eBooks coming soon for out-of print titles

Every week we field inquiries about three of Ian Wilson's books which are now out of print: To Stratford Under Steam, Steam Through London, and Steam in Northern Ontario.  Because of the prohibitive printing cost, you won't see these hardcover volumes reissued. However, it is our intention to release each of them as an eBook in the coming months. For a fraction of the hardcover price, you will be able to purchase a digital copy which can be perused on your eReader, computer, or even your big screen TV.  Each book will contain many new images in addition to all the original text and photos, making them attractive even to those who already own the hardcover versions. Steam in Northern Ontario will be the first eBook released. Watch our blog and website for details in the new year.

Mark Steyn and I

Three years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting author Mark Steyn in Toronto. He was promoting America Alone at the time. We had a nice chat about trains (he's a railfan, by the way) and I gave him a copy of Steam Scenes of Allandale.

Although we write books in different fields, Mark and I share common ground. We both swim against the stream in many ways. Back in 1997, I began writing my series of hardcover volumes documenting the twilight of the railway steam era in Ontario. One big reason I undertook that task was that no one else was doing it! I had an interest in visiting the day-to-day world of steam locomotives, steamships and industries powered by steam. The nuts-and-bolts environment of machinery that fascinated boys young and old. I noticed right off the bat that, for the most part, local museums and archives had no interest in these matters.

I knew that I was doing the right thing with Steam at Allandale, my first book project, after a memorable visit to the Penetang Centennial Museum. The young girl curator at the time, barely out of college, had no clue that the town had even had a railway line! I had to educate this person, who was otherwise fully engaged in some sort of fundraising bakesale, about the recent history of the town. That, and countless other interactions with dumbfounded local library, archive and museum staff across the province, convinced me that I had a role to play which would not be fulfilled by those working on behalf of the taxpayer.

Pity. I hope things are changing, but I won't bet on it for awhile (don't believe me? My efforts are nearest to the "Emerging Publishers" category for Canada Council grants. Quebec has 23% of Canada's population, but received 57% of the money in 2009, the most recent year on file. And check out this feminist winner which received 7% of the grant money and this one which gobbled up 6%).

Anyhow, to Mark Steyn, the subject of this picture. The other day on our Classic Books for Boys blog, I spoke about the refreshing experience of the Royal Tour, and how it makes me believe that the Canada of my youth is back. Mark and I are not among those who drink the bathwater of the institutional elite, believing that the history of Canada's institutions begins with Trudeau's French code law-inspired Charter of Rights and "Freedoms" (emphasis mine). Nor do we assert that our legal traditions begin in 1867. Nope, they go way back, about 800 years, and Mark nails that point with his piece entitled The Fool at the Hill.

Steam Over Palmerston back in print!

"At the crossroads community of Dunkeld five miles to the north, shade trees are obscuring this once-promising locale, whose proximity to the Elora Road became of little use when other stations developed as railway shipping points. A stock pen and turnip waxing plant on the south side justify a spur, while a tiny freight shed and station residence lay claim to the roadside corners to the north. A lady residing in the small depot nestled under maple trees acts as caretaker, and exchanges mail and packages with the trains. Officially a flag station not otherwise requiring a stop, perhaps out of some chivalrous instinct the mixed train nevertheless customarily halts to assist the caretaker in the handling of mail sacks. One Christmas morning a few years ago, she was in for an unexpected surprise. With a heavy train taxing the capacity of the 1200-class Ten Wheeler out of Southampton, the head end crew decided that a stop at Dunkeld would incur the risk of stalling the train. As a result, the southbound Mixed rolled right through Dunkeld on Christmas morning, forcing the otherwise friendly baggageman to heave the heaviest load of mail of the year out the doors onto the ground on the way past."

When we printed Steam Over Palmerston ten years ago, there were about 50 copies produced without case covers. We held onto these, and have now had them cased and dust jackets applied. So, for a short time, Steam Over Palmerston is back in print. You can order a copy, and/or any of the other available titles, online at our Canadian Branchline bookstore or Classic Books for Boys bookstore.

Digital presentation tomorrow at Orillia Library

Hi folks:

I'm doing a book reading tomorrow (Sunday) at the Orillia Public Library, at 1:30 p.m. This will be a first for me--combined reading with digital slide show. I've taken passages from five of my books (the two Allandales, Lindsay, Northern Ontario and Swing Bridge) and designed a PowerPoint slide show to accompany the reading. There will be a book signing afterword. There's a piece about the event in today's newspaper.

