Taking the track less travelled

This week, as I had a day off following Easter, I decided to head out and get some train photos in Ottawa, which I haven't done in a little while. True to my evolving approach to railway photos, I thought of some new perspectives to showcase trains as part of the landscape. My first thought was to get a shot of a Venture trainset going over the Rideau River on the Beachburg Sub rail bridge.

I have taken photos at this bridge before, but not from the south side. I have taken multiple shots from the north side. In this case, since the sun created shadows on the north side, I decided to try and find a piece of shoreline on the south side to get a decent perspective.

I'll even mix in some observations. This train was heading west toward Fallowfield station with the control cab leading the way, meaning Via Rail has resumed its push-pull operations in the corridor with its Ventures after wyeing many sets in the winter so that the engine was always pulling. A few readers mentioned this change in operations to me, as they had heard from Via personnel that the trains were having trouble in the push configuration over the winter months. 

Anyway, back to my image. In this case, I pulled back from the bridge a fair way so I could get an overall view of the west shoreline. I couldn't pull back far enough to get both the eastern and western shores of the Rideau, but perhaps that is a thought for future visits. The waters on the Rideau were not at their peak, as much of the snowpack has already melted. This allowed me to venture out onto some rocks that are sometimes submerged in the spring. It all helped to frame this image.

Since I had time to catch an eastbound train from Toronto, my thoughts turned to another spot along the Smiths Falls Subdivision, which would allow me to get another unique perspective. Alas, the train had made up significant time between Brockville and Ottawa on home tracks, which meant I had to quickly make my way to Fallowfield Station and try to get something unique there. I am generally avoiding the station these days, as there isn't much I haven't tried there. So I tried to get a shot that was near the station but didn't necessarily scream "station stop" in the photo.

This was the best I could do. I got to the edge of the parking lot and backed away from the tracks as much as I could. I tried to get a shot that showcased the sky and the fallow farm field behind the train. It's not a groundbreaking shot by any means, but it was at least an attempt to avoid the extremely sharp wedge shots that are all too common at this station. I have been guilty of this in the past.

Then, I figured I would try to get a shot of people disembarking from the train, but at a distance, so as to respect their privacy. 

You can see a gentleman in the centre of the platform, waiting for a loved one to get off the train. It would have been nice to get a little closer to the people, but I also wanted to see if I could get a shot of the end of the train as well. It was an imperfect trade-off. I had to decide to either get closer and lose the end of the train, or, by get closer and getting the people, risking having to blank out their faces. I also ensured that I got low, as it tends to add a bit of an element of size. You get a better appreciation as to the size of trains when you shoot them from ground level.

Some new territory

In my quest to find new topics and pursuits to fill this blog, I've begun the process of looking to the past. I recently applied to get a membership card to the Library and Archives Canada, as it is only a bus ride away for me. I have been digging through the online search tools in an effort to find some rail history that interests me and might be of interest to you as well.

One of the topics I've always had in mind is old train stations, especially the ones that have been demolished. It seems as though every city, town and village once had a train station but many are no longer standing. But we still see roads in many communities that are called Railway Street, Terminal Avenue or Station Street. Yet, the actual stations are long gone. 

With that in mind, I have decided to dig up some historic documents to see if I can find out more about some of these old stations. The first one I intend to research is the station in my hometown of Corunna. I did find one document dated 1936 that apparently outlines the details of the station's establishment, decommissioning and removal. 

My hometown station has been a complete mystery to me ever since I found the slightest mention of it in a document a while ago. I have no idea where is was located, what it looked like or how long it was standing. I do know it was shut down when the Pere Marquette Railway discontinued passenger operations in the 1930s on what became known as the Sarnia Subdivision. It's amazing to me that there was regular passenger service at all on that line. I hope I can shed some light on that station. My hometown's history is not terribly well known, and its old train station is almost a ghost in any records that I have found.

I also want to find out more about Kanata's old train station, in Ottawa's west end. That station, which sat on Station Street, is also a complete mystery. I know it stood near modern day March Road along the Renfrew Subdivision. The road remains, but there is not a trace of any old station there. 

