RMEO Part IV: The best of the rest

Last summer, my family visited the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario in Smiths Falls. I made sure to take photos of just about everything. In this post, I thought I'd share some photos of a number of pieces of the museum's collection that didn't merit their own post.

You can read about the museum's S3 locomotive here.
You can read about the museum's two Canadian Pacific cabooses here.
You can read about the museum's dental car here.

The car below is an oddity for sure, at least by today's railway standards. This 1947 Cadillac sedan was originally owned by a Toronto doctor. The doctor donated the car to his friend "Buck" Crump, president of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Crump promptly sent the luxury car to Montreal where the railway converted it into possibly the most comfortable inspection vehicle the CP had ever seen.

The car, numbered M-260, was assigned to the president and used for division inspections. There are some interesting modifications on this car. One is that the steering wheel was used for air brakes while the car itself was placed on a rotating turntable, which allowed the car to avoid needing wyes or diamonds in order to turn around. An air horn and bell were also added to this eight-cylinder, seven-tonne car, which has 32,000 miles on the odometer. I also love the CPR beaver logo on the driver side door.

Canadian Pacific spanned the world at the time.

My nephew loved this locomotive, which I took him to see. This steam engine, built in 1912 for the Canadian Northern, was a 4-6-2 coal-burning locomotive later converted to oil. The locomotive was used for both freight and passenger service. It served in these two capacities for the CNoR and CNR until it was sold to the resource line Quebec, North Shore and Labrador, where it worked in revenue service until 1961. The locomotive was then donated to railway museum Exporail. In 1992, it was leased to the Smiths Falls museum, where it has been ever since. The museum had the engine laid out with a consist of two boxcars and a caboose.

This wooden caboose below was one of 15 built by the Canadian National in London, Ontario in 1947. This caboose belonged to the last roster of wooden cabooses built by the railway. It was retired from revenue service in 1983 and was donated to a museum in Cornwall. In 2001, it was donated to this museum, where it was restored. It looked like it needed a fresh coat of paint, but the interior was immaculate. Despite the fact that it is a wooden caboose, this car has some modern touches, like an oil stove, rather than a coal stove. It also was equipped with air brakes.

Inscription on this yellow boxcar (see shot above, in front of the CNR caboose) reads: "Insulated and Heated Car. For Cleaning Lading Only. Accept Bulk Commodity."

This plow was one of my favourites. One of the reasons is that it's such an odd looking car. The Goderich Exeter Railway still uses a plow just like this one to keep its lines clear, especially in the Huronia region. This car, 55400, was built in 1935 by National Steel Car in Hamilton. This plow worked by harnessing the power of the compressed air in the train's braking system.

This shot gives you an idea of what it was like to sit in the cockpit of one of these cars. The three gauges you see read main reservoir, signal line and train line. I was surprised how simplistic the setup was when I climbed into this car.

This old wooden boxcar was something of an anomaly. There wasn't much to read about it in the brochure the museum gives visitors. There was nothing on the outside to indicate the origin of this car. By digging a little, I found that this car was built in 1923 for the Canadian Pacific. There is little more out there about the story of this car.

I did find it interesting that there was this door at the end of the boxcar, which suggested to me that this car may have been modified at some point for maintenance of way duties, although that is just a guess.

I spotted this tank car at the edge of the museum's property near a maintenance shop. It reads Casco on the side. It looked like it needed a fair amount of work before it was added to the permanent collection.

 

That concludes my four-part recap of one of Eastern Ontario's more fascinating museums. My family and I had a great time wandering the grounds and the restored CNoR station. Smiths Falls should be very proud of this museum. I know I will be back.

All American Diesel in Canada

In Spring 1991, I sometimes would hop on my bike and race to the nearby CSX tracks when I heard a train approaching my hometown. One morning, I caught a huge four-diesel mixed freight, which was one of the better catches I have ever had.

Fast forward a few decades.

A great surprise awaited me the other day when I visited the Chesapeake & Ohio Canadian Division Facebook group. It turns out, one of the photos I took that spring day had much more historic significance than I had imagined.

This is a shot of GP38-2 2002, repatched for CSX but previously bearing the B&O markings on the side of its hood. This unit, which was originally B&O 3802, was like any other GP38 that were used almost exclusively on this rail line between Sarnia and Chatham in the 1990s.

But this unit, it turns out, has been preserved at the Baltimore & Ohio museum in Baltimore, Maryland because it is historically significant. There was a reminder stenciled onto the side of this unit, which read "Do Not Dismantle. On release from service, hold for shipment to B&O Museum via Locust Point, Baltimore."

