Author Archives: Troy

A ride on Alberta Prairie Railway’s No. 6060 Steam Train

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It would seem that our clan has become a train family. Almost three years ago, Ellie got a Thomas the Tank Engine train set for Christmas, which quickly became a favourite toy, and has remained so since then. Enter Ethan stage left, and we have returned to the golden age of trains! A typical day for me now starts with helping Ethan create a new train track before anyone else is up in the house. The girls get up after awhile and join in the engineering and suddenly there are three kids on their hands and knees toot-tooting around the living room floor. Often when I come home from work, the train set is still there, but morphed a few times and they are still playing with it.

Ethan is the biggest rail fan of the family, and also seems to have the keenest hearing. We live within earshot of the train tracks, and several times a day the trains roll by, blowing their horns. Ethan stops whatever he is doing, points to the window and says enthusiastically, “Toot toot!”

(Note: this next video is provided just for Grandmothers and Aunts to get their kid fix)

I myself have a HO scale train set that I inherited from my father that is a work in progress in the basement, so I guess I too have the train bug.

So when we heard about Railfan Day on the August long weekend in Stettler on the Alberta Prairie Railway, how could we resist?

It costs a pretty penny to ride the steam trains, so Naomi decided she would drive from Stettler to Big Valley and meet us there for lunch before our train ride back. Along the way she intercepted the train a few times to get pictures or video of the train going by.


Us on the train.


Naomi getting a picture of us going by.

That day they had Engine No. 6060, an old Canadian National 4-8-2 steam locomotive pulling the train. No. 6060 is a 1944 Mountain Class 4-8-2 steam locomotive and is the largest operating steam engine in Canada. It is a huge train that is more powerful than many of the modern diesels seen on the main lines. It is so big and heavy (93 feet long and 637,540 pounds) that it can’t go very fast on the light-gauge railway we were on. We took two hours for the short distance (including the train robbery), going about 20-28 km/h, but the 6060 is capable of going about 120 km/h on a main line! See www.6060.org for more info.

The drive wheels on this engine are 6 feet tall!

Since it was Railfan Day, there were a few special events. They did a slow photo pass of the Big Valley station with some old diesel engines and the 6060, plus, we could get into the cab of any of the engines there!

On the train there was a singer providing entertainment, a train robbery, a meal in Big Valley, then the ride back. Watch and listen for Ellie, Adelaine and I in the video Naomi got of us of us on the train at around 6:45 in the video.

We had a really great day as a family, one I am sure the kids are going to remember for a long time.

Big Sky Country

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Here in Big Sky Country, you can often see storms building up over several hours as they move in. When I lived in Ontario, storms were usually part of giant weather front that would be hundreds of kilometres long, stretching down into central United States, and sky would often just get darker and darker until the storm was there. But here, close to the mountains, we don’t see those kinds of systems develop. Instead, it can be lots of big, individual clouds, and with fewer trees and open land, you can see them a long way off!

This storm I was able to watch for over an hour until I was in the right place and at the right time, just before the sun dipped behind the mountains. It had the classic anvil shape until just before I took the pictures when the strong updraft punched over the top.

Lets go for a walk

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We really enjoy living out in the country. On the weekend, a warm sunny day finally coincided with what Ellie calls a “Daddy stay at home day”, and we made the best of it by going for a walk down our country driveway. Of course, there were detours and delays… first we have to stop at the neighbour’s and see the kittens, check the garden, pick up every second dull rock in the driveway and complain that the rock bucket is too heavy, etc, etc. It is a simple thing going for a walk down the driveway with the kids, but it is always and adventure.

Chasing Rainbows

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Lately our area in Alberta has been experiencing almost nightly thunder storms.  We noticed this rainbow from the house and took the kids out for a look. When we had a better view outside we saw that it was actually a double rainbow. But, on further inspection we noticed that there was something even more special about this rainbow.

(click any image for a larger view)

We observed that the main bow seemed to have multiple levels of refraction where you could see the rainbow colours repeating over and over.

A supernumerary rainbow – also known as a stacker rainbow – is an infrequent phenomenon, consisting of several faint rainbows on the inner side of the primary rainbow, and very rarely also outside the secondary rainbow. Supernumerary rainbows are slightly detached and have pastel colour bands that do not fit the usual pattern. More info:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow#Supernumerary_rainbow

I decided to get in the car and see if I could get a better view of the whole rainbow as there are quite a few trees around the house, but once I got out in the fields, the storm was moving off the rainbow was fading. So the chase began!

Racing southeast following the storm I was able to catch up and get some more pictures of the rainbow before it completely faded.

Snake

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Image used under Creative Commons

A couple years ago Ellie started talking to Snake. She would have great (one-sided) conversations with her imaginary friend and would tell us what he was doing. We were curious where this suddenly came from. I was worried she had befriended some snake-tattooed person or something. We now think that it is based off the Disney snake character, Hiss, from the animal Robin Hood movie.

As Ellie talked more and more about Snake…

DSC_2876

we learned that he isn’t any ordinary snake, not that we expected him to be…

Snake apparently has two feet and two hands. When I tried to point out that snakes don’t have hands or feet, Ellie explained that he is the only one. Snake is starting to sound more like Trogdor, although she assures me he has no wings and does not shoot fire.

Trogdor, the Burninator from Homestarrunner.com

Snake has been with us for well over a year now, and we still learn new things about him through Ellie’s stories. For example, if we tell Ellie not to jump on a chair, she might start a new story by saying, “Once, when Snake was jumping on a chair, he…”

Ellie talked about Snake so much that Adelaine started talking about him too. Adelaine, of course, likes to do whatever Ellie does, so shortly after Adelaine turned two and was still barely able to put a sentence together she started doing things like laughing and saying, “No, Snake, no,” over and over. This of course made Ellie angry that Adelaine was apparently talking to her imaginary friend.

Now that Ellie is drawing a lot more, I finally asked her to draw a picture of Snake for me. So here he is, straight from Ellie’s imagination:

As you can see, Snake is purple with arms and legs. He can also drive a car, fly a airplane and a spaceship, and many other funny things.

Snake is no longer alone now as a new cohort of “friends” has been added. Frank was the next one to come along. Apparently, Frank is a red tractor. It wasn’t until months later that I put it together that the inspiration for Frank likely came from the Pixar movie Cars.

Frank’s gonna get you by ~Splapp-me-do on deviantART

Other friends include Door and Lily, who seem to be human, possibly brother and sister. We expect many more friends in the years to come from this girl’s very active imagination.