Those research efforts are to come. For now, here is an interesting photo I found on the Library and Archives Canada online archives of the old CN station in Windsor, Ont. (Update - See the comments section below. The Library and Archives seems to have mislabelled this image. A reader says it does not match any Windsor railway landmark. In fact, looking at it, I believe this image to be of the Sarnia railway station, which still stands).

There was no information associated with the photo other than that it was the CN station in Windsor. Judging by the heavyweight passenger cars and power lines in the background, the photo could have been taken at any time in the war years. 

So that is a bit of a teaser as to what's to come, hopefully. I really need to shake up the direction of my efforts, I feel, as modern railways in Ottawa just aren't enough to keep this interesting. If you have any topics you'd like to me to research, feel free to let me know. I can't guarantee I will find anything, but I'm willing to try.

Winter surprises in frozen Ottawa (Part II)

Recently, I was able to get out and capture some winter images in the city's east end on a bitterly cold day in early February. In my last post, I shared some images of the Bytown Railway Society's equipment parked outside the Canada Museum of Science and Technology. 

While I was in the area, I paid a visit to the Ottawa Via Rail station to see if there was anything interesting to capture. The first thing I saw when I arrived was Via Rail's all yellow consist that's called Lumi. It was idling with the power facing east. That train was Montreal-bound. In the spirit of making railways interesting again, I tried to get what I consider to be a different shot.

I deliberately framed the end cab car against the Ottawa station sign and Via Rail banner. I didn't zoom in much because I also wanted to capture the snow and the distinctive platforms at the station. The train is in shadow, partly because of the position of the afternoon sun and the overhead canopies. I basically left the image untouched. I like the end result. I find many railway images are overly focused on the engines leading a train and not on some of the interesting details. I like the story this photo tells.

Here's another image of Lumi leaving the platform, heading east on the Alexandria Sub toward Montreal. I was waiting to capture a shot of the consist on the east side of the Belfast Road overpass (pictured), but the biting wind and long wait meant I had to change plans. This shot worked out okay, despite the fact that I was on the shadow side of the train. 

The platforms were pretty quiet on that Sunday afternoon. I tried a few shots on the overpass, but the wires make is close to impossible to get a good clean image of anything. I don't have the patience to use photo editing to remove the wires, so I tried to frame Lumi between the wires as best I could. 

Here was the other surprise of the afternoon. When I arrived at the station, there was Lumi facing east and another Venture set on the track closest to Terminal Avenue (south track) which eventually made its way west on the Beachburg Sub toward Toronto. When it left, I saw a single P42, 910,  parked near the station idling on its own. This was a revealing site.

As most know, Via Rail has not had a successful rollout of its Venture fleet. Its continuing struggles with CN over speed restrictions on CN tracks is well known by now. That process continues to play itself out in the courts. But an operational wrinkle has also begun to plague Via's operations in the corridor. You might recall that, recently, Via informed passengers that it was reducing train frequency between Ottawa-Montreal-Toronto. The railway didn't provide terribly clear reasons as to why its fleet, consisting mostly of Venture sets, is experiencing problems. Most people in the know understand that the Ventures are not performing as well as expected in winter conditions.

Here's an interesting explanation shared with me by my friend Kevin from Windsor, who is a contributor to this blog. Here's what he shared, after taking the train for a return trip between Windsor and Toronto:

"One flaw with the Charger/Venture sets that I haven't read about yet is that they apparently have operational issues in the snow when the locomotive isn't on the front end. The attendant who collected our tickets told us this. I paid extra on both trips to choose forward-facing seats but, on the return trip, we were seated backwards. Not good for my wife; she gets motion sick. 

 

I was very particular about choosing the seats and knew that I didn't screw up, so we asked to be switched. The attendant asked if we bought the tickets more than a month ago, which we did. She said that, when the snow got heavy, Via decided to replace the push-pull operations with pull only and keep the locomotive up front. She didn't explain in detail, but said it was a snow issue. So now, they have to wye the trains at endpoints, at least until the spring. 

