After landing in Halifax, Zeus was off to Dartmouth in order to take up his position as Gunnery instructor and I was off to find transport to Ottawa to check in.  While in Halifax I noticed the crude being unloaded into fuel cars, all nice bright and shiny Blue tank cars!  Would never work in a war zone, it brought home to me how distant I was from the actual fighting, but men (and women) were in uniform everywhere. 

The poor little Plymouth T95 was really struggling to get these cars shunted!

So off to the railyard I went to see if there was a troop train or a luxury sleeper car available heading for Ottawa....   No such luck, I was sent to this load, going to the States by way of Ottawa, they were short the fireman (I thought I would stand around with a fire extinguisher in case of fire, not have to make fire by shovelling coal).

And lo and behold, what did we hook up to?  You guessed it...

Upon reaching Ottawa I was directed by the Prevost Marshall to a warehouse on the edge of the rail yard.  My orders for transport had caught up with me and I was directed to drive myself to Portage in Manitoba to take up my Flight Instructor role.  I felt that this was perfect as long as it wasn't a fuel truck.

What the....   Seems like someone in Defense had a sense of humour, it was a Russian Zilf, but why the crane?

So

So off I drove to Brandon, weather was good, truck performed perfectly but very slowly....   Hmm why the crane?

So this leg was done using Derail Valley for the Rail journey, using Canadian National Railway #6043 a 4-8-2 Mountain locomotive, that served until 1960 and was the last scheduled steam train in Canada, it now resides in Assiniboine Park (close to my house) and is a  traditional meeting spot for my family on the July 1 fireworks.  The truck portion was driven from Ottawa to Brandon (just south of Portage, the British Commonwealth Air Training Program.  Now the fun should begin!