Showing posts with label Thursday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thursday. 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! |
Throwback Thursday 14 TH B GP7 77 at Guelph Junction July 18 1984
on Tuesday, May 30, 2017
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| The CP/TH&B Goderich Turn pauses while switching with TH&B 77 &401 at Guelph Juntion, near Campbellville, ON, on July 18, 1984. Reg Button photo, author's collection. |
Today’s Throwback Thursday takes us back to July 18, 1984; it’s late in the day at Guelph Junction, located 39.2 miles up the Galt Sub from Toronto. Guelph Junction is an interesting place on the Galt Sub, and is the location where the Hamilton Sub joins the Galt Sub (from the south) and where the Goderich sub branches off northward to Guelph (cut back from Goderich in the late 1980’s). What remains of the Goderich Sub is owned by the city of Guelph (the only municipally-owned common carrier railway line in Canada) and now operated by shortline Ontario Southland Railway. Interestingly, the two branches are not directly connected to each other, but a pair of wyes (facing north and south) are used to bring trains on or off the Hamilton/Goderich subdivisions. Guelph Junction also marks the end of CTC territory originating in Toronto, and where OCS track warrant territory continues another 74 miles to London (except for CTC islands at Wolverton and London). A GO transit storage facility was located here for a number of years, used to store GO commuter trainsets used on the Milton line in the evenings or on weekends. Discontinued a few years ago when a new layover facility was constructed in Milton, use of the yard is now confined to OSR/CP interchange to the shortline. At one time, the Goderich sub featured a daily-except-Sunday passenger train from Hamilton to Goderich, usually powered by one of the road’s quaint 4-4-4 Jubilee engines, and included an unusual reverse move at the junction to cross the Galt sub (northward train would pull around south wye, back down the Galt sub, and carry on northward around the north wye and onto Goderich). If a Jubilee wasn’t available, or if the regular engine broke down, a spare engine stationed at the junction would be used to power the local passenger train. Often this was a P-1 or P-2 Mikado, which made for quite the interesting little passenger train! Additional passenger service was provided by a CP gas-electric doodlebug based out of Guelph, and often made several round trips between Guelph and the junction (about 15 miles) per day.
Through the viewfinder, we observe a pair of TH&B geeps, GP7 #77 and GP9 #401. The subject train (though apparently absent of cars this day) is the Goderich Turn, operated north out of TH&B’s Aberdeen yard to its’ namesake port on Lake Huron. An interesting operation, the train commonly operated with TH&B-supplied power, often with just a single unit. This is especially interesting considering the steep descent down the Niagara Escarpment from Guelp Junction and the TH&B units’ lack of dynamic brakes. The pair of units on today’s train is an interesting anomaly, considering TH&B’s common practice of using borrowed engines to power its’ own trains. It appears that the train is making a switching move at the time of this photo – note the conductor with his large shoulder-slung radio appears to have just lined the main line switch back to the normal position. Most of what is visible in this photo is now gone – the CP Chevy van undoubtedly disposed of after years of service, and the station demolished to make way for additional GO Transit storage tracks, the TH&B geeps, and even the train order semaphore, a Guelph Junction landmark for decades. But for at least a moment back in July 1984 we can imagine what the geeps’ 567 engines sounded like while switching at the Junction.
‘Til next time,
Cheers,
Peter.
Throwback Thursday 20 TH B 71 at Smithville ON
on Wednesday, April 19, 2017
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| Somewhat a celebrity as far as diesels are concerned, TH&B #71 sits in front of the road's Smithville, Ontario station with a northbound freight sometime in the late 1970's. Scanned from a Kodak film negative from my collection (photographer unknown). |
Tonight’s Throwback Thursday features a shot of TH&B #71 westbound in front of the road’s station at Smithville, Ontario. The scan is from an undated Kodak negative from my collection, purchase a few months ago at a local train show (photographer unknown). Though we don’t have an exact date for the photo, we have a reasonable idea of when the photo was taken – before February 12, 1980. That’s that date when the locomotive – famously, the first Canadian-assembled engine built at General Motors’ London, ON plant – was destroyed in a fiery collision with a tractor trailer just outside of Welland, ON. But on this date, the engine appears unaware of its’ impending fate as it heads north (geographically west) with tonnage from US connections at Buffalo or Montrose, headed for Hamilton and maybe even Toronto. Finding a set of pure TH&B power was indeed a treat, particularly in the roads’ later years when increasing corporate influence by owner CP became evident in the number of CP units powering the railway’s trains.