 

And if you booked forward-facing seats before they changed plans, you have to ask to be re-seated. I would have thought that Via might have a feature in their reservation system that would just reissue seats automatically based on a mirror image when this happens, but clearly RESERVIA isn't that sophisticated." 

 

Thanks to Kevin for sharing this explanation. Kevin also shared that, when Via was running on its own rails between Chatham and Windsor, the train was often travelling much faster than it does on CN rails. Kevin said his train reached 160 km/h and the crossings along the route all worked normally. This is very much consistent with my own experience on Via Rail in November, when my train reached speeds of 163 km/h between Brockville and Ottawa when Via was on its own rails. Like Kevin mentioned, I did not see any crossing malfunctions either.

 

It's tough to hear about Via Rail's struggles, especially at a time when it seems as though there might be political will from the government to better support its operations. It's not surprising, though, that the government is not getting involved in the CN-Via legal battles nor is it doing much to support the passenger carrier other than to press it to do better, given its string of operational woes in the last year.

 

I sometimes wonder how much of Via's problems is due to benign political neglect and how much is due to management challenges. Either way, there doesn't seem to be any daylight ahead for Via, which reminds me of one of my favourite song lyrics:

 

I see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

Someone please tell me it's not a train. 

Some facepalm moments

A few railway headlines recently made me think of bringing together another themed package for a post. The new Via Rail order for Siemens Charger locomotives made me shake my head. Not because I don’t think the chargers aren’t a great pick. They seem like very capable locomotives and they are, in my opinion, a real aesthetic upgrade over the hideously ugly P42s and the boxy F40PH-2s.

But the paint scheme has me baffled, if Via follows through with its goals to have a yellow black and grey colour scheme. I don't have a huge problem with the colours on the surface, but it seems really odd that a railway would use a light colour on the top of a locomotive, where it is sure to bear the signs of engine exhaust in no time flat. Yes, the Chargers will be much cleaner-running engines than what we see on the rails today, but yellow on top and black in the centre? Makes no sense. I won’t get into the longstanding issue I’ve had with the railway over its incoherent colour schemes and liveries over the years. Pick a good scheme and stick with it.

I don’t have a problem with the half maple leaf on the end of the unit, since Ottawa’s city buses have sported the same leaf design for decades. It’s the choice of yet another new colour scheme that makes no sense to me. Look to railways like CN and UP as good examples of sticking with a good thing. It creates trust and reinforces the best things about your brand.

This leads me to my favourite railway target of all: the bumbling City of Ottawa. Let’s just put it this way. It’s absolutely bizarre how the consortium building the new Confederation Line LRT could have gotten this far along in their testing and not have some sort of plan in place for a heavy snowfall. I mention this because one of the city’s new Citadis Spirit LRT consists was marooned somewhere on the Confederation Line because of the heavy snowfall. That unfortunate blunder cost the consortium a few days of testing, as they figured out how to clear the line and rescue this train.

I will say nothing of the growing realization that this consortium will miss its third completion deadline, if recent media reports are to be believed. But not having a plan in place for heavy snowfall? In Ottawa? C’mon, people. I know that no one at city hall has any clue about railways, but we all know about snowfall. Figure it out.

Here's a quick shot of one of the new Citadis Spirit O-Train consists at Pimisi Station on the Lebreton Flats. Behind you will see Place du Portage, the massive government office complex in Hull. I waited for a while for this train to pull out of the station, so I could get a better shot of it, but it just stayed there, seemingly stuck. Kinda fitting.

And one of the companies that is responsible for this first phase of the LRT is also in the running to be part of the second phase of the railway construction. That contract will be handed out next week. I won't say much about the company: SNC Lavalin.

All I will say is I am not all that impressed with the delays with phase one, nor am I pleased with what I've read about this company, as it pertains to national affairs, if the media is to be believed.

For so many reasons I will not get into here, we can do better.