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About Paul O'Shell

Started my railroad career at CN in July 1969 and retired from the industry 49 years later on March 1, 2018. My area of expertise was railway Work Equipment. Reside in Kelowna, BC. I use a Nikon D850 full frame & Nikon D7200 (Nikkor 24-70mm, 24-120mm, 35mm, 18-140mm, 55-300mm, & 80-400mm) and scan with an Epson V550. Enjoy my contributions. Be safe. Lots more of my photos at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/197431498@N07/albums

Paul O'Shell's Railpictures.ca photo upload statistics

Number of images: 484
Total gold: 5457
Number of comments recieved : 1024
Number of comments posted : 1005
Total views: 918369

Paul O'Shell has 1 image in the Time Machine

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Paul O'Shell's 484 photos on Railpictures.ca:

Clear signal at 0.7 on the Allanwater Sub. and VIA 6457 & VIA 6456 get a hefty notch bump from the engineer as VIA #1 departs Armstrong, ON to continue its journey west. VIA 88703 Banff Park is tucked in between the power and the baggage/crew car and deadheaded all the way from Toronto to Vancouver on this run. It's a great feeling to be sitting in the Skyline car taking pictures on this beautiful day in Armstrong, then being down in the yard with some Work Equipment machinery as I had done so many times before. ????

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	VIA Rail
Date:	06/02/2022
Location:	Armstrong
Province:	Ontario

1 Comments | 11 Favourites

CN's Sioux Lookout, ON station is looking grand in this late winter shot. It was rather cool walking in the shadow of VIA #2's consist as I made my way down the platform to grab as many photos as possible during the scheduled stop. Many of the passengers stepped off the train and got right back on after getting a quick breath of the frosty cold air.

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	03/09/2020
Location:	Sioux Lookout
Province:	Ontario

3 Comments | 11 Favourites

VIA Rail's Saskatoon, SK station looks fresh and clean in the June 3, 2002 photo. I had stepped off of VIA #1 The Canadian, as I do at every stop, for some fresh air, walking exercise, and photos. Todays weather was amazing and allowed for some great shots at the station, on the platform, and of the CN yard and maintenance complex.

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	VIA Rail
Date:	06/03/2022
Location:	Saskatoon
Province:	Saskatchewan

3 Comments | 10 Favourites

The ever ongoing exterior restoration of the CN Melville, SK station is evident in this June 8, 2022 photo, as it was during two previous trips on The Canadian in March of 2020, and December 2021. Scaffolding and leaning ladders still adorn the outside of the building behind a Frost security fence as passengers from VIA #2 mill about the puddled platform enjoying some fresh air and leg stretching. Meanwhile, a crew change is taking place up ahead at the lead locomotive. Of note, at the upper right corner of this photo is the original coal oil marker lamp hanger bracket still attached to the end of the Skyline car. I noticed a number of these brackets still adorning a variety of these old stainless steel cars on The Canadian equipment, and cars assigned to the Churchill trains as well. On many cars, these marker lamp fixtures had been removed and patched over with a stainless steel plate.

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	06/08/2022
Location:	Melville
Province:	Saskatchewan

5 Comments | 8 Favourites

As much as I would have liked to sneak in a Work Equipment photo for my 200th post attempt, I thought I better stick with what appears to be fan favourites of late ... a Churchill, MB shot. :-) Here VIA 693 has completed its two-day journey from Winnipeg to Churchill and the consist will rest silently for less than 10 hours before VIA 6443 and VIA 6458 are fired back up for a southward trip to The Pas. My journey to Churchill was a great experience, and whether you're a railroader, railfan, nature lover, or just enjoy a travelling adventure, this is a trip I would highly recommend taking, if for nothing else, its uniqueness. I'm looking forward to doing it again in the cold weather months. :-) My thanks to all those who ⭐'d my recent deluge of Churchill trip photos, and for all the kind comments I received.

