These pictures DIDN’T make it into our 2021 railway calendar

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I was preparing our 2021 Canadian Branchline wall calendar.

After sifting through 700 possibilities for 13 slots (each month of 2021 plus January 2022 as a bonus), I selected the candidates. Those images are now being finalized by Jim Brown for print, with the calendar layout already finished.

You may have similar family traditions or superstitions to mine

Somehow I learned that it was “bad luck” to look through a calendar before the actual months rolled around. In that regard, I won’t disgrace that adage by displaying the 13 colour pictures which will grace your 2021 Canadian Branchline wall calendar.

What I thought I’d do, though, was share with you some short-listed images that DIDN’T make next year’s calendar (for reasons of logistics).

It’s January 3, 1959 as Canadian Pacific 4-4-0 136 powers a snowplow ahead of the mixed train at Cody, New Brunswick (Robert Sandusky photo)

On March 3, 1956, Canadian National 4-6-2 5607 blasts up Hamilton Mountain with mixed train 233 for Simcoe (Robert Sandusky photo)

Canadian Pacific Mikado 5375 passes the interlocking tower at Hamilton Junction with an eastbound freight for Toronto (via the CNR’s Oakville Subdivision) in October 1956 (Jim Guerin photo)

Bullet-nosed CNR Mountain 6076 brings eastbound passenger train 6 into London station on December 30, 1956 (Robert Sandusky photo)

Canadian National Mogul 86 takes coal from a clamshell crane after finishing her day on the Wiarton mixed train on November 3, 1956 (Robert Sandusky photo)

Canadian National Ten Wheeler 1576 simmers outside the roundhouse at Palmerston on February 16, 1957 (Robert Sandusky photo)

Now, getting back to the upcoming release...

We’re going to take online pre-orders for the 2021 Canadian Branchline wall calendar at a special price over a six-day stretch

That will begin next week, on September 1. When those pre-orders have been received and the online offer closed, we’ll advise Ampersand Printing of the quantity we’ll need.

As for distribution, we’ll be ready to send out individual calendars beginning after Labour Day. We’ll also have a lower price for those readers who’ll be happy to wait until their copy of Speed Graphics and Steam 1958! vol. 3 is mailed out around the end of October.

A couple of days ahead of the online launch for calendar pre-orders, I’ll send out an email outlining the schedule for when we’ll start taking orders at the special price.