Summer observations and musings

I spent a wonderful few days with my family in Southwestern Ontario for the Canada Day weekend. It was fun to be in my hometown for Canada Day for the first time in decades. While there, I was able to amass countless photos from the local railway operations. My challenge now is how to organize it all thematically so it makes sense in the context of this blog.

First, a bit of news passed along from a reader (thanks Michael F.). The City of Ottawa is planning to widen Carling Avenue and do away with a railway bridge over the road in the west end of the city. This old bridge carried transcontinental freight and passenger trains through Ottawa for generations, but the Beachburg Subdivision was torn up past Nepean Junction years ago, making this bridge a relic of the past. It will now go so that the one narrow stretch of Carling can be alleviated.

This is a photo I took from the passenger seat of my car three years ago. It always pays to take photos of the mundane, because you don't know when the mundane might become something worth remembering. I will be glad to see this stretch of Carling widened because the narrow fit beneath the rail bridge is dangerous and the rails are long gone, so it's time to do the practical thing. The city doesn't mention on its site whether there will be any bridge over Carling once the road is widened. I would imagine the old rail right-of-way would make a nice bike and pedestrian trail.

Isn't it interesting that, at a time when yet more of Ottawa's rail infrastructure is being removed, there are open musings from our federal government of building new railway infrastructure as part of the government's drive to devote two percent of the country's GDP on defense spending. Given how much of our area rail network has been removed, it would seem remote that there would be any strategic new rail infrastructure built here. However, those who have lived here for a while know that military vehicles and equipment were once delivered to CFB Petawawa via rail. I dare say this wasn't a huge source of revenue or regular thing for CP, CN or Ottawa Central, but there was a time when rail served our defense industry in the area. Check out this post from Trackside Treasure for more information about this piece of railway history.

Also, here's a YouTube video of Ottawa Central making a military delivery to Petawawa. 

Before I get to my treasure trove of rail images from the Sarnia area, I'd like to share a few attempts at rail photography on the 401/407 and the other major highways between Ottawa and my hometown. I did see two freight trains going through Kingston, but neither could be photographed from my vantage point in the passenger seat. 

Then there was the stretch of the 407 near CN's MacMillan Yard. This is wide highway and the safety barriers make a shot of the yard challenging to say the least, but with a little bit of cropping and luck, you can at least get a glimpse of this huge operation.

This image might look a bit strange. Why so much sky and so little actual railways? Well, that's because I had to crop out the highway safety barrier from the shot. You can at least get a small glimpse of a former CitiRail lease unit making its way toward the 407 while a string of autoracks to the right await their next destination. There are also some boxcars next to the CN building to the left of the shot. I wish I could offer something a bit more detailed, but I like scanning through this shot for all the various interesting elements.

Also, I did catch a passing container train making its way over the highway near Airport Road.

Here's one final shot that I had been meaning to get for years. It once again qualifies as one of those mundane shots that might not mean anything at the time, but can one day become more important. Here's a shot of the old CN ferry landing in Sarnia, as seen from Front Street. The old yard that the railway once maintained for shipping oversized cars over the St. Clair River is now occupied by a gravel dock. But notice how the rails are still there at the edge of the old ferry dock.

 

Given how quick CN is to tear up every last scrap of track here in Ottawa, I was surprised to see rails still there at the end of the old ferry dock, some 30 years after the new tunnel was put into use beneath the river, making the ferry operation obsolete. 

 

I also caught an interesting meet while looking over the old ferry operation, which was once connected by the CN Point Edward Spur, which is still in place today as it serves the grain elevator on Sarnia Bay.

 

Okay, so it's not the type of meet we usually like to see in a railway blog, but I thought it was cool to catch two Great Lakes freighters making their way north and south along the river. The southbound ship is the Mark W. Barker, an American ship owned by the Interlakes Steamship Company. This ship carries taconite, salt and limestone, although it has carried parts of wide turbines in the past. I was not able to get a clean enough shot to read the name of the northbound ship.

 

As I am about to head out on the second vacation with my family, which promises more railway photos to come, I thought a post with some random shots might work best, as I am still thinking about how to properly organize the stacks of images I intend to share from Sarnia in the months to come. Stay tuned. 

Summer vacation

Well, school's out and I have time off so that means I will be visiting family and in my hometown for Canada Day for the first time in decades. I'm sure it will be mean more than usual as my hometown is a border town. I have very fond memories of Canada Days from my youth. No matter where I've lived, I have found a special kind of national pride throughout this country.

So before I head off on my sojourn, I have one correction to pass along. In my last post, I talked about the Bytown Railway Society looking to dispose of its old Central Vermont crane. That was not the case. The society, in fact, has disposed of its old CP Jordan spreader plow. That old relic is on the move to an industrial history display at J. Tackaberry & Sons Construction Co. Ltd. in Athens, Ontario. That news was shared via the BRS Facebook page this past week and alert railfans let me know of my mistake. So I thank them for setting me straight on that one.

 

We'll miss this in Ottawa, but the BRS has tough decisions to make with its limited space at the Canada Museum of Science and Technology. I actually found it a bit disappointing to read some of the comments from railfans who seemed annoyed at BRS for disposing of this car. This organization has done fine work and it can only do so much with the resources and volunteers it has. Also, its limitations at the museum are what they are. The museum is about more than railways, obviously, so BRS has to make use of the facilities it has and do the best it can. 

 

Anyway, in the coming weeks and months, there are a number of topics I'd like to cover and there are some cool railway photos I have yet to share that lend themselves to some interesting deep dives into some obscure railways. 

