Summer observations in Eastern Ontario

From time to time, I collect some random sightings into an observations post. Mostly, the posts centre around Ottawa, but I'm happy to have a few images from Kingston, so this post will be an Eastern Ontario post. However, I do want to start with a bit of news from Ottawa.

Farewell, 4977

You may have noticed, if you follow this organization on Facebook, that the Bytown Railway Society has found a new home for its old heavyweight Canadian National coach 4977. The BRS officially moved the old coach off the grounds of the Canada Museum of Science and Technology this week, where it began its long journey to the Railroad Museum of New England. It's noteworthy that it had to be trucked down to the States.

Those who do follow BRS on Facebook know that this group has worked diligently for 11 years to refurbish the old coach. They also chronicled their progress on Facebook regularly, so all of us history nerds could appreciate their painstaking progress. When the job was officially done, the group brought the old coach out of its storage area at the museum. I was lucky enough one day to be in the area in the spring, so I took a couple of photos of the old car.

This is what the old coach looked like on Feb 29, as it was resting on the BRS tracks near the museum on a frigid sunny afternoon. I walked along the car and marvelled at how great it looked. The BRS obviously did absolutely everything it could with the funds and manpower it had to bring this old antique car back to life. I would imagine that it will get further cosmetic treatment at its new home in Thomaston, Connecticut. 

The New England museum says 4977 will join some other pieces of CN passenger history on its grounds: heavyweights 5046, 5089, 5114, 4980. 

Of course, this is a somewhat bittersweet moment for the society and for railfans in Ottawa. The harsh reality for BRS is this group does not enjoy a connection to active rails like it once did. There was a time when the society chartered railfan trips on local and regional rails. Of course, times change and priorities change. 

The rails in and around Ottawa have been significantly pruned back by CN, which has shrunk the size of the old Ottawa Central footprint to the point where only the passenger links into and out of the city are the only rails left, with some exceptions. There's the trackage out to Orignal, the Walkley lead, Walkley Yard, a bit of the Beachburg Sub and the old Renfrew Sub. That's almost it. The rest of predominantly Via Rail territory.

Also, I can only speculate here, but I would imagine the prospect of granting BRS access to Via trackage in the area is likely fraught with difficulties, liability issues, timing challenges and likely resistance. That's just a guess. I can't see today's railways having the same attitude toward sharing its rails with charters like they once did. I can only imagine the potential liabilities that would need to be ironed out. Then there's the physical connection, which is nonexistent.

So the coach will go to a museum where it can be enjoyed. A reason to pay a visit to New England. Also, it makes me grateful that I had a chance to see this antique up close before it left Ottawa for good. 

A Bit of luck in Kingston

Earlier in July, my family took a break from the whirlwind of trying to sell our house, pack, and move to a new house. We visited family in Stratford, which meant a long drive on Highway 401. When we were driving through Kingston, we were lucky enough to catch an eastbound freight train right around the area where the CN Kingston Subdivision parallels the highway. My wife in the passenger seat was a good sport and tried to get a few quick glimpses of the mixed freight as it rumbled by in the opposite direction.

This is what you get when you are travelling at 100 km/h in the opposite direction of a freight train. The visual hazards are everywhere so you take a few shots and hope for the best. CN ES44DC 2299 leads the way with trailing unit C44-9W 2659 pulling a lumber car. 

She even managed to capture an image of an old BC Rail boxcar with its door open. 

Stretching the Eastern Ontario boundary definition

All right, this last image is most definitely not Eastern Ontario, by the classic definition, but I thought I'd add it in as it is east of Toronto. On the same trip west to Stratford, we saw a number of GO Trains as we headed west on the 401. As we were driving through the eastern suburb of Ajax, I snapped this quick shot of an eastbound commuter train from across the 401. I've made this point before but I will make it again. Taking photos of trains with no visual distractions in your image is fine, but I often find these images don't give you any context.

I've tried this year to take photos with the context attached, meaning to place the subject in your frame alongside something that gives you an idea of the five Ws. (who, what, where, when, how). That is an old lesson from my journalism school days. Approach everything with the 5 Ws in mind, even if one of the Ws is an H. I like that there are cars in the shot. It tells me this was taken on a busy highway near a city. Context!

I was actually going to finish this post with a few images of Via Rail's evening train that I usually come across each week when my daughters are at a nearby dance class. With my wife off Wednesday evenings this summer, many of my railfan excursions were curtailed by the more urgent needs of settling into our new house. This past week, I had a clear window to catch a few trains, hoping that one of them was a new Venture, but one of the trains was quite early and I missed it while the other I was unable to catch since I was busy at Costco. O for 2. 

In the coming weeks and months, I plan to share the prolific amount of railfanning images I was able to get on that trip to Stratford, including a very rare grand slam of a photo where I caught four different railway liveries on four different engines in a single shot.

Stay tuned.

A little railway history in Toronto

As I mentioned in my previous post, a June family trip to Toronto turned out to be a gold mine of railfanning fun for me, as I watched a fair bit of downtown commuter trains in action. Then there was the railfanning I did en route to the city. It was a fun weekend, which included a chance to visit the Toronto Railway Historical Society's Roundhouse Park museum in the old roundhouse across Bremner Boulevard from the Rogers Centre and CN Tower. 

