Guest post: Ride the Algoma Central Railway while you can (Part II)

This is the second part of a series about Beachburg Sub contributor Dave M.'s adventures aboard the Algoma Central's passenger trains in Northern Ontario. Please click here to read the first part.

By Dave M

In the morning, we tried to go standby on the tourist excursion train so that we could have some time to hike around the Agawa Canyon before continuing on the local passenger service. Unfortunately, staff said that all 15-20 cars were full, so we were unable to get on. We then proceeded to the yard to catch the regular passenger train back. The train had around 30 people aboard when departing Sault Ste. Marie. Before we got moving, people from a group trying to save the service handed out petition postcards and explained the importance of the line to each passenger. I noticed that some statistics that said the line is responsible for $35 to $48 million in direct and indirect economic activity and that $2.2 million would be required to keep the passenger service alive a year. Everyone boarding the train gladly filled out the surveys.

Interior of an Algoma Central baggage car

An hour or two into the trip, the train stopped at a lodge along the line and picked up a film crew of 15 people, along with several canoes, camera equipment, generators and other items. Many hands helped load and fill up the baggage car. It took around 5 to 10 minutes to load everything. They stayed on the train for about half an hour or so until they reached the canyon. The crew was filming Spirit Land: In Search of the Group of Seven. They were very excited about the footage they shot, shooting at some of the exact locations where the artists made their paintings. When they arrived at the canyon, they unloaded all of their stuff and started moving into a modified box car/sleeping car on a siding. The scenery between the Montreal River and Agawa was very good, especially with the fall colours. When we departed the train at Mile 183, there were only six people remaining on the train, which was going through to Hearst.

Typical scenery on the Algoma Central line

After spending the night in Dubreuilville, we got up early to catch the train at Mile 77.9 on the White River Sub. I knew that there was a hotbox detector at Mile 84.9 (on the far side of Franz), so I tuned the scanner to get a heads-up on when the train would arrive. I didn't catch the detector but I did hear Via 186 and CTC discussing an oncoming freight. Sure enough, in about five minutes, we saw the freight (above). And five minutes after that, we flagged down Via 186. When we boarded the train, there was only one other person aboard. It was a very smooth ride on CPR's continuous welded track, a big improvement over the jointed rail of the ACR.

Typical site aboard Via Rail's Northern Ontario service. Harder than it looks!

 

The journey back was much busier. We picked up several fishermen and hunters with their canoes. There was an exciting stop where we picked up an ATV. The owner of the ATV made metal tracks so that he could drive the machine onto the train. Driving the ATV on was a bit more difficult than I thought it would have been. The man has to give it quite a bit of juice to get up the steep incline. He also had to be sure to duck so he didn't hit his head on the top of the baggage car doorframe. He then had to hit the brakes hard once he made it in. When we got to Cartier, he pulled his pickup truck beside the train and they lifted/pushed the ATV onto the truck. On our journey to Cartier, we picked up quite a few more passengers. But after Cartier, there were less than 10 of us left.

 

Just outside of Cartier on the Nemegos Sub at Forks, we pulled into a siding and then a mainline freight stopped, occupying the switch we were to pass over. The detector at Mile 23.2 had flagged a heat alarm on the freight train. The Via staff then went out to inspect the CP train to help find the problem. The freight was more than 50 cars long. They found the problem five cars from where we stopped. The Via engineers addressed the problem (which I think was a brake issue) allowing the CP freight to continue along, which also cleared our path.

 

We arrived in Sudbury a few minutes ahead of schedule. I am unsure how long this punctuality will last because CP has recently rescheduled a slow freight train (the reason for the recent schedule in the first place) to depart before Via 186. We were lucky on our trip because CTC allowed us to pass the slow freight train when we were both sent to a siding to allow CP 101 to pass. Let's hope that the goodwill of the CP CTC will continue to allow Via's Lake Superior service to be on time.

