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Profile Page for Del Rosamond

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About Del Rosamond

About Peter Newman and the Del Rosamond collection... Many years ago - through a strange twist of fate - I was presented with an unmarked cardboard box of colour slides. They measured 2.75" squared. As a young railway enthusiast I knew that I had become the steward of a small but historically valuable piece of Canadian railway history. Over the last 35 years I would enjoy occasionally holding these images up to the light. I vowed that someday I would do something with them. I'm grateful that state-of-the-art technology and my own personal resources recently combined to have these images professionally digitized, colour corrected, cropped, and cleaned for scratches and damage. I then published a web gallery to display the images. At the time, I did not know who the photographer was or where the photographs were taken. In just a few short hours the railfan community came together to solve the mystery. The photographer was the late Mr. Stephen Delmonte (Del) Rosamond from Pembroke, Ontario. Soon afterwards I was able to locate his sister and nephew. They have been extremely kind, gracious and supportive in allowing Del's images to be shared and enjoyed on this site.

Del Rosamond's Railpictures.ca photo upload statistics

Number of images: 54
Total gold: 789
Number of comments recieved : 142
Number of comments posted : 4
Total views: 171334

Del Rosamond has 1 image in the Time Machine

Contact Del Rosamond

To contact Del Rosamond for licensing, permission, or to send a private comment click this link: (contact)
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Del Rosamond's 54 photos on Railpictures.ca:

"These 'Twenty Four Hundreds' (actually, 2351-2472) were very capable locomotives built with one piece cast bed and multiple throttle. They were as different as day and night compared to earlier G3's 2300- 2350. They were considered the best steam locomotive on the CPR, true dual service freight or passenger engines with 75 inch diameter drivers. They were the only class painted in either freight black and/or passenger tuscan red. They had a sharp "shotgun" exhaust and rapid acceleration with no tendency to slip unlike the Royal Hudsons which could be slippery starting heavy freight tonnage."
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Narrative from Trainweb.org/oldtimetrains.
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Image circa 1959.
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Original digital scanning by DigMyPic in Arizona. Additional digital editing and enhancement courtesy of Mr. Raymond Farand.

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian Pacific
Date:	1959
Location:	Chalk River
Province:	Ontario

6 Comments | 20 Favourites

Northern-Type #6167 was built in 1940 and served as Canadian National’s steam ambassador from 1960 to 1964. Photographer Del Rosamond didn’t date this large format slide but did record that it was captured in Lindsay, Ontario. Internet research shows two UCRS excursions to Lindsay – one on 07/09/61 and the other on 06/20/64. I’ve guessed the date of this image to be the latter. Perhaps the parked automobiles might provide a hint?
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Digital scanning and image restoration courtesy of Mr. Raymond Farand.

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	06/20/1964
Location:	Lindsay
Province:	Ontario

4 Comments | 14 Favourites

On May 12, 1958, Stephan Delmonte (Del) Rosamond is trackside at the same location across from Consolidated Paper and Lumber Company mill in Pembroke, ON. The eastbound wayfreight is working in the yard, this time with Montreal Locomotive Works – built diesel-electric roadswitcher RS-3 No. 8434. The locomotive is just over 4 years old, having entered service in April 1954. Del's picture suggests that the crew, has just lifted three loads of rough sawn pine boards off the mill's sorting table track, is about to set-off the loaded flatcars in the yard, and then return to the sorting table track with the two empties so that further loading might continue. Of note, the sorting table is 200 feet long and allows for the spotting of 5 rail cars at a time. Each flatcar, on average, can be loaded with 8000 board feet per diem. Available information suggests that the lumber on the flatcars is destined to be delivered to either the Pembroke Shook Mills – where it will be piled, or to the Barrands Planning Mill where it will be planed and then reshipped to customers in boxcars.
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Noteworthy also is the fact that Del is observing local railroading on the CPR as a strike by the Canadian Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen against the Company enters its second day. It would be called off one day later on the 13th of May, just three days after being initiated. This is the second walk-out by CPR firemen – the first being nine days in January 1957- in protest to the elimination of 2800 yard and freight service firemen jobs brought on by the introduction of diesel-electric locomotives and the ensuing technological change.
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The current job action by the Brotherhood was initiated after a Royal Commission concluded earlier in the year, that the elimination of the locomotive firemen positions would not endanger public safety. The decision made in favour of the Company is regarded as a watershed moment in Canadian railway history.

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Digital scanning, research and narrative courtesy of Raymond Farand.

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian Pacific
Date:	05/12/1958
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

1 Comments | 14 Favourites

In the latter part of the 1950s, in the Upper Ottawa Valley community of Pembroke, Ontario, Stephan Delmonte (Del) Rosamond made a point of being trackside to photograph steam locomotive operations on Canadian Pacific Railway at a time when the Company was transitioning away from venerable steam power to modern diesel-electric locomotion. The accompanying two photographs were archived during this time period.