 

Also, I'm hoping to come home from my brief vacation with some railway photos from outside Ottawa. I think the blog could use a bit more variety.

 

 

All the best to everyone for this upcoming Canada Day. It's been a tough few months for our country and the future is indeed uncertain. The world seems like a meaner place these days, for many reasons and they don't all begin and end with the leader of the U.S. My point is, the world is facing a lot of uncertainty and division. 

 

Yet, through it all, there is no other place I'd rather be than in Canada. I was born here and I am so lucky to live here. We're not perfect, but we're not so bad either. I love that we have come together amid adversity and we still seem to value kindness. The world needs more kindness, to be sure.

 

Happy Canada Day and happy days to everyone else beginning their summers.

 

I'll see you all soon. 

 

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I came across some bonus photos this morning that I had forgotten I had taken back in April. I'm happy to share them, as I think they all tell a bit of a story about where this city is at from a railway perspective. 

Before I get to the found photos, I will share this image I captured along Conroy Road in the spring, which I found to be a bit of a surprise. It's an old Ottawa Central sign indicating that the Walkley Yard is private property. 

Interesting that CN didn't bother to pull down the OCR sign when it resumed freight services in the city years ago. That OCR sign is easily 10 plus years old. Amazing that it's still there. The day that I took this shot, Walkley Yard was essentially empty. It's quite sad to see that, even by our simple standards here in Ottawa, there is almost nothing to shoot, even from a distance, in the yard. CN seems to control most of its activities in the city out of its yard in Coteau. The old OCR building at Walkley is clearly vacant and is on the market. 

I hesitate to mention the fact that CN has long wanted to get out of its obligations to move freight in and out of Ottawa, as it has applied to discontinue service here. I have heard about attempts to establish short line freight service here but I cannot even venture a guess as to how serious these attempts are or whether this is a realistic possibility at all. Just know that it has been mentioned to me. 

For now, we continue to wait and see what will become of the limited freight operations in this city. After all, CN can service the steel mill in L'Orignal out of Coteau, which leaves just a few scattered customers in the Ottawa area, including Nylene Canada in Arnprior. That service is still mandated by the government, as far as I know. I can't imagine CN wants to continue providing that far-flung service, even with the line out to Arnprior being owned by Nylene and the land the line sits on by the City of Ottawa. 

Now onto some surprise shots. I was driving myself a bit mad the other day, trying to find some daytime images I knew I had taken of trains leaving Via's Central Train Station on Tremblay Road. But I couldn't find them anywhere on my hard drive. It turns out, I had yet to download these images from my camera. So, I was happy to review them and I can now share them.

This shot was taken from the Belfast Road overpass of an eastbound corridor train making its way along the Alexandria Sub toward Montreal. The presence of F40s and LRC cars is sure to become more and more scarce in the coming months, so I suppose getting in a last few shots will be necessary. I do like getting shots from this overpass, although the power wires are a pain.

I also like framing shots from this vantage point, with the curve in the line and the signals on either side. Looking at this shot, it makes me realize just what an awkward fit the F40s are pulling LRC coaches, when compared to the original Bombardier LRC locomotives, which were the same height as the coaches. But the F40s have served Via spectacularly over the decades. 

This image below shows you just how many visual distractions can get in the way of a shot at the main railway station if you don't work your camera's zoom lens and position your shot between the many wires. 

You can see that the train to the right is a double-ender with a P42 facing east and an F40 facing west. I couldn't really get a decent shot of this train, because, had I moved further down the bridge, my shot would have been obscured by brush. So I figured I would take a shot with everything in the frame. I count five wires in this shot, not to mention the light standard.

Also back in April, I had an appointment on St. Laurent Boulevard so I ducked behind the Canada Museum of Science and Technology to see what the Bytown Railway Society had on its tracks outside. 

The maintenance of way equipment was out in the spring sunshine, including this CP plow and the 1919 vintage Central Vermont crane. I believe the CV crane has been put up for adoption by the BRS so it can find a home at a museum where it can be enjoyed. I made sure to get a shot of the builder's plate, which shows it was made in Bay City, Michigan.
 

It would be a shame to have this old piece of MoW equipment leave the city.

 

However, if you follow BRS on Facebook, you will know that the society is bringing an old E.B. Eddy steam locomotive back to the capital region from its current home at Exporail in Delson, Quebec. Of course, E.B. Eddy and the paper and matchstick industry was a major source of railway business in downtown Hull up until even the 1990s. Back in the final days of CP Rail's presence in Ottawa, the railway still served industry on the riverfront in Hull via the Prescott and Ellwood Subs and the former Prince of Wales Bridge. I recall watching these freight trains rumble through Carleton University when I was in residence there in 1996 and 1997. If only I got a few shots of them when they still operated! Oh well.

One final note to readers and fellow railfans. My blog has unfortunately been hammered with spam comments for the better part of a year. I am growing tired of keeping tabs on these spammers and bots. I have tried to regularly clean out these messages (there have been upwards of about 400 or so). I have not been able to stamp this out so I will be moderating comments for the next little while to hopefully ease this process.

I apologize for anyone that might disagree with this approach. I can say that I have never once deleted a comment from someone because of what they might have said. Everyone has been generally respectful since I launched this blog. The only comments I have ever deleted are spam. I am hoping this additional step will help stop the influx. We'll see.

As always, I'm open to your suggestions and comments via the comments section or you can email me if you want.

hammond.michael77 AT gmail dot com

Michael