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	VIA Rail
Date:	08/02/2022
Location:	Churchill
Province:	Manitoba

5 Comments | 11 Favourites

VIA #693 continues to roll north on the morning of August 2, 2022 getting ever closer to Churchill. After sitting in the Skyline dome sipping fresh made coffee and watching the sun rise for the passed hour & a half, I made my way down to the dining area of VIA 8515 Skyline to enjoy another cup of coffee and the smell of grilling bacon coming from the cars kitchen. It's now 06:48 and the train is around Mile 469.3 Chesnaye, MB, 2 hours & 10 minutes (40 miles) south of Churchill. I see the cars windows weren't cleaned overnight while I enjoyed a few hours sleep in VIA 8202 Chateau Bienville, but it didn't take away from the beautiful scenery outside as we rolled north. It almost looks like a wallpaper image covering the windows. Those tripod telegraph poles have dotted the trackside for many hundreds of miles of this great journey. In a few more minutes the VIA car attendant will be setting a plate full of scrambled eggs, bacon strips, hash browned potatoes, and fresh fruit slices in front of me for my final meal on this northbound run. Damn, retirement is great! :-)

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	VIA Rail
Date:	08/02/2022
Location:	Chesnaye
Province:	Manitoba

3 Comments | 10 Favourites

Exhaust gases from the trio of HBR yard switchers blur the steel framework of the Churchill grain elevator conveyor towers as they continue to sort the consist from this mornings wayfreight arrival. A tugboat and a couple of American crawler cranes on a barge sit at the left of the photo, while vehicles and equipment from The Official Tundra Buggy Company fill the maintenance yard on the right. Photos don't seem to convey just how huge this grain elevator complex is.

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	Hudson Bay Railway
Date:	08/04/2022
Location:	Churchill
Province:	Manitoba

1 Comments | 18 Favourites

It's not the Stairway to Heaven but it sure was an enjoyable climb every time I went up into the dome level of VIA 8515 Skyline on VIA #693. It's 05:38 and the train is 3 hours & 20 minutes (67 miles) south of Churchill, MB. There's no one else in the Skyline car but me and a VIA on-board attendant who was making a fresh carafe of coffee. A fresh cooked breakfast is still an hour and a half away. There's not much to look at outside as we rumble north, but it's amazing how interesting every mile of barren, tree pegged tundra and mirror like lakes can be from this elevated vantage point.

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	VIA Rail
Date:	08/02/2022
Location:	M'Clintock
Province:	Manitoba

3 Comments | 13 Favourites

It's 06:59 as VIA #1 departs Nakina, ON on June 2, 2022. I was up at 05:00 this morning to catch a view of some of the locations I worked at back in the late 1960's through the 1990's on the 'west end'. Other than the yard being gone, Nakina looks about the same as it did back then. Plenty of equipment around for the always ongoing track maintenance work. As seen from the dome of VIA 8500 Skyline, the Nakina station is holding up much better than the former crew hostile. Great memories riding The Canadian through northern Ontario.

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	06/02/2022
Location:	Nakina
Province:	Ontario

2 Comments | 13 Favourites

VIA 6443 was the lead unit on VIA #693 when it backed into Churchill, MB station on Tuesday morning August 2, 2022. All the passengers and baggage have been off-loaded, the hotel and tour company vans have all departed, the VIA on-board crew has retired to their lodging location, and the VIA maintenance personnel have completed their work by plugging VIA 6443 into the 480 volt wayside HEP supply. This transfusion will continue until later in the day when personnel return to disconnect it, fire up VIA 6443 & VIA 6458 and their respective HEP generators in preparation for a 19:30 departure of the train as VIA #690 to The Pas.