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On what appears to be a pleasant spring day, circa 1956-57, Del is on location near the downtown CPR station, as the Chalk River to Smiths Falls wayfreight makes a switch move in front of the Consolidated Paper and Lumber Company mill located on the south shore of the nearby Ottawa River. Today's motive power is G1s class 4-6-2 Light Pacific No. 2219. The engine, one of 39 coal fired G1's operated by the CPR, was out-shopped in February 1910 by Canadian Pacific's Angus Shops in Montreal, and has been modernized over the years. According to the late Duncan H. du Fresne - who fired this class of locomotive - the engine received a new boiler and cylinders during a 1924 rebuild, and has been fitted-out with a modern cross compound air compressor. In 1950 it became one of three G1 class 2200s to receive a Standard HT-1 Stoker, with the other 36 remaining hand-fired coal burners. At the time of the stoker installation the engine was paired with a 14 ton/8000 Imperial gallon capacity tender. Duncan would later write in his book titled 'When Steam and Steel get in your Blood' that “the upgrade made them into super G1's... much like the modern G5's".

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Engine No. 2219 saw service in Eastern Ontario well into 1960, and was disposed of by Canadian Pacific in July 1961. The locomotive was likely scrapped shortly thereafter.
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Original digital scanning provided by DigMyPics in Arizona.
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Additional Photoshop restoration by Raymond Farand.
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Research and narrative courtesy of Raymond Farand.

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian Pacific
Date:	05/01/1957
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 27 Favourites

In the Spring of 1958, Canadian National Railways’ transition of its locomotive roster from steam to diesel-electric is nearing completion. Inasmuch as steam’s final scheduled run on the CNR won’t occur for another two years, on the company’s transcontinental Beachburg and Alderdale Subdivisions between Ottawa, North Bay and Capreol Ontario, the torch is being passed to the next generation of motive power. With GMD-built FP9A and F9B units well established in passenger service on the Super Continental and the Continental for the past three years, it’s now time for regular freight service through the Upper Ottawa Valley to experience a similar transition, with mainline 2-8-2 Mikado, 2-10-2 Santa Fe, 4-8-2 Mountain and 4-8-4 Northern “Type” steam power yielding the hi-iron to modern and more efficient GMD F7A & GP9, MLW FA-1, RS-3 & RS-18, and CLC (Fairbanks-Morse designed) CFA16-4, CFB16-4, & H16-44 diesel-electric engines.
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On May 27, 1958, at Pembroke, Ontario, railway enthusiast and avid photographer Stephan Delmonte “Del” Rosamond is on hand to witness and photo-archive Valley railway history in the making, as Class U-2-e “Northern Type” 4-8-4 engine CN 6179 becomes the last steam locomotive to work through Pembroke in regular freight service over CN Lines. Engine 6179 is the last of an order of fifteen Northerns built by Montreal Locomotive Works in 1940. Sadly the locomotive would be scrapped at the London Reclamation Yard later the same year on the 7th of November, not much more than five months after Del witnessed the engine’s final passage through the Valley.
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The train is operating in the eastward direction towards Ottawa, and is viewed from an elevated walkway located part way up the coaling tower. Given the presence in the consist of flatcar loaded Model CD-52 transit buses, produced by Canadian Car & Foundry (CC&F) in Fort William for the City of Montreal, the movement likely originated at Port Arthur as Train No. 408.
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The depot seen in the picture, for many years, displayed a station name board which read “Pembroke Jct”. At some point, following the October 1956 termination of regular passenger service on the 21.1 mile Locksley Subdivision between the downtown “Pembroke” station and the hamlet of Golden Lake, the name board on the outer station was changed to “Pembroke”. The location likely owed its “Pembroke Jct” distinction to the fact that a connecting track - seen diverging from the main line just west of the station - tied the former Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) Pembroke Subdivision with former Pembroke Southern Railway trackage at National Jct. a short distance away and less than a mile from the end of track in downtown Pembroke. Inasmuch as everything was rolled into Canadian National Railways in 1923, the “Jct” component on the name board was retained for another three-and-a half decades. In Del’s photograph, the Locksley Subdivision’s main track can be seen in the distance on embankment near the Muskrat River beneath the steel trestle at the rear of the freight train. It would be abandoned in the Fall of 1960.
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By 1963, with the regular service steam-era officially ended on the CNR Lines three years earlier, the water tank seen in Del’s photograph had been demolished, along with the coal tower upon which Del stood to compose his picture. In the summer of 1965 the wood-frame station building was demolished and replaced by a modern single-story brick structure that survived until the late 1990s. Today (summer of 2018), other than the distant steel trestle which stands devoid of rail, nothing of a railway nature remains where Stephan “Del” Rosamond once bid adieu to mainline steam in the ‘Heart of the Upper Ottawa Valley’.
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Raymond S. Farand

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	05/27/1958
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

8 Comments | 28 Favourites

Steam and snow - always an impressive combination!
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Mr. Rosamond's large-format slide was initially scanned by DigMyPics in Arizona. Additional digital editing courtesy of Mr. Raymond Farand.

