One Year, One Hundred Posts, One Layout

I found myself downtown, at Ground Zero for the Kingston & Pembroke (later, CP) operations into downtown Kingston. Parking in a particularly sun-dappled, memory-soaked, nostalgia-nuanced parking spot, I was directly across from the smokebox and stack of CPR 1095, stuffed and mounted since 1967 (top photo by Notable Travels). The ex-K&P station and City Hall were visually stacked up in a parallel series of tangible tranches of history.

Extrinsically, the nostalgic in me tried to imagine the hoot of vessels' steam whistles in the harbour, the heavy clank of industrial activity, and the hustle and bustle of what would have been...one hundred years ago, give or take a few decades!

Intrinsically, the modeller in me thought back on the genesis of my basement HO scale Hanley Spur layout, our Associated Railroaders of Kingston Hanley Spur portable layout group, and the one-hundredth blog post on this blog, all of which took transpired in the last year alone. Bringing my modelled locale home, after many years away in Winnipeg, Vancouver and Vermont! A real hands-on Hanley spur year!

Our tax dollars well-spent, the City of Kingston rejuvenated, rebuilt and repositioned 'The Spirit of Sir John A.' and now she fairly gleams in the morning sun.

Photo by The Passionate Hiker