Monthly Archives: July 2026

A Site Update.

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So for those of you who follow the blog, You probably noticed that up until this week, I haven’t posted since May 2025. And your likely wondering why. Its a perfectly legit question to ask, and one i find myself asking when something I’m following goes silent.

First, some history. I moved to Halifax in April 2008. I worked from home, and had a harbour view. As stuff would sail by my window, i would wonder it was, and do some research. I figured others might be curious, so I started a blog. The first iteration of this website was called the Armchair Captain, and its still up on Blogger at https://armchaircaptn.blogspot.com/

I never really liked the Armchair Captain name, and so it became Halifax Shipping News in 2010. In 2016 I moved the blog to wordpress, and began self hosting when what i wanted to do with the site out grew what i could do on blogger. Last year my hosting provider since 2016 got out of the hosting business. I now use Dartmouth based Websavers, and the site is hosted in Canada. The big advantage to self hosting is i have control, HSN doesn’t exist at the whims of some tech giant.

Yet the giants lurked

Back in 2012 @HFXShippingNews joined Twitter. Twitter was Fantastic. I built a lovely community there, where folks in the know could tell me whats going on, and i could share the blog with the world. twitter drove growth of the site. As someone who works with computers, I always had a Tweetdeck browser tab open, and had real time updates on well everything.

that was great until 2022 when Musk Bought twitter. In 2023 Tweetdeck became paid. Worse, the chronological feed went away, and suddenly my nice community was interrupted by tweets from the worst people imaginable, and a bunch of Nazis.

I hate algorithmic feeds. Nothing annoys me more with some site shows me relevant content a week or more after the event occurred. Worse, I get fed crap don’t want to see. I left twitter in 2025. Deleting all my posts, but leaving the account active to keep the handle from being claimed by others. More recently I have removed Facebook from my phone for many of the same reasons. Instagram brings little value..

With twitter gone, and my presence there being tied to the site, left a big hole. I’m active on BlueSky, which is a better platform, but smaller then twitter.

Then AI Happened. Google now scrapes sites and presents their contents to users, without them needing to visit the site. This steals revenue, since that is based on ad clicks and page views, which dont happen if people get your content without visiting your site. I’m not looking for Halifax Shipping News to make a ton of money, but I would like it to cover its costs. in this vein, google ad revenue is down, and the ads are larger and more intrusive, which I’m not super happy about.

All that to say i needed to take a break to figure out what i wanted to do. I figured Shipfax had us covered. though that has sadly been silent since January.

Right now, were back. Expect to see regular posts going forward, and some back posts for things that happened in the past year that I haven’t posted about. I’m also contemplating a rebrand to HSN Transport, which better reflects the broader rail and aviation coverage I provide, and also mirrors the YouTube Channel. There will probably also be a Merch Store, and I’m contemplating getting rid of the ads entirely.

As always, I love to hear from readers, so leave a comment or drop me a line with your thoughts.

You can also find me at :

FGS Gorch Fock

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The German Navy’s Tall ship Gorch Fock took to anchor for a port visit. She will tie up on Thursday, and presumably be open to the public. This Gorch Fock was built in 1958. Built to a Blohm &Voss Design, she is a modern version of the original Gorch Fock, which was built in 1933, and was taken as war reparations from Germany after WWI. Her sisters include NRP Sagres, USCG Eagle, and Mircea. The 1933 Gorch Fock is now a museum in Germany.

Four additional ships were built to this design. Arc Gloria is the Oldest of the Modern Set of 4, Having been built in 1968  at the Astilleros Celaya S.A. shipyard in Bilbao. Her contemporaries Include Cuauhtémoc (1982 Mexico) , Guayas (1977 Ecuador) and Simon Bolivar (1980 Venezuela)

Mircea, Operated by the Romanian Navy was in port July 19-22

New Locomotives for VIA Rail

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The Feds announced a new Stadler Rail Facility in Montreal this morning, to build 36 new long distance locomotives for VIA Rail. Additional early models will be built by Stadler in Spain. These locomotives will be used on the Non-Corridor routes, including the Ocean, Canadian, Prince Rupert and Churchill trains.

The renderings bear a resemblance to the EMD F125, which was built from 2015-2021 for Metrolink in California. EMD is now Progress Rail, and is owned by Caterpillar. The F125 was built with design assistance from Vossloh Rail Vehicles of Spain, which was acquired by Stadler in part due to their ability to build licensed designs from Progress Tail. The F125 is a Eurolite variant, Which are powered by a Cat diesel.

The new locomotives are hybrid, and feature ABB Battery technology that is also made in Quebec. Diesel locomotives are generally hybrid now, with the diesel motor turning a generator which delivers power to electric traction motors to drive the train. Through a process called dynamic breaking, the traction motors can become generators, and assist in slowing the train. the power generated is dissipated as heat in the large flared blister you can see on the top of Locomotives. The addition of a battery means that waste energy can be captured and stored and used to improve power efficiency on the train.

Stadler Manufactures thier FLRT series of trains in Utah for North American Sales. Ottawa’s O-Train Line 2 runs with 7 Stadler FLRT Train sets. Stadler trains also operate in the Swiss Alps (Bernina Express, Glacier Express, and others), Norway and kazakstan. Stadler also built dome cars for the Rockey Mountaineer, which means they have a good chance of supplying the long distance train sets for VIA Rail.

VIA Recently put Siemens Charger Locomotives and Venture trainsets into service on the corridor to replace the GE P42DC locomotives and mix of LRC, REN and BUDD coaches in use, all of which are past their service lives.

UPDATE: Stadler has posted a release with more details. the project also calls for 20 years of support. read the release at https://www.stadlerrail.com/en/media/media-releases/stadler-to-supply-45-hybrid-locomotives-to-via-rail

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