my ride after it's done and I will take lots of pictures.

Canadian Pacific had a big ceremony on Remembrance Day because 100 years ago soldiers fought in World War One. 
The ceremony was at CP's Memorial Square in Calgary.  The square was built to remember the start of the war.
I think CP had a great ceremony on Remembrance Day.  I hope to be at that celebration one day. 
It's cool how CP carried the soldiers to the boats and they go on the boats to go to Europe.  
Here is a picture of some of the soldiers leaving for war on a train from London, Ontario:

I found this information on CP's Website:
During the First and Second World Wars almost every soldier was transported to a training location and to the point of departure for Europe by train — CP Rail. 
The ships that carried troops across the ocean were often also owned by CP.  


THE JAIL AND HOSPITAL CARS
CP even had jail cars and hospital cars.  The jail car sounds cool. I have never seen one before and I wonder what it is like inside a hospital car - what they do and what they see.  Here is a picture of the inside of a hospital car:

My two great-grandfathers both fought in World War Two.  I wonder if they took a CP train.

You can read more about CP and the war effort, and see more photos here: