Old friend and a new twist

In late June, I was told by a friend that CN was using two Iowa Northern-painted geeps as power for local operations. Naturally, with so little to see in Ottawa from a freight train perspective, I was excited. Even better, CN's weekly freight west, Train 589, was operating on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, which is a holiday for Quebec workers like me. My first plan was to camp out trackside along the Beachburg Subdivision, which is not too far from my house. But then I heard the train was making its way up the Smiths Falls Subdivision to Kott Lumber and on to Richmond, where it would do a runaround move on a switch, as the train was not going to Arnprior that day.

So, change of plans. I got in my car and went to Fallowfield Station, which is also not all that far from where I live. I missed the train as it made its way west to Kott, but I knew I was going to catch it on the way back, as there was a large group of railfans awaiting its return.

The double header dropped off two centrebeam lumber cars at Kott Lumber, on Moodie Drive, before heading further up the Smiths Falls Sub to Richmond, where the power ran around the two empty lumber cars it picked up, so the crew wouldn't have to shove its way back to Walkley.

It didn't hit me until later that these types of geeps, clad in the classic Canadian Pacific maroon, grey and gold, were likely similar to the diesels my grandfather saw when he worked as a rolling stock mechanic for the CPR in Chapleau and Windsor. 

Iowa Northern mystery

I will admit that I knew next to nothing about the Iowa Northern Railway before seeing these two units. It was formed in 1981, when a group of grain elevator owners took over local lines from the bankrupt Rock Island Railroad. Over the years, the short line railway expanded and brought its tracks back up to speed. After a few ownership changes, the line was purchased by the Canadian National in 2025, which explains the appearance of these units up here in Ottawa. The Iowa Northern operates 163 miles (262 kilometres) of track in Iowa, from Cedar Rapids into northern areas of the state. It handles around 40,000 carloads of freight, according to stats listed on Wikipedia. It has connections with CN, CPKC and the Union Pacific.

You will notice below that the small eastbound 589 is taking the siding at Fallowfield Station, since it has to wait for the arrival of Via westbound Train 45 for Toronto.

Next up, I backed up into the parking lot to see if I could get a shot with the train's reflection in the rain puddles. The other railfans remained on the platform, getting very tight wedge shots, which is not my thing at all. I needed to see the sides of the train and that beautiful livery!

Not quite what I wanted, as I didn't get a terribly clear reflection in the puddle. I also didn't get enough of the car behind the power. But it's always worth a try to get an image that is not a standard shot. Next up, Via's Train 45 was due. A meet!

I had to get onto the platform and accept that this shot was going to be a tight wedge. I am reasonably happy with this image, given the harsh glare of the morning sun and the railfans I had to shoot around (everyone was quite accommodating to each other). The Venture had barely come to a stop before 589 geared up and headed back east to Federal Junction. Before it departed, I tried to get another two-for-one shot with both trains in the same frame. The CN freight train was a little too far east on the siding to get a side-by-side shot, but I tried my best to get something. 

Finally, it was time for a few going away shots.

I think this was the best of the bunch as the train pulled away, as I switched to my iPhone and was surprised that it captured the blue sky better than my regular camera, although that could be a function of me not having the camera on the best setting. I'll figure it out, one of these days. 

I am grateful for the tips I received from friends that allowed me to capture this unique train. I noticed the following week that the power in Ottawa had changed again, meaning this rare site is all the more precious. 

I don't know how quickly CN will be able to recover from the Canada Day flooding that slammed the west end of the city. The Beachburg Sub and Renfrew Spur both suffered washouts. CN will have to deal with the Beachburg damage while Nylene Canada and the city will have to fix the Renfrew tracks, as those rails are owned by the company while the right-of-way is owned by the city. I'm not sure how that responsibility breaks down.

All in all, it was a fun morning to capture a rare sight. It was also my first experience with local railfans. I know they're out there, but I so rarely run across them.  

Hello, I must be going

Summer is about to officially begin. My daughters are finished with their schooling and my family's thoughts are turning to time off, trips, visits to family and other leisurely pursuits. With that in mind, I am going to park all activities on this blog for the coming week.