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	VIA Rail
Date:	08/02/2022
Location:	Churchill
Province:	Manitoba

2 Comments | 14 Favourites

VIA 693 has boarded and is only minutes away from a 12:05 on-time departure. Sitting in the Winnipeg, MB train shed, the only step box left on the platform for boarding is at the vestibule door of my sleeper VIA 8202 Chateau Bienville. The reflectorized red paddle stuck in the knuckle indicates last car in the train. The VIA on-board Service Manager Don was most accommodating to me and all the other passengers on this trip. He kept us informed of upcoming stops where we could get off and stretch our legs, get some fresh air (or have a smoke), and/or take some photos (which as you can tell by my many recent posts, I always did) :-) Departing Winnipeg on this last day of July there was in a light rain for the first couple of hours which took away the opportunity for some clear well lit shots from inside the train. By the time we reached Dauphin however, the sky had cleared, the sun was out, and things were looking up.

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	VIA Rail
Date:	07/31/2022
Location:	Winnipeg
Province:	Manitoba

2 Comments | 13 Favourites

My recent postings of dining car interiors from trips on VIA 693 & 692 (Winnipeg-Churchill-Winnipeg), and VIA 1 & 2 The Canadian (Toronto-Vancouver-Toronto) prompted a reminder from my brother Terry about the dining cars we ate in while working summer extra gang jobs in 1969, 70 & 71 on CN's Great Lakes Region. This photo I retrieved from the CN archives on the 2nd floor at H.Q. when I worked there in the early 1980's is a great example of how upwards of 100+ men could be well fed three times a day in an old heavyweight passenger car converted to a dining room. Food was prepared in bulk and brought in from the kitchen by the cookee and placed at intervals the length of the table. In the morning, plates piled high with fried eggs, others with bacon and/or sausage, hundreds of slices of toast, buckets of oatmeal, pitchers of powdered milk, and always bowls of oranges & apples. I remember the General Foreman and his foreman always sitting at the end of the table closest to the kitchen car (served first), and how there was no talking (other than asking for something to be passed down the table), no smoking, and no loitering. When you were done eating, you got up, took your dishes to the end of the car, scraped the leftovers into a garbage can, put the dirty dishes and silverware in a bin, and left. Great days working and eating on the extra gangs, and now 50+ years later great days travelling and eating on VIA trains all over Canada. :-) (location Province chosen is a guess)

Name:	Canadian National, …
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	late 1960's - early 1970's
Location:	n/a
Province:	Ontario

5 Comments | 15 Favourites

HLCX 1046 trails lead unit HLCX 1041 and sandwiched LLPX 2605 on ZC Zone track 50 as they run around a cut of cars on the grain elevator lead north of the station and end of subdivision point in Churchill. MB. This trio of units has been marshalling cars into order for placement in the yard and at various unloading locations.

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	Hudson Bay Railway
Date:	08/04/2022
Location:	Churchill
Province:	Manitoba

7 Comments | 19 Favourites

A recent photo I posted of the dining area in a VIA Skyline car on my journey from Winnipeg to Churchill solicited some comments about the amenities and level of service offered http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=49772
Here we see a dining car interior experienced on VIA #1 The Canadian back in December of 2021. Quite a different level of 'comfort and service' from the Churchill run. Leather covered dining chairs, linen table cloths & napkins, china coffee cups, heavy silverware, and a team of 3-4 attendants.
While the full kitchen/dining car experience offers a much superior level of food, service, and ambiance, the Skyline car environment on the Churchill trip was equally as enjoyable in its own right. I'm looking forward to experiencing them both again. :-)
(map location approximate. We had not yet arrived in Washago from Toronto when I snapped this photo)

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	VIA Rail
Date:	12/12/2021
Location:	Washago
Province:	Ontario

10 Comments | 11 Favourites

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	06/04/2022
Location:	Kamloops
Province:	British Columbia

3 Comments | 11 Favourites

The Hudson Bay Railway headquarters building located at 728 Bignell Avenue in The Pas, MB as seen through my bedroom window in VIA 8202 Chateau Bienville is haloed by the 06:30 morning sun on this cool, foggy August 1, 2022 morning. VIA 693 on its way from Winnipeg to Churchill is rolling into The Pas 4 1/2 hours late but will stand idle long enough for me to detrain and snap a few photos. Had the train been on time (arrive 01:45, depart 02:30) this and other photos at The Pas would have been impossible.