Saturday gig at Orillia Farmer's Market

A reminder that we are set up every Saturday from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Orillia Farmer's Market in our fair city. Browse and/or purchase any of the books we have in stock, or just come to chat! I've been filling visitors in on The King's Puzzle. Today I wrote Chapter 8 of an anticipated 25 chapters.

To quote the Orillia Farmer's Market publicity blurb:

"This is one of the longer-running farmers' markets in the province, with its roots in the 1840s. The Farmers' Market continues to proudly boast of its range of locally produced foods, handmade crafts from around the county and regularly scheduled special events for the family. Our growers offer fresh-picked produce in season, and drug-free meats, with a variety of baked goods and ready-to-eat treats in a sociable atmosphere. Bring your family, meet your friends, shop the vendors, enjoy the talent of local musicians in the Market Cafe."

Biographical account of writing journey

I've given a number of interviews in my writing career, but none more revealing than with Kate Grigg a couple of weeks ago. Kate's take is in today's Orillia Packet & Times; you can find the story online here. I'll say no more except that she has it right in every detail.

Norfolk Fruit Growers and E. P. Muntz

Many state-of-the-art cold storage facilities were constructed on railway sidings in Ontario during the 1930s. At Simcoe, Ontario, the Norfolk Fruit Growers Association built such a 94 x 150 foot reinforced concrete cold storage and pre-cooling plant in 1930. Various sections of the plant were used for grading, packing, pre-cooling and storage. There was a covered loading platform along a new railway siding. A doubling of capacity and a cider-making addition soon followed. Apples were shipped to Northern Ontario, Quebec, the Prairie Provinces and Great Britain. You can read in detail about fruit packing and railway switching operations at Simcoe circa 1954 in Steam Echoes of Hamilton.

Among other features, something about the Simcoe plant intrigues me: it was built by E. P. Muntz. This gentleman was a pioneer in the field of prestressed concrete design and construction. In addition to the Queen Elizabeth Way bridge in Hamilton, the Dominion Coal silos in Toronto and many other noteworthy structures, he was responsible for the modern locomotive coaling plants on the Canadian National Railways' (CNR) Northern Ontario District. Many of these structures still stand, albeit in derelict condition, including a 150-ton example at Washago.

Progress at Severn Bridge

I have been working on my N scale representation of the Canadian National Railways (CNR) Huntsville Subdivision. There is a section of single track mainline between Callander (on the layout) and the north staging yard (which I will call Nipissing).

Even though the scene to the right, at Severn Bridge on the Newmarket Subdivision (just north of Washago) does not fit geographically into the layout section in question, I have chosen to transplant it there. As you can see from the picture, it is crying out to be reproduced in miniature.

In the second picture, you can see the progress which I am making with the assistance of my sons Spencer and Duncan, and my friend Paul Frechette (all three of these unfortunate individuals have been coaxed out by me in frigid weather to hold the cold end of a steel measuring tape). And with not even a Tim Horton's coffee as reward (seeing his opening, son Spencer has spotted a bag of cookies in the railway room, as I type this, and has asked for his "reward" now).

Back to the model. This shows the plaster abutments, along with a Central Valley truss bridge (and a Micro Engineering girder bridge to the left) in a mockup of the scene. A pair of CNR F-7s are set up with a northbound manifest freight train. Also in the picture are several elms and maples which I have made recently from a Scenic Express tree kit. The truck in the foreground is positioned on what will become a section of Highway 11. Between the stone abutment and the stone pier will be the Severn River.

Steam Scenes of Allandale and Steam at Allandale nicely describe the steam-era operations along the Newmarket and Huntsville Subdivisions, on which the layout is based.

Pyrites from Northern Ontario and Quebec to the Niagara area

For many years, North American Cyanamid of Welland, Ontario (pictured circa 1930) used only imported sulphur for acid production (Canada had no known deposits of sulphur). Then, in late 1954, a Noranda Mines plant opened in nearby Port Robinson, Ontario. This outfit recovered sulphur from a substance known as pyrites (a mud-like by-product of smelting operations).

Coincident with the opening of the recovery plant, half a dozen steel-frame boxcar loads of pyrites were shipped from the mining area every day. These cars were routed along the CNR Huntsville and Bala Subdivisions to Mimico, then to the Niagara Peninsula.