But not before sharing this quick shot captured yesterday (June 24) at Fallowfield Station. 

This might be the biggest rail sensation to hit Ottawa since the Canadian Pacific brought up its vintage rail cars for the CP Canadian Women's Open several years back. Here are two Iowa Northern-painted geeps on the siding at Fallowfield Statiom, coming back from dropping off two loaded centrebeam lumber cars to Kott Lumber on the Smiths Falls Subdivision. 

The train, CN 589, was awaiting the arrival of  westbound Via Train 45. Once the Venture set arrived, the two-car train shuttled off back toward Federal Junction, on its way to Walkley Yard. There was no run up to Arnprior. But the appearance of two locomotives adorned in the vintage CP maroon and grey was amazing to see. 

I'll have much more to share about this meet later on. For now, I'll leave you with this one shot. I have a summer full of railfanning to do, which will fill the pages of this blog in the coming months. 

But I have to say one quick thank you. I would not have seen any of this had I not been given some great tips from railfans nice enough to help me out. Also, it didn't hurt that I am a Quebec worker and had the St-Jean-Baptiste Day holiday off.

Have a good summer. I'm closing in on 500 posts. But for now, let's just enjoy this vintage scene! 

From Main Street to the Back Forty: The Renfrew Subdivision (Part III)

In the first two posts about the former CN Renfrew Subdivision, I explored the rail line's creation as an important link between Western Canada and Eastern Canada. The line, as originally conceived, was meant to handle prairie grain at Depot Harbour on Georgian Bay and move it east. The same goes for timber harvested in Algonquin Park, which the railway's owner, John Rudolphus Booth, also controlled. In the 1930s, the line was severed in two in Algonquin Park, as a faulty bridge was never repaired. From that moment on, the rail line, now a CN concern, was a regional right-of-way with significantly less traffic.

Read Part I and Part II.

After that transcontinental resource and timber traffic died away, what were left were local freight and passenger services, linking the Upper Ottawa Valley with Ottawa. We traced the path of the CN Dayliner from Ottawa all the way to Barrys Bay in the first two posts. 

Through the years following the line being severed, the Renfrew Subdivision saw its share of interesting equipment, including the precursors of the Budd cars, the doodlebugs (as above). These units were meant to make marginal passenger lines more cost-efficient, but by the 1950s-1960s, the car was king and these passenger lines could barely hang on. 

In 1961, the passenger service was discontinued, as the line essentially became a marginal freight route. 

 

But, up until the discontinuation, you could ride the rails from Ottawa to Barrys Bay six days a week and back, except Sunday. There were even times when the passenger service came in the form of a full-fledged consist, with a steam engine, baggage car and coaches (all images in this post come from the Canada Science and Technology Museum Archives). 

 

As we explored in the first two posts, by the late 1950s and early 1960s, you could leave Ottawa's Union Station downtown at 4:30 p.m. and arrive in Barrys Bay at 7:30 p.m. via Budd car. If you were making your way to Ottawa from Barrys Bay, you would leave bright and early at 4:30 a.m. and arrive in Ottawa at 7:30 a.m., in time for some breakfast and the work day. 

 

However, the Renfrew Subdivision's story doesn't end in Barrys Bay, where regular passenger service ended. Up until the very end of passenger service in 1961, you could take a CN mixed train from Barrys Bay all the way to Whitney, which was the end of track after the line was severed in Algonquin Park. 

 

The mixed service ran Tuesday through Friday as 221 westbound to Whitney and 222 eastbound from Whitney to Barrys Bay. Since we took the train from Ottawa to the Bay in the first two posts, I thought it'd fun to take the mixed to Whitney in this post. There are very few passenger shots of the line past Barrys Bay, so we'll have to make do with what we found.

 

Barrys Bay Station - 9 a.m.

 

Given that the daily CN Dayliner arrived from Ottawa at 7:30 p.m., let's hope you found accommodations in town before getting ready for your morning departure west. This 1958 image, below, of a combine car, gives you an idea of what your accommodations would be on the mixed train west, near the end of service. 