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian Pacific
Date:	1959
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

1 Comments | 15 Favourites

Pacific-type #2207 is a tight fit on the Pembroke turntable!

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian Pacific
Date:	1959
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

1 Comments | 12 Favourites

Pembroke native, the late Mr. Del Rosamond, captured CPR Pacific-type #1231 with a plow and spreader – circa 1959.
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Those familiar with RPca may recall that two years ago I had a number of Mr. Rosamond’s slides professionally scanned. The process was not in-expensive and not all of my slides were processed. I’m extremely grateful to Mr. Raymond Farand for volunteering to assist. He has carefully scanned the remainder of my collection and spent countless hours making colour corrections and repairing age -related slide damage.
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Raymond and the Rosamond family have graciously approved the sharing of my portion of the Rosamond collection here on RPca.
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Peter Newman

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian Pacific
Date:	1959
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

5 Comments | 34 Favourites

The late Mr. Del Rosamond records Pacific-type #1231 passing by the Pembroke Station. Circa 1958.

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian Pacific
Date:	1958
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 21 Favourites

Built in 1919 by CLC, Mikado-type #3386 awaits her fate in Allandale yard. Several mighty Northerns – their numbers unclear - also rest amongst the weeds. The locomotives would likely soon be sent to London for scrapping.

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	1960
Location:	Barrie
Province:	Ontario

3 Comments | 14 Favourites

Pacific-type #1223 prepares to depart Pembroke station. Circa 1958.

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian Pacific
Date:	1958
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

1 Comments | 14 Favourites

On a chilly day, Mr. Rosamond caught D10h #1087 (built in 1913 by CLC) on the turntable in Pembroke.

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian Pacific
Date:	1959
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 5 Favourites

Pacific-type #2219 works the yard at Consolidated Paper Corporation, Pembroke, circa 1959.

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian Pacific
Date:	1959
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

6 Comments | 13 Favourites

Pacific-type #2218 approaches the Pembroke Station, circa 1959.

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian Pacific
Date:	1959
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

2 Comments | 15 Favourites

The late Del Rosamond didn't live far from where this picture was taken. Perhaps he heard the distinctive Northern's whistle and decided to drive over and check out the action. Circa 1959.
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Sadly, Del's original slide is not in good shape. The colour wasn't initially processed correctly and there is significant age related decay. Major Photoshop restoration was required to produce this image. Enjoy!

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	1959
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

3 Comments | 13 Favourites

On a nearly colourless day, the late Del Rosamond captured Pacific-type #2207 backing onto the Pembroke turntable.

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian Pacific
Date:	1959
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

Comments | 10 Favourites

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	1961
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

1 Comments | 10 Favourites

As the sun rises, Northern-type #6167 emerges from her stall at the Spadina roundhouse.
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In case you missed the earlier upload, here’s the mighty locomotive a few minutes later on the turntable…
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<a href=http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=18685>http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=18685</a>

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	1964
Location:	Toronto
Province:	Ontario

4 Comments | 11 Favourites

The late Mr. Del Rosamond was a history enthusiast and an active volunteer at the Champlain Trail Museum in Pembroke. What I find ironic is that he seldom dated his slides or provided any additional details. Perhaps he never considered that his photography would be admired as a beautiful and historical collection of images documenting the final days of Canadian steam. I suspect that he never would have imagined that this small portion of his portfolio would have 130,000 internet page views in just a year.
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Shown here is Consolidation-type M4g, #3528. The Consolidation had a relatively small firebox and driver wheels no larger than 63”. This limited both the steaming capacity and speed.
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This image probably dates around 1959. I don’t recognize the location, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t Pembroke. Internet research shows that this locomotive was maintained in North Bay, so that’s my guess. Please add a comment if you can confirm the location

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian Pacific
Date:	1959
Location:	North Bay
Province:	Ontario

2 Comments | 9 Favourites

Pity the poor fellow standing on the front of EMD SW1200RS #1289 on this winter's day.

This image was taken circa 1960. There was quite a bit of damage on the original slide. I hope that you'll agree that state-of-the-art digital scanning and a touch of Photoshop has restored the image to acceptable standards.

Del's sister, Gloria, recently mailed me a package of Del's writings and historical Pembroke notes. Turns out he had a rather mischievous sense of humour. If he were still with us, I'm confident that he'd be delighted that his images are being viewed and enjoyed.

Name:	Del Rosamond
Railway:	Canadian National
Date:	1960
Location:	Pembroke
Province:	Ontario

5 Comments | 12 Favourites

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Del Rosamond's Map:

Note: Due to Google's greediness you may have to click the OK button when it asks you if you own this website. We'll replace this in time, but it's going to be a while. Sorry :)

*Note: Only photos with GPS added upon submission are mapped here. Some users do not map images and may show a blank map.