Other Useful Railfan Information
Looking for us?...mailing lists
and meets for Toronto area railfans
Online mailing
lists
for Toronto area railfans:
There are a
number of Yahoogroups.com mailing lists where local railfans exchange
information, answer questions, and generally hang out. These include:
C-P-R
- Discussion of CP Rail
C-N-R
- Discussion of CN Rail
CNET
- Mailing list of the CN SIG of the NMRA
ontfan
- A paging list for nifty trains in the southern Ontario area
CanPassRail -
Discussion of Canadian Passenger Railways
Bruce Rys
- Discussion of railway lines in the Bruce Peninsula
Sign
up with Yahoogroups (it's free), register with these lists, and
you'll get plenty of interesting email!
Two dormant
mailing lists are available at the listserver at the University of
Nebraska. These are:
CPRSOO
- CPR/SOO
CNET
- Mailing list of the CN SIG of the NMRA
To access these
lists, send an email message
to listserv@crc.vms.unl with the body reading
"subscribe
cnet " and your name
Up close and
face to face:
The C-N-R/C-P-R
list members hold an annual meet at Bayview Junction every summer
where fans can gather and put faces with the names. Watch for details
on these mailing lists.
A good question!
The main CN and
CP freight lines run just about all the time. If you stake out the CN
Halton and York Subdivisions, or the CP North Toronto and Galt
Subdivisions, you can't avoid seeing a train before very long. For
planning purposes, count on better than a train per hour. This is an
average, there are lulls and there are periods of congestion on these lines.
Here's some information about
Safety and Security - Can I take pictures here?
The two most frequent questions the author gets from people thinking about visiting Toronto are, "Is Toronto a safe place to railfan?" and "Will I get hassled by the police if I am taking pictures of trains?"
First, about crime - Toronto is a very safe city, but no big city is perfectly safe.
Use
common sense, especially if alone, at night, or in secluded areas.
Now, about Homeland Security - Railfanning is not grounds for paranoia in Toronto.
I
have never heard of a railfan getting the "potential
terrorist" treatment in Toronto.
There are
plenty of railfan hams (or is it ham railfans?) in the Toronto area.
Some repeaters
to try if you're a visiting ham are:
VE3 WOO 145.110
(-) PL 82.5
Don't forget the favourite railfan simplex channel - 146.490
Upper Canada Railway Society
The UCRS is a
long-standing railway club with chapters in Toronto and Hamilton.
Until recently, the UCRS published the monthly publication Rail
and Transit. The
publication is dormant at the moment. The UCRS still holds meetings
in the Toronto and Hamilton areas.
The UCRS'
address is:
P.O. Box 122,
Station 'A',
Toronto, Ontario,
Canada M5W 1A2
(This is not an
official ad, just useful information)
Despite the
pause in its newsletter, the UCRS still maintains its UCRS
Home Page
Again, this is
not an official ad...but it's my humble opinion that the Trackside
Guide is the best, most valuable, source of information on railways
in Canada. It's published annually by the Bytown Railway Society. It
has locomtive and equipment rosters for mainline and industrial rail
operations, guides to preserved equipment, passenger schedules,
mileage and siding data for all Canadian rail lines, etc, etc, etc!
If you can't
find a copy in local hobby stores, the Bytown Railway Society's
snailmail address is:
P.O. Box 141,
Station 'A'
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada K1N 8V1
The BRS also publishes the monthly newsletter Branchline
Click here to contact Bytown by email or access the Bytown Web Site
I haven't done much research yet, but here are a couple of suggestions:
Royal York
Hotel, Skydome Hotels...pricey high-class hotels with good views of
Union Station
Be sure to
write me with your own favourites!
If you are
looking for places with railway reading:
The Metro
Reference Library,
789 Yonge Street north of Bloor, has a good collection of
periodicals including the CRHA's newsletter.
The Metro
Urban Affairs Library,
in the new City Hall building at 55 John Street, just two blocks
north of the John Street Interlocking Tower, has a great collection
of old UCRS Newsletters, Railway Age magazines, urban planning and
historical/heritage documents about Toronto's railways. You'll also
find lots of material on urban transportation, including the TTC and
GO Transit.
Metro
Toronto Library Information
Toronto's Transit Heritage
Toronto has a rich history of streetcars and electric interurbans - and an excellent modern-day public transit system. Check out William E. Miller's TTC page for all sorts of good stuff about the Toronto Transportation Commission.
Railway Radio frequencies in use around Toronto are:
CN |
Road - Channel 1 |
161.415 |
All trains monitor this channel |
RTC - Channel 2 |
161.205 |
Kingston Sub RTC |
|
RTC - Channel 3 |
160.935 |
Uxbridge/Newmarket
RTC |
|
RTC - Channel 4 |
160.665 |
Bala, Weston, York, Halton RTC |
|
RTC - Channel 8 |
161.025 |
Oakville, Halton RTC |
|
Police |
161.235 |
||
MOW |
160.215 |
||
CP |
Road Channel 1 |
161.475 |
Galt Canpa Havelock |
Road Channel 4 |
161.115 |
Mactier North Toronto Belleville |
|
Road Channel 5 |
161.325 |
Galt |
|
Road Channel 7 |
161.535 |
Mactier |
|
Road |
160.815 |
Hamilton |
|
Police |
159.885 |
||
MOW |
160.845 |
||
GO Transit |
Area-wide |
413.9375 |
|
Willowbrook Shops |
419.4375 |
||
VIA Rail |
TMC Operations |
463.9625 |
Yard and train servicing operations |
On Board Service |
160.200 |
Loco to train communication |
A local fan and ham enthusiast,
Bryan Passifiume', maintains an excellent web site about
Toronto Area Rail Scanning with all sorts of good scoop!
Copyright © 1996, Paul Cordingley
Revised - February 17, 2005
url:http://www.trainweb.org/railsintoronto/othrinfo.html