 

From Barrys Bay, you'd be on the train for less than half an hour before coming to the first stop.

 

Aylen Lake flag stop - 9:20 a.m.

 

There are no images for this stop, which sits at the southern edge of part of Algonquin Park. It is listed as an access point for the park, so it makes sense that the railway would have service here at some point, if only for people looking to access cottages. 

 

From Aylen Lake, depending on if you stopped, you would make your way through the former flag stop of Opeongo, which is listed on the timetable, but without a time, which likely means it was no longer a stop.

 

Next up is a former division point and railway town, one that played a major role in the earliest days of the Ottawa, Arnprior & Parry Sound Railway. 

 

Madawaska Station - 10 a.m. 

 

A this point, you've been on the mixed train for an hour and have travelled 21 track miles or 35 kilometres. That means you've averaged about 35 km/h so far. This might be a result one of two factors. Either there were slow restrictions on this part of the line, or the mixed train might have to stop to pick up or drop off freight cars along the way. I can't imagine a lot of trackside business at this point, but you never know.

 

 

This is an image of the Madawaska Station in the 1940s, although it is not clear from the archives information when it was taken. The caption mentions that there was a railway restaurant in the station at this point. This all makes sense when you consider that Madawaska was once a service point for the railway, as evidenced by the roundhouse that once dominated the railway lands.

 

The text accompanying the images from the museum archives mentions the roundhouse was abandoned in 1933. This would make sense, as this was around the time when the line was severed, which would mean it was no longer a through route to Georgian Bay.

 

Here's another image that points to Madawaska's time as a railway servicing point. This image above is from the Grand Trunk era and is labelled as a coaling station. You can see the water tower in the background as well as a caboose. The photos tells a story of a town that once was quite prominent in the CN network.

Stay on the mixed train for another half hour and you get to the second last stop on the remaining subdivision.

 

L'Amable Station - 10:30 a.m.

 

At this point, you're about 30 track miles outside of Barrys Bay, in an area that, judging by the photos I found, is increasingly remote. This is the only image I could find of the L'Amable stop. The caption reads that the water tower was installed here when the tower in Madawaska was torn down. There is another shot of an earlier L'Amable train station on the Bancroft, Ontario website. According to this site, the community was popular with early settlers, who liked its fertile soils for farming. L'Amable is just south of Bancroft.

 

 

With this stop out of the way, you are now into the home stretch of CN territory in this part of the province. You are now headed to the end of the line.
 

Whitney Station - 11 a.m.

 

Half an hour after passing through L'Amable, you will arrive at Whitney, the end of the line for this subdivision. You can see that there are loaded cars, possibly full of agricultural goods. Off in the distance is a caboose as well. 

 

 

Again, the stations on this stretch of the line seem much more suited to cottage country. They do not follow the architecture of the stations closer to Ottawa. And while this rail line by the 1960s was a branch-line operation, there is some photographic evidence that the line still held an important purpose for local businesses and farmers.

 

This shot, above, is one of the first I found when researching this line. You can see a truck dumping farm products into a car on the right side of the image. This means that the subdivision was still very much a vital link for farmers and their markets in the 1950s and 1960s. You get the idea how much the transport of grains has changed by looking at this image. No hoppers or cylindrical Canada cars; just these cars, which are loaded from the top by dump trucks. 

If you needed to get back east from Whitney, you'd have to take the following day's mixed train back to Barrys Bay at 11:30 a.m., which would put you in the Bay at 1:30 p.m. In many ways, right up until the line was torn up all the way to Arnprior, the Renfrew Subdivision was a throwback in most respects. It served the small communities along its line for decades, until the business dried up. 

 

Today, these images, which were taken over the decades by Aubrey Mattingly, give us a clear picture of what life was like along the rails decades ago. We're incredibly lucky to have this time capsule available to see, which is not the case for many other forgotten rail lines across Canada. 

 

A special thanks to Eric Gagnon of Trackside Treasure for helping me figure out some aspects of the history of the rail lines in this part of the province in the 1960s. Between him, Steve Boyko of traingeek.ca and Kevin O'Neil, I was able to share some fascinating history for a forgotten stretch of track.