Showing posts with label Part. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Part. Show all posts
Throwback Thursday 19 CN at Rymal Part II
on Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Tonight's Throwback Thursday features the second half of my Dad Keith's write-up of the namesake location for this blog. Thanks again Dad!
- Peter.
As mentioned in the previous Rymal anecdote, the former Hamilton and Northwestern Railway line would cling to life into the early 1990’s, finally succumbing to abandonment in 1993. However, the line did not vanish without a final blaze of glory!
Towards the end, the lightly-traversed branchline was a bastion of venerable CNR road power, including the long serving mainstay GMD SW1200’s, GMD GP9’s as well as the occasional MLW RS-18. However, as shown above, the most noteworthy and beloved units by far were the handful of CN’s infamous remaining snow service GMD F7’s. With no on-route switching demands, the F7 A/B consists were ideally suited to the inter-plant traffic pattern requirements of ‘The Steel Company of Canada’, aka ‘Stelco’, transporting continuously-cast slabs from their newer flagship facility in Nanticoke to the rolling mills located at Hilton Works, situated on the Hamilton waterfront. For an all-too-brief period, pure A-B-A sets as shown, and on occasion F7’s mixed with GP9’s ferried 60 ft flatcars, equipped with specialized slab cradles, from lakefront (actually Hamilton Harbour/Lake Ontario) to lakefront (Lake Erie). While more than a delight for the local railfan community (See ‘F Units on the Nanticoke/CN 9100’s produced by Green Frog Productions, www.greenfrog.comshot by area enthusiast Rob McCormack), some operational concerns were voiced. Lower city dwellers became increasingly concerned about the potential for a loaded runaway slab train descending the escarpment without brakes, careening through their community. This, despite the fact that the line had crested the geographical outcrop in the mid 1870’s and had been disaster free for well over a century! As the unlikely catastrophe dialogue was heating up, the matter was resolved by an unforeseen event when the bridge over Stone Church Road (located approximately under the trailing caboose) was displaced by an over-height transport truck – see photo below. Owing to the compromised structural integrity of the span, rail traffic was suspended south from CN’s Stuart St. yard (the alternative, much more circuitous routing, involved movement from Stuart St. yard to Brantford along the Dundas sub, then back to Caledonia to rejoin the former H&NW line). As if to add an exclamation point, the span was displaced in the opposite direction, shortly thereafter, by another unfortunate truck encounter. This time the injured bridge span was lifted and placed perpendicular on the right of way! As previously mentioned, much of the H&NW chartered line remains as the ‘STONE CHURCH ROAD RAIL TRAIL’. North of Stone Church Road the former right of way is known as the ‘ESCARPMENT RAIL TRAIL’. One can walk or ride their bike past them, but no longer does the sound of normally-aspirated 567's echo off the concrete silo walls...
- Keith.
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Above: Atop the escarpment, as shown, the H&NW chartered line descended to the first station stop at Rymal. No doubt longer freight trains would have been a challenge for the hogger with part of his consist ascending and part descending at the same time! For additional information on the ‘Hamilton and Northwestern Railway’ refer to Charles Cooper’s superb manuscript entitled ‘RAILS TO THE LAKES’. Reportedly, creating the path to climb from the lower city was accomplished by Irish labourers ("navvies", displaced canal builders) over a three year period at a cost of approximately one million 1870’s dollars! A modern day remnant of their efforts is the downtown ‘Cork Town’ community, so named on account of their off duty shenanigans! Apparently construction of Hamilton’s first jails more or less accompanied the building of the H&NW! |
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| Above: Late local area business development did generate a limited amount of additional activity on the line. Shown on the below are CN 603042 and DWC 605628, Canadian-built 52’-8” bulkhead flatcars (see the October 1990 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman Magazine for drawings and additional background) on the Rymal siding. The duo is loaded with drywall for ‘Ferrell Builders Supply’ an area materials provider. The concrete grain silo structure in the foreground is believed to have been constructed just prior to World War II, several years ahead of the adjacent CO-OP installation. The silo complex was built by the owner of the neighbouring Binbrook Feed Mill operation. Storage space was also leased to other enterprises, including the nearby Hannon Feed Mill. Operation of the silo complex would have most likely continued into the mid 1960’s, just prior to the widespread use of large volume covered hopper cars for grain transport. The low volume operation was set up for boxcar grain delivery. Undoubtedly, the improved highway system and truck transport rendered the facility redundant to local area needs. Incredibly, the concrete structure is still sound with the interior mostly preserved - the vertical wooden bucket elevator and much of the original woodwork are still solidly in place. It’s like the owner just walked away one day! |
Winter Layout Work Update Part 1
on Friday, May 12, 2017
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| CN 1906 pulls the first loads out of the recently-installed storage tracks in front of the Stelco (Walthers) rolling mill. Looks like they will soon have plenty more loads to pull! |
A few days spent working on the layout over the Christmas break yielded some significant progress on the layout, namely completing the trackage on the spur on the left (east) side of the layout. More industries to go and switch now!