 

 

Based on my discussions during my trip, I don't think that Via's Lake Superior service is in danger of being lost, but I'm fearful for the future of the Algoma Central passenger service. There are two ways that we can help the ACR. The first is to write a letter to the federal Minister of Transportation in support of this service. The second, and most fun way, to show your support is by using the service.

 

Special thanks to Dave M. for this extensive look at passenger services in Northern Ontario. Please feel free to leave a comment and let Dave know what you think - Michael



Guest post: Ride the Algoma Central Railway while you can (Part I)

By Dave M

In late 2012, we lost Ontario Northland's The Northlander, from Toronto to Cochrane. I still kick myself to this day for never having ridden it. In early March 2014, I found out that the Algoma Central Railway passenger service was to be cut. I feared that I had lost another train that I didn't make the time to ride. Thankfully, the Algoma Central received a one-year reprieve. When the extension was given, I told myself I would make time to ride it before I lost this train as well.

My original intent was to ride the line from end to end. But after some analysis, the following itinerary was much easier:

Thursday
[3:00-8:30] Drive from Ottawa to Sudbury
[9:00-15:50] Via 185 from Sudbury to Franz (Mile 77.9)
[Hotel] Dubreuiville

Friday
[11:30-18:10] ACR 632 from Dubreuilville (Mile 183.0) to Sault Ste. Marie
[Hotel] Sault Ste. Marie

Saturday
[9:20-15:50] ACR 631 from Sault Ste. Marie to Dubreuilville (Mile 183.)
[Hotel] Dubreuilville

Sunday
[8:20-15:50] Via 186 from Franz (Mile 77.9) to Sudbury
[16:00-21:30] Drive from Sudbury to Ottawa

VIA RAIL 185

The first train, Via 185 (Via 6250/RDC-4 and Via 6217/RDC-2) was in good shape compared to the last time I took it in 2007. The refurb from Industrial Rail Services of New Brunswick looked great.

The controls of Via 6250

The interior of Via 6217

We departed Sudbury on time with about 10 passengers. In Chelmsford, we picked up a couple more. Half of the passengers were going to camps (some with canoes) along the line while the others were going to Cartier and Chapleau. Only one person was travelling the length of the line to White River.

Via recently took over full operations on Via 185 and 186 (Lake Superior) from the Canadian Pacific. At the same time, the eastward schedule was modified to have it leave a couple of hours early to get it ahead of a slow freight train. Before the schedule changes, the train was typically three to four hours late arriving at Sudbury. After talking with the crew and passengers on this trip, it was apparent that these schedule changes significantly improved the train's punctuality. Many of the regular passengers commented to the staff that they appreciated this new punctuality. I can understand their appreciation since many of the stops were flag stops and would be miserable places to wait for hours in bad weather.

Sinker Creek: Nor your standard Via station

After Chapleau, there was only us only one other passenger on the train. Originally, I had planned to get off at Franz, but the hotel we were staying at advised us that the road from Franz to Dubreuilville was in very poor condition and suggested we get off a few miles before Franz at Park Road (Mile 77.9) because that road is in better condition. We arrived at our stop (Park Road) five minutes early and spent the night in Dubreuilville.

Via Rail 185 at Mile 77.9 Park Road

ACR 632

Our ACR boarding was a true flag stop. We went to where the gold mine road crosses the ACR tracks at Mile 183 on the Soo subdivision to catch the train. Unfortunately, they were expecting us a couple of miles earlier, behind an old mill. The train was travelling at a reasonable speed when we flagged them down. As we were flagging them down, I heard the crew on the scanner say "That is where they are. Stopping. Open door on the right." The consist of the train was CN GP40 9574, AC 312 luggage car (Budd), AC 5654, 5656 coaches (Budd) and AC 78 generator car (Alco). When we boarded, there were about 15 people on the train. About an hour later, we arrived at Hawk Junction. Just about everyone departed the train except for us and five others.