The stencil was applied in 1992, which meant my photo was taken the year before the locomotive was officially tabbed for the museum. But the question is, why was this unit designated to be saved?

Upon reading about this unit's story on the museum's website, I was surprised to read that this locomotive was dubbed the All American Diesel by Trains Magazine in 1982. At the time it was chosen, this locomotive was already in Chessie paint. It turns out, despite the patch being applied to this unit in 1992, this locomotive wasn't retired from service until 2000. Not a bad return for a diesel manufactured in 1967.

You can see lots of photos of this unit and the patch at the C&O Canadian Facebook group (see link above), which I have found to be a fascinating treasure trove of photos and information about a largely forgotten rail network in Southwestern Ontario. You can also see what this unit looks like fully restored today on the B&O Museum's 3802 Flikr page.

What makes this even better for me was I caught this unit on a train with four diesels. This was the one and only time I ever saw four units leading a train on this line. Usually, CSX ran two geeps together, with the long hoods connected together.

This has always been one of my favourite railway photos. Now that I know the story behind this unit, it makes this image all the more special. It also makes me feel old to know that an engine I caught is now a museum piece.

OTHER NEWS

Over at Trackside Treasure, blogger Eric Gagnon has posted about the fascinating Sclair covered hoppers that were once common around Sarnia and elsewhere. Eric was nice enough to include a link to an older Beachburg Sub post that included a shot I took of the Sclair hoppers in Corunna. I found one other shot of a Sclair hopper, taken in 1992 that I thought I would share. This car is parked on a spur serving a plastics plant near Corunna. That maroon car to the left is a Dupont hopper. The former Dupont plant, now owned by Nova Chemicals, is located in Corunna on the CSX Sarnia Sub.

CN 589 at Northside Road

The good news is I finally caught CN's Arnprior local in Bells Corners, which has been on my to-do list for a while. The bad news is I just barely caught it and had to improvise to get a few shots.

The morning I caught it, I fully intended to set up a shot alongside the tracks on a stretch of Northside Road in Bells Corners. Unfortunately, I had a last-minute appointment scheduled for early in the morning across the city, which compressed my timeline somewhat. After navigating my way back to my neighbourhood through snowy conditions, I was driving down Northside, just past the bridge that carries the CN Beachburg Subdivision over Highway 416. As I made my way around a bend in the road, not more than a few metres from a parking lot where I was going to set up, I saw the train plodding along. I was about a minute too late to set up. On to Plan B.

I had my camera out so I pointed it at the train and took a few blind shots while focusing on the road. The consist headed to Nylene Canada in Arnprior was about as short as you will find. CN GP38-2W 4760 was pulling DNAX 300908.

I noticed a strange badge on the side of the tank car, which, upon further inspection, turned out to be Dana Rail Care. It turns out, DNAX 300908 is the reporting mark belonging to the Delaware-based company, which specializes in railcar washing and maintenance. I have never seen one of these cars before, so that made up for the fact that 589 only had a single car in the consist. Considering that I have seen this train in recent months (sans camera sadly) pulling as many as four cars, it was a bit of a let down to catch it with just a single car.

As the road and right-of-way diverged a bit, I was able to get some wider shots of the tiny train. It should be obvious that, if you are planning to shot a train in this area, summer is not a good time since there is so much brush and weeds growing along the tracks.

I was reasonably happy with my shots, especially the snowfall that I managed to catch. I have long thought that my collection of railway images was severely lacking in winter photos. I think I have managed to address some of that shortage in recent weeks.

I thought I would include this shot, which places the railway tracks in context. The rail line winds around the northern edge of Bells Corners, winding past a number of small-scale industrial and commercial facilities. Here 589 slips in behind a commercial complex before the trackage passes over Robertson Road.

I also though I would throw in this initial shot, which I took as I made my way around a bend in the road and first noticed the train. I left in the glare from the windshield, just to illustrate how quickly I had to try and grab some shots. I did end up with a few shots where road signs were blocking the view of the train. In this shot, I just barely squeezed in the train before some of the road signs began.

 

In recent weeks, I have found myself driving around areas that cross the Smiths Falls Subdivision and have noticed that one of CN's main customers along the line, Kott Lumber, has been ordering two lumber cars at its Moodie Drive facility. This is the first time I have noticed more than a single car at the facility. Further along the tracks, at the SynAgri feed mill, there have been no hopper car deliveries in recent weeks, which suggests to me that the mill will not need any rail service until the spring.

 

I also mentioned in the summer that bundles of rail ties have been left by the tracks, which suggested that track work was about to be done in and around Ottawa. Those ties are still sitting trackside, which means the track work is still to be done. It might be something for local rail watchers to keep an eye on as the spring weather takes hold here.