Carpentry
The basic benchwork was already in place, including a sheet of plywood cut to fit in the available space; all that remained was to secure the sub-roadbed in place. It was decided to use the two “high-line” switches already in place to access the spur rather than run a new branch off of the existing yard lead. This meant that the spur would be at a higher elevation than previously planned – this allows a more eye-level view of activity on the spur, rather than a more eye-in-the-sky view. This also helps to blend the high line into the rest of the layout, rather than it creating a “stair case” illusion and seem to arbitrarily rise out of the rest of the layout. A total of seven supports were cut from spare 1x3” stock to elevate the plywood about four inches. Since the two high line switches were at slightly different elevations due to the grade that they are on, the elevation of the plywood sheet was set to split the difference between the two. Three supports were fastened to the benchwork lengthwise along the plywood and four were installed transversely – this stabilized the plywood and makes it resistant to any bumps or jolts on the rest of the layout’s benchwork. As this particular piece of plywood had been stored for a number of years, one end of the sheet (south end) had developed a significant warp (curl) that required a 2x4” attached transversely to the bottom to help straighten it out (2x4 was planed to be perfectly straight). The last step in preparing the plywood was to cut a hatch approximately 16” square into the middle; this not only allows access in the event of a derailment or electrical glitch, but will help with scenic-ing the layout as well. The seven risers (supports) were first screwed to the bottom of the plywood at pre-marked and measured locations. Once all were in place, the plywood was positioned at the appropriate height and the risers clamped in place while pilot holes were drilled and screws put in place. The sub-roadbed between the two switches on the high line consists of a segment of plywood approximately six inches wide; a tapered “bridge” piece was placed between this existing sub-roadbed and the newly installed plywood. Surprisingly, very little adjustment was needed to align the three pieces of plywood, and only some slight planing and sanding was required to smooth the transition from the high line grade to the level plywood surface.
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| Two CN locals are seen operating at the same time - CN 4775 is returning from spotting cars at Casco (near the bridge, out of sight at lower right), while CN 1906 lifts cars from the rolling mil (south face of building and part of the roof not yet re-installed). Scenery material will disguise the change in elevation between the high line spurs and the main line at bottom. The access hatch can be seen at right. |
Once the plywood was installed, it was full speed ahead with the trackwork for the new spur (actually two spurs that cross at a diamond, but referred to as the spur for clarity). The facing high line switches each feed one of two tracks that meet at a 90° crossing. The track on the spur is mostly code 83, a mix of Atlas, Shiniohara, and Peco. The north end of the spur consists of a Walthers rolling mill (to be featured in a later post) that was cut back to three segments (from original four) and another track next to the rolling mill that will serve as a bulk fuel dealer. Two tracks will go into the mill building itself, and another two storage tracks were laid next to the building to hold the loads for pickup. The rails have not yet been installed in the building, as the channels in the floor are intended for a cars' wheel flanges, not actual rails. Hence the gap is too narrow to lay rail (gauge is too tight), but that will soon be corrected. These tracks cross over the access hatch on three sides – each crossing was secured with extra spikes to ensure the alignment remains intact.
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| The CN local lifts loads out of the Stelco rolling mill. Looks like there are some loads to be shipped out of hte team track soon as well. The lumber yard will be located at far right (behind the team track). The Digitrax auto-reverser is being wired up at lower left. |
To power the new spur, a new track bus was run under the previously-unpowered high line and feeders installed between the rails and the bus wires. Since the high line circles around and forms a reversing loop with what is essentially the tail of the south yard lead (better-sounding name TBD), a Digitrax auto-reverser was purchased. Mark made quick work wiring up, so now we can run trains in a continuous loop up and around the high line.
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| After lifting cars from Stelco, two empty cars are lifted from the bulk fuel dealer. Extra track is stored temporarily at left. Note the high-tech temporary end of track device! |
Operations
Prior to completing the spur, there were only two industries already in place on the layout, the grain elevator and the spur near the bridge (at least for now, “Casco”). The addition of four new industries to switch will now provide at least enough work for two jobs: a yard job to handle the sorting of the cars and blocking of mainline freights, as well as switch the grain elevator and Casco, and a second job to go and switch the spur. With increased traffic on the layout, this will soon provide the opportunity to implement and learn about track clearances, car card systems, and how to develop a natural “flow” to operations between multiple operators. Can’t wait!
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| Lifting cars from the Stelco storage tracks at right; soon more empties will be spotted inside the building. |
Stay tuned for part II of the layout update sometime later in the week…
Thanks for looking,
Cheers,
Peter.
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