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	Hudson Bay Railway
Date:	08/01/2022
Location:	The Pas
Province:	Manitoba

2 Comments | 8 Favourites

4 1/2 hours late into The Pas, MB on a cool, foggy August 1, 2022 morning, I detrained and snapped a few not often photographed scenes in this remote northern Manitoba town, then climbed back on board and headed to the Skyline car. The tables in the dining area of Skyline VIA 8515 have been set by the crew, and the on-board attendant stands ready to take the breakfast orders. I have my window view chair pulled out at table #3 (second table on the right) where I will soon enjoy a freshly prepared, cooked-to-order breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash-browned potatoes, several strips of bacon (Mmmm bacon!), fresh fruit, and black coffee on this first morning of the wonderful trip to Churchill. What a great way to start another day of train riding! VIA 692 heading south from Churchill sits on a yard track beside our northbound consist. It had been there all night waiting to make the meet in The Pas. The only thing missing on my breakfast plate this morning was several slices of toast. Someone forgot to include any type of bread when loading the kitchen supplies at Winnipeg. Not that I need any more carbs in my daily consumption of groceries! :-)

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	VIA Rail
Date:	08/01/2022
Location:	The Pas
Province:	Manitoba

6 Comments | 13 Favourites

Next station stop will be Pikwitonei, MB Mile 213.3 HBR Thicket Sub. Another shot I had to take from inside the train as the vestibule doors were not opened for passengers to detrain on the northbound journey to Churchill. I'm in VIA 8515 Skyline and trying to pick the cleanest area of the bug splattered window to get a decent shot. VIA 693 will come to a stop when the baggage car door lines up with the road crossing. The Pikwitonei station is located near Railway Avenue & Sandy Bay Road in this remote village. Located approximately 47 km (29.2 mi) from Thompson, MB, the community is served by Via Rail at the Pikwitonei railway station. It was nice to see some of the town folk come down to greet the train.

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	Hudson Bay Railway
Date:	08/01/2022
Location:	Pikwitonei
Province:	Manitoba

4 Comments | 12 Favourites

I have the entire upper level of VIA 8511 Skyline all to myself as VIA 692 begins it southbound journey from Churchill, MB on this gorgeous August 4, 2022 evening. I thought it kind of neat that as a life long career Work Equipment guy, I would roll out of town through a resting gauntlet of MoW equipment on either side of the train. A HyTracker equipment transporter, a tie changer, and rail lifter to my left, while a GREX Dump Train is powered down on my right. Even though the Budd stainless steel equipment assigned to the Churchill trains has seen better days, it did not detract from the extremely enjoyable 4 days and 4 nights spent on board. The VIA on-board crews in both directions made what could be a long, boring trip for some, into a pleasant experience for everyone. A fitting end to a wonderful trip was experiencing the Northern Lights dancing across the sky later in the evening.

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	VIA Rail
Date:	08/04/2022
Location:	Churchill
Province:	Manitoba

2 Comments | 14 Favourites

Assiniboine Jct. Mile 0.00 on CN's Assiniboine Sub. is a busy place this morning with CN 5626 sitting idle in the yard waiting for its next assignment, VIA 692 (VIA 8229 Chateau Viger sleeping car) holding the main in front of the Canora, SK station, and a moving CN freight in the background. Other interesting sights in the photo are a conductor walking back to the station, tall yard lighting poles, derails, restricted clearance sign, wind sock, station name sign, mile board, and some switch stands, several with unique targets.

Name:	Paul O'Shell
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	08/06/2022
Location:	Canora
Province:	Saskatchewan

3 Comments | 9 Favourites

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