With the new Noranda Mines plant in Port Robinson, the Cyanamid began sourcing most of its sulphur (in the form of sulphur dioxide) from there. This is the kind of development which makes writing books and building model railways so fascinating. My Steam to the Niagara Frontier book is set in June of 1954, so the Noranda-Port Robinson traffic is non-existent. By February of 1955, those half dozen cars a day were being forwarded from the mine to the Port Robinson plant (along the Huntsville Subdivision, which I and Dave Robinson are modelling). For that reason, I'm a little flexible on the era of the railway layout. Besides, the passenger diesels in the late 1954 Super Continental paint scheme are too tempting to pass up in N scale...

Thornbury apple plant

I took these pictures back in the summer of 2000, when I was endeavouring to build an HO scale model railway depicting the Meaford Subdivision of the Canadian National Railways (CNR) during the 1950s. This is the former Georgian Bay Fruit Growers Association cold storage facility at Thornbury, constructed in 1932.

As I relate in detail in Steam at Allandale, the massive cold storage facility was a beehive of activity in September and October from the 1930s through the 1950s. "Apples Wanted" signs went up, beckoning truckloads of freshly picked fruit. Beginning in mid-September, a carload of crated apples from Thornbury was usually part of the consist of the daily way freight. These shipments were consigned to points in Northern Ontario such as New Liskeard. A similar pattern was followed with Norfolk County apples shipped from Simcoe, Ontario, as detailed in the pages of Steam Echoes of Hamilton.

Refrigerator cars for this service were equipped with charcoal heaters to prevent freezing of the cargo. For more background on this activity, refer to my Apple Harvest piece.

Coal handling at Midland

For anyone under 60 years of age walking along the waterfront at Midland, Ontario these days, it's hard to imagine the railway and shipping history of that Great Lakes port. Granted, there are clues: one of the four sets of transfer grain elevators is still standing, occasionally a Great Lakes freighter calls with a load of wheat or stone. There are few people around today, however, who recall the tremendous coal storage facility at Midland. This was the Century Coal Company, which was a subsidiary of Canada Steamship Lines.

This time of year, every year in the steam era, a flurry of bulk cargo ships called at Midland. They sailed from places such as Toledo and Sandusky on Lake Erie, and Chicago on Lake Michigan. The latter point was where the Canadian National Railways loaded coal into ships such as the Alexander Leslie for furtherance to Midland. There, the railway made use of the Century Coal storage dock for their locomotive fuel.

The operation of the Century Coal Company at Midland is a fascinating one, and I spent several days going through Canada Steamship Lines archives to piece it together. As that aspect of the CNR steam train history in Ontario is of particular interest to me, I gave it extended coverage in Steam Memories of Lindsay. If you would like to learn more about the railway and shipping history of Midland, Ontario, I invite you to purchase the book.

The old mill in Simcoe, Ontario

I enjoy poking around old steam era buildings, even if they have been reduced to foundations. In writing a series of books about Canadian National Railways operations in Ontario during the 1950s, I have found reason to explore just about every CNR line in the province. In some ways I envy railway modellers who are able to focus on one territory to the exclusion of all others. They end up actually building something. The rest of us, myself included, like to devote our time to exploring old railway lines in a broader sense. A little of this, a little of that. That approach has characterized my series of books. I do not linger long in any one area, but move on, in order to cover everything in one writing career.

I look back fondly on my research trips. These are still ongoing, of course (right now I am exploring parts of the Canadian Pacific's Mactier Subdivision for my next book which is entitled The King's Puzzle). One place I explored a few years ago was Simcoe, Ontario. This was in support of my effort entitled Steam Echoes of Hamilton. You can read all about the workings of the daily way freight on the Wabash line which served the community in that book.

The north part of Simcoe, circa 1954, was known as Wellington Heights, or North Simcoe. The old "Air Line", otherwise known as the Wabash, or the Cayuga Subdivision of the CNR, passed through. When I explored the area by the former location of the tracks back in 2008, I was intrigued by the foundations of an old mill there. It stood near Sutton's Pond. Sutton was the original owner of the mill. The pond is now dried up (the dam was closed a few years ago).

In 1953, the venerable old mill suffered a fire, but remained standing. At the time, it was owned by two local gentlemen named Riddle and McIntosh. In addition to grain, they also handled coal. Their mill complex stood at the end of a spur which curved southeasterly off the mainline. Their offices were located at 550 Norfolk Street North, directly across the main road from the mill. Connected to the mill were a number of concrete coal bins, situated west of the spur. When I visited the site, the foundations of the mill and the coal bins were still there.

It would be nice to learn of anyone who is contemplating a model of the old mill and coal yard. Any such project would include one of those neat steam era coal trucks with a scissors, or jack-knife, hoist for unloading coal into the bins. Otherwise, railway hopper cars dumped coal into the concrete bins as well.