Interior of ACR 5654

After we left Hawk Junction, we didn't stop to pick up or drop off any other passengers. All parts of the train were open to everyone, allowing us to wander around the baggage car and shoot pictures in the open air, out of doors and windows. It was a very nice feeling having your head out the window as you pass along this amazing scenery. The scenery is better than that on any train I've ridden in North America.

When we were about half an hour from our final destination, one of the train's staff went through the car to determine who needed taxis so that they would be there when we arrived. We arrived about 45 minutes behind schedule at the terminus in the ACR yard.

Thanks to Dave for sharing his photos and thoughts about this vital northern lifeline. Please come back next week for the second part of this post. Also, please take a moment to tell Dave what you thought - Michael



  

A family tradition

I come by my love of railways honestly. Both my grandfathers worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway. All my uncles worked for the CP in their teens while one worked for Via later in life at Union Station in Toronto. My Dad told me that he often used to clean out the RDC Budd cars that Canadian Pacific used for its passenger service between Windsor and Toronto. He said he often found money and booze. My cousin works in the industry as well. Ever since I was a child, the railway has played a role in my family.

Which leads me to what is perhaps my favourite photo of my grandfather, Paul-Emile (below, second from right). He was born into a large French-Canadian family in St-Fabien, Que., in the Rimouski region. After leaving home in his teens to become a lumberjack as a way of supporting his family, he found his way into a railway job. For close to half a century, he worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway as a rolling stock mechanic, first in Chapleau, Ont. and then in Windsor, Ont.

The photo below was taken in the 1960s or early 1970s at the site of a derailment in Ridgetown, Ont. For years, this photo hung in the kitchen of my grandparent's house in Windsor with the inscription "Life on the tracks." My grandfather had impossibly large hands from a lifetime of working on these big machines. Even in his 70s and 80s, he could squeeze your arm (jokingly) and it would feel like a pair of vice grips. As I grew up, many in the family said I looked like my grandpa, which I always considered a compliment.

This photo was the source of a family myth for years. My grandpa never talked about the photo, but others in the family guessed it was taken in Northern Ontario, when my grandpa worked in Chapleau, which was a major servicing point on the CPR for years. It wasn't until my grandpa passed away in 2008 when we were told by a former co-worker at his wake that the photo was actually taken in Ridgetown, in southwestern Ontario.

Given the recent tragedy in Lac-Mégantic, Que., I don't want to make light of train accidents, but am happy to share that this one was a minor accident and the only casualties were the rolling stock and track, as you can see behind the trackside gang.

The next photo is a shot from the 1950s when my grandfather (back row, right) took his family to Padoue, Que. (near Rimouski as well) where much of his family lived. My father Georges is front row, left, while my grandma Imelda is back row, left. I love this photo because it is quintessentially Canadian. It could have been taken at any small town anywhere in Canada in the 1950s and the chances are, there would be a railway station and families on the platform. Padoue still has but a few hundred souls, but it had its own train station in the 1950s. Imagine that. How times have changed.

Below is a photo that continues the family tradition. My father took this photo of my siblings and I in front of former Canadian National steam engine 5588, dubbed the Spirit of Windsor, in front of the old Windsor rail ferry. I am in the front row left while my brother is beside me. My sister is in the back row right next to her childhood friend, who is trying to keep me still for a photo. The shot was likely taken in 1980 or 1981. You can just make out the Railbox boxcar behind (Next load, any road!). It was around this time when my grandpa first brought me to the Windsor rail yard and took me aboard a locomotive for the first time. I still vividly remember when he showed me how an engine worked.

And the tradition continues with my nephew and godson, Daniel, as he marvels at the passing of a CSX freight train headed for the Chemical Valley in Sarnia a few weeks ago. My sister told me that the train had stopped on the main line, which runs by the edge of their property. My nephew ran to the back of the property to watch the idling train until it eventually trundled off on its way to Sarnia. I wonder if my year-old daughter will share my passion when she grows up. She does like it when I fire up my little N-scale train set in our house, so there's always hope.