Smithville, 20 miles southeast of Hamilton on what is now Canadian Pacific’s Hamilton subdivision, was once the junction with the Dunnville subdivision which ran 20 miles south through its’ namesake town to the Lake Erie waterfront town of Port Maitland, and the Erco (now Innophos Canada) phosphate plant therein. Unit trains of phosphate rock from Florida (“rock trains”) were steady traffic for a number of years on the TH&B, and along with unit sulfuric acid trains, generated good business for the branch. At one time, a car ferry provided the TH&B with American connections on the opposite shore of Lake Erie. A passing siding at Smithville still exists, and is the only place between Welland and Kinnear for the CP dispatcher to meet trains now that the Vinemount siding has been removed. Also removed was the wye at Smithville with the Dunnville branch; cut back in 2001 due to several wooden bridges being in poor condition, CP elected to revive a portion of the old CASO line between Welland and the od location where the Dunnville branch crossed the CASO at grade (E&O crossing). A short connector track was built in the southeast quadrant of the crossing to join the two lines, with service to the phosphate plant now originating out of Welland instead of Hamilton. The 9.5 miles between E&O crossing and Smithville were subsequently abandoned and removed (even the overhead steel bridge over #20 highway in Smithville was removed). Happily though, the Smithville TH&B station still stands in its’ original location to this day, carefully preserved and in good condition.
‘Til next time,
Cheers,
Peter.
Back to It Throwback Thursday 27 CP at Bayview Junction in May 2006
on Sunday, March 26, 2017
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| Seven-month old CP ES44AC #8734 leads #249 east on the CN Oakville Sub at Bayview Jct on May 28, 2006. Bill McArthur photo, author's collection. |
Good Evening All,
Like a lot of modelers, other hobbies and pastimes have displaced some of my ‘train room time’ over the summer, but now that the fall is upon us with the short days and cold weather probably not far off, its back to indoor activities for me, which includes updating this blog on a more regular basis.
Anyway, that brings me to tonight’s Throwback Thursday – back to 2006. The image is not as old as the others that I’ve discussed in other TT’s, but it is ten years ago (!). Who’d have thought it was already ten years since Gevo’s were the latest thing on the motive power scene, Bayview had only two tracks, and “Tier 4” was a phrase no one cared about at the time. Well, funny how time flies, eh?
Here we see a Bill McArthur photo of CP #249 heading east on CN’s Oakville sub at Bayview, using decades-old trackage rights to get to Canpa, near Mimico, and back to home rails instead of climbing the steep grade up to Guelph Jct. The train is passing the work zone that is adding a third track for expanded GO Transit service to Hamilton. This meant widening the fill next to Sunfish pond, and more importantly for railfans, removal of trees that obstructed the photo angles from the Laking Gardens bridge (I’m sure to the chagrin of a lot of environmentalists).
Ten years later, it’s funny how history repeats itself – current GO Transit expansion to West Harbour station in Hamilton has again meant installation of a third track from Bayview to Bay street in Hamilton (previous third track terminated at Bayview). The current phase has the extra complexity of bridging the Desjardins canal, a feat that is nearing completion. Expanded GO service to West Harbour in the future, along with GO’s new layover yard at McNeally road in Winona will be sure to add even more trains to the already-busy Bayview area (granted, they are “window trains”). Unfortunately though, CP trains no longer use CN’s Oakville sub after trackage rights expired in 2008. The Gevo’s now aren’t the latest thing on the motive power scene, replaced by Tier-4 units (on CN, at least), and in another ten years will probably just as dull as they are now. But at least they were interesting when they were new…
'Til next time,
Cheers,
Peter.
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