This facility, known more commonly to railfans as the old John Street roundhouse, still has a working roundtable, which the museum uses to shuttle its cars to different positions throughout Roundhouse Park. There are old vintage station buildings (the former Don station), maintenance structures and a few places to grab a bite to eat in the actual roundhouse. It's a great place to visit on a summer day. I always make it a point to visit this park when I'm in the area.

Of course, it shouldn't be a surprise to any knowledgeable railfan that there's a roundhouse near the stadium, as this part of Toronto's core was once almost exclusively railway land. You can read about the history of the area in numerous posts Eric Gagnon has shared over the years in his Trackside Treasure blog. At one point, CN, CP, Via and Ontario Northland trains all shared trackage in this area. The roundhouse is the last vestige of this industrial past.

This early piece of GO Transit equipment was new to me. The last time I was at the park, this was in the roundhouse. People who know about GO's history know that its early days were a cobbled collection of cast-offs from other railways (sound familiar? Via? Amtrak?). This cab car, an exception to this rule, was built for GO in 1967 by Hawker-Siddeley in Thunder Bay (later Bombardier). The car, RTC-85 SP/D numbered 104, allowed trains to be used in push-pull mode, with full engineer controls in the car. This car was officially retired in 1994, when it was sold to the Montreal commuter agency before ending up being used in the Gaspé region for passenger operations. Metrolinx reacquired 104 to mark GO's 50th anniversary in 2016.

 

This old Baldwin switcher was parked behind a fence near the old coaling tower. Its numbering had not been stencilled onto the cab. I checked the TRHA website, which only lists CP 7020 on its roster, an S2 dating back from 1944, when it was at the forefront of dieselization efforts across the system. That old switcher bore the mulitmark scheme for years until it was repainted in its original CP switcher scheme, as delivered from the manufacturer. 

 

Here's a shot of 7020 when it was decked out in the action scheme, from my visit to the old John Street roundhouse in 2016. There are many differences between 7020 and the unnumbered maroon unit. The side grills and the trucks are both quite different, as is the front headlight. So the identity of the engine near the old coaling tower is a bit of a mystery. Anyone out there know more?

I found it interesting that the car hitched onto the old maroon switcher was stencilled for cider purposes. A real throwback to when railways carried more perishables.

Beside the old Baldwin was Canadian National 4-8-4 U-2g class Northern steam locomotive 6213. Built by the Montreal Locomotive Works in 1942, it served in both freight and passenger operations between Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. The engine would have been serviced at the old Spadina Street roundhouse, which is now where the baseball stadium sits. This would have been among one of the last steam locomotives built for CN, as dieselization was already well underway in the mid-1940s.

These old wooden cabooses were particularly popular with people roaming through the park, as they are anomalies for people not old enough to remember them in use. I am pleased to say that I am in fact old enough to at least remember the old steel cabooses in use, although I can't say I ever saw one of these old ones in use. The orange caboose dates back to 1920 and is clad in the classic CNR maple leaf scheme while the other, built in 1921, is in the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo maroon scheme.

I like this old olive green clad CN GP7 high hood unit. I had to wait quite a long time for two teenagers to get off the walkways so I could get a clean shot of this unit. This locomotive was delivered to CN from GM Diesel in London. The museum says this unit is significant in that it is one of the few GP7s that is still largely intact with its original parts. The only thing missing is its traction motors. The unit was one of the few, the museum says, that was not cosmetically altered. It still has its high hood and most of its original controls. I tried to get a shot of it with the old CNR caboose in the background.

The museum's old 50-tonne Whitcomb switcher was hiding in the roundhouse. It was built in Kingston by the Canadian Locomotive Company and was used for an aggregates company for years before making its way to a heritage operation and finally to the Toronto musueum. This unit is clad in the old TH&B scheme. It is fully operational and is often used for switching the museum's rolling stock around.

Here's the switcher on the turntable from 2016.

 I didn't stay at the roundhouse park long, as we had a lot of other things to do and a baseball game to get ready for, but I did make sure to snap a quick shot of this old heavyweight Canadian Pacific passenger car. The museum had a few such cars, one of which was later used as a work train crew car. The old maroon CP passenger cars are such a classy sight. Love to see them so lovingly preserved in their original colours. It makes me think of my grandfather, a rolling stock mechanic, who might have worked on this coach at some point in his years working for CP.

 

I did get some shots of the other pieces of the museum's collection in my previous visit in 2016. You can see those shots in this post and in this post. 

I was disappointed, after my visit, to learn that the museum had ex-Via Bombardier locomotive 6917 that was not yet on display. Having been a kid when those modern looking units prowled around the corridor, it would have been a real treat to see one again, but alas, it was not anywhere visible, as it remains at Via's Toronto maintenance centre, awaiting more cosmetic work. Next time, hopefully. I read that it is one of only two LRC locomotives that have been preserved. The other is at Exporail in Quebec.

All in all, it was a fun trip to the roundhouse. I even made sure my wife got a shot of me on one of the old GP7. It was fun to share my passion with my family for a few minutes.