Greetings- Tom asked me to post the attached photo as an extension to his "Let's Go For A Walk" thread below. He wrote "the scene is at Diamond Yard on Vancouver Island on the day that I took the ride on M-B 1077. You can just make her out in the background above the tower operator. I'll let Tom add what he wants from here.

I've also attached two Charles Heimerdinger Jr. slides of the #1077 at work, one from 30 December 1959 and the other from 14 July 1968.

Thanks, and Tom, the floor is yours.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

First, I want to thank Jeff Moore and also John West for their time spent scanning and posting these images.

The black & white was taken by me on the day that I wrote about. It shows a lot. The operator of the interlocking on the ground, the E & N Baldwin that picked up the empties in Chemainus from M-B 1044 and brought them up here, the 1077 sitting in the background and the signals governing movement through Diamond yard. Besides the empties, there was also the Dayliner Budd car that went North. Busy place at times.

The highway overpass is directly behind me and so was the Crown-Zellerebach dump and shop. I was standing on the C-Z main. The water tank is just out of sight behind the diesel.

Charles Heimdinger's photos add a lot to the story. I love the one in the rain. It is so indicative of what weather could be like here, even in summertime. Both are at the North end of Diamond Yard.

I am reminded of an old ditty that goes something like this:
Oh, it's raining in Nanaimo
It rains there every day
It's raining in Nanaimo
Just to pass the time away.

Rain or shine, this was a wonderful steam show and so were all places on the Island.

Charles Heimerdinger's rainy day image of 1077 prompts me to add some additional info on Diamond Yard.

View is looking South and a short distance away is the city of Ladysmith. Even at that early date, Crown-Zellerebach had two of the former Comox steam locomotives on display right next to the highway. I can't remember the numbers for certain, but one was a 2T Shay (number 12?) and the other a 70 ton Baldwin logging Mike (number 11?).

In the distance at the left is a fill that leads to the highway overpass above the railroad. At the base of this fill is the not visible E&N mainline. To the right are the 4 yard tracks and between the last yard track on the right and the paved road is Crown's line pretty much hidden by weeds. Since they had to cross the E&N diamond, they were controlled by the operator in the tower who happens to be visible in my photo as he rolled the train of empties by.

At the North end of Diamond yd., the tracks all merged to the one main which was shared by M-B and C-Z. Back in these days, M-B ran 2 turns, one right after sunrise and the other in the early afternoon.

Tom -

I like the photos and your explanation. But, I'm really kind of fascinated by the "STOP" signal in the first photo. How did it work? Was it controlled by the tower operator? If so, from the tower or from the ground? Was it for C-Z or for the Canadian Pacific? Sorry for the questions.

Les

Les, I have frequently tended to focus all my interest in motive power and at times, this has diminished the overall experience.

While I did visit the operator one time for a short while, I should have spent more time there and asked a lot of questions.

I can only guess that the stop sign is actuated by the operator in the tower. Interesting that the sign is still displayed as the train is moving across the diamond.

The E&N track goes through Diamond Yard at the extreme East side, closest to the Island Highway. The other track in the photo is Crown's. It and M-B joined at the other end of the yard and both went up the river for miles. There was a junction where M-B curved to the left and crossed the river again to get to their yard and shops. Crown continued to their own camp. Since they were diesel, I never went in there.