Self to build

Today’s Throwback Thursday (or as it turns out, now Throwback Friday) features one of the more interesting aspects of railroading: street running. Often mutually unpopular to the local municipality and the railroad, street running is increasingly hard to find. I find that to be a shame, since street running often yields details not otherwise captured in our day-to-day photography, such as the latest model year of a car in the photo, a popular local establishment’s sign, or even fashion trends of people captured in the frame. With that in mind, let’s get to our subject photo.

It’s July 17, 1995, and we find CN SW1200RS #1349 leading two cars up the middle of Pine Street in Thorold, ON. It appears that train #549 has been sent to lift two boxcars from the industry in the background – the Fraser Inc paper mill (now Book Depot). The short train is now heading south down the Fonthill Spur, riding up the small hills that pose little challenge to automobiles and trucks but an interesting challenge to the train. Fraser Inc’s facility was featured in Trevor Marshall’s post (here) on his Achievable Layouts blog and provides many more interesting photos of the plant. At one time it appeared to be quite the industry, handling both outgoing paper loads as well as tank cars of chemicals and hopper cars of additives used in the paper making process. Today, however, the business as well as the street running required to serve the industry are gone, and Pine street is a bit less interesting (to me at least). Street running is not gone altogether from the area though, as CN successor Trillium Railway still uses a small piece of track down the middle of Townline Road to serve Interlake Paper. They even have a CN-painted MLW S-13, required due to sharp curvature on the line. Interestingly, CN 1349 must have liked paper mills as it would go on to be CANX (Canac) 1349, one of the plant switchers at Marathon Pulp in Marathon, ON until the plant closed in 2008. One other interesting aspect of the photo is that it appears Pine Street is in the middle of getting a makeover, judging by the cement truck and dump truck – as the small time capsule of an image has recorded for posterity. 

Cheers,

Peter.