Super Nova!

Last summer, I had an epic week back in the Sarnia area where I did more railfanning than I have done in a long time. One local rail facility that I tried to get some shots of is the Nova Corunna railway. It's an incredibly hard operation to get shots of, since there is no real public access, unless you are in the passenger seat of a car in the northbound lanes of Highway 40 and can get some shots at speed.

I did manage to get a few shots of the operation, which is connected to CN's St. Clair River Industrial Spur. I wasn't able to do much with the photos at the time and forgot about the shots. But something reminded me of the picture this week, so here are a few shots. And it just so happens that there is a story to go with these shots.

Nova Chemicals, as many in the Sarnia area know, is a major employer. And it's about to become a much bigger employer. Nova will be investing $2 billion to build a new polyethylene plant just south of the Nova Corunna site (you can see a piece of the Nova half diamond below). The company is also investing heavily in an expansion of the Corunna site. When all is said and done, Nova will have an expanded Corunna site along Highway 40 and Petrolia Line, its Nova Moore site (near Mooretown), a new plant on the Rokeby Line and its plant in Corunna (called the St. Clair River site). All but the St. Clair River site will be served by CN. CSX still serves the St. Clair River site.

Those in the area already know this news, as it was announced a while back, but I figured it was worth sharing anyway, since it will no doubt be news to those not familiar with this area. And it was a good excuse to share these photos.

Nova is a major customer for CN (you can read about this here). It has always handled its own switching. In fact, when I was young, this railway operation was one of the few places you can find long strings of GATX's old TankTrain branded tank cars. In recent years, I've noticed Nova using two switch engines, its old SW unit (above) and its genset (seen below).

This shot above isn't the best shot but it was the best I could do from the passenger seat of a moving car. You can see the SW unit and a piece of the genset (bottom right) in this shot. The Corunna plant itself was already in the midst of an expansion when I took these shots last summer, as evidenced by the cranes.

So, what does this mean for CN? I would imagine that its St. Clair spur is about to get even busier. This spur already sees a lot of action, as it serves numerous industries, both large and small, between Sarnia to well past Courtright.

When I was examining some of the expansion already happening last summer, I noticed a large rail yard being constructed on the Rokeby Line. Sadly, a sound barrier about eight feet high was blocking any possibility of pictures. The yard will look a lot like this tank farm, which is located on the south side of the Terra International plant south of Courtright, on the Bickford Line.

At the very least, I would imagine there will be more Nova branded switchers making their way to the area in the coming years, given the volume of work that will be needed to keep all these refineries operating smoothly. For those who don't mind seeing a lot of tank cars and covered hoppers, it's an exciting prospect. For someone who has to settle for the Arnprior Turn, I'm pretty stoked.

It's just one small spinoff from this massive investment.

Last glimpses of CSX? I hope not

Lambton County 2017 Part I

For a railfan continually frustrated by a lack of success in Ottawa, I was thrilled to enjoy some good luck along the CSX Sarnia Subdivision on a recent trip south to visit family in the Sarnia area. My family was staying at my sister's house. My sister and her husband own a two-acre property that backs onto the Sarnia Subdivision. I was determined to catch something along the subdivision while spending the week there.

One afternoon, as my daughters were napping, I took a walk to the back of the property, which I often do when I'm there. The railway is not separated by fencing or anything else. What's more interesting is that the right-of-way barely crests over the surrounding land. It is almost level with surrounding properties, at least near milepost 64.2, which is where my sister lives (MP 64.2 is actually the Rokeby Line level crossing).

As I was making my way to the back of the property, I thought I heard a distant horn but as I waited for it to repeat itself, I heard nothing. I began walking back to the house when I heard the familiar horn much louder. It was the unmistakable sound of the train crossing Rokeby. I raced to the back of the property and set up a fair distance from the tracks, as I wanted to get a wide shot.

This is what I saw. Two GP38-2s, one in the older CSX paint and one in the newer container logo scheme, emerging from behind trackside scrub.

I find it an incredible anomaly that a railway still operates though an area with no barrier whatsoever. For a railfan that knows the rules, this is a great advantage. Clear sightlines!

Here's a closer shot. The sun was high and bright, which made the shots a little tricky, but nothing that a little photoshopping couldn't solve.

This (above) might be one of my favourite shots from the last year. This is old-school railroading that reminds me of my childhood. No fencing, no signals. Just one track, controlled by track warrants. However, unlike the trains that I saw on this line in my youth, the trains using this stretch of the sub are sadly very short and one-dimensional.

Still, this was the first time I caught a train on this subdivision since 1991. I took as many shots as I could, just so I could savor the moment. Here's a shot of 2799 heading into the cover of spruce trees that line the tracks at the back of my sister's property.

True to my recent vow to document rolling stock a little better I took a photo of the train's tank car consist. This was pretty much the entire consist, sadly. The majority of the load was liquid carbon dioxide coming back to Sarnia (CSX also transports liquid oxygen south of Sarnia along this line, which goes just past Sombra at present). I wasn't able to read what the final tank car was carrying.

The best part of this spot on the line is you can walk right up to the right of way and get a dramatic shot like this (no end of train device!). I was happy to get this image because it gives you an idea of how small the CSX operation has become outside of the Chemical Valley.

Most of the railway's business outside the valley has dried up. I wonder how long it will be before the line outside the valley is abandoned or possibly sold off to CN, which operates the parallel (and extremely busy) St. Clair River Industrial Spur, which extends all the way to the Bickford Line, where it serves the Terra nitrogen products plant.

The reason I will savor this meet is because I can imagine what the fate of this line will be under Hunter Harrison's leadership of CSX. Given that many of the customers along this line have dried up (Dow Chemical, Polysar, Ethyl and several others are long gone) while new prospects don't seem to hold out enough promise to justify any further investment in this line.

There are many ideas for what should happen at the Dow Chemicals and Ethyl sites in the valley, nothing has happened yet. There is a bioproducts industrial park taking shape at the old Polysar site and a cogeneration plant at the old Dow site, but the spurs into these old sites are basically not in use.

CSX still has business in the valley, as it serves the Esso, Shell and Suncor refineries, but aside from these jobs, there is little else to sustain the sub. The south end of the sub has been abandoned from just south of Sombra to Chatham, which forced the City of Chatham-Kent to try and find an operator to serve the agricultural customers on that end of the line. After several years of searching, no operator has been found.

Surprisingly, the tracks on the abandoned part of the sub still seem to be in good shape, or least in the Port Lambton area, anyway.

Even as far back as 2005, there were rumours that CSX was going to turn over the majority of the Sarnia Sub to CN, although this has not happened. I wonder now if the site of CSX trains through my hometown will be a thing of the past.

Old stone milepost 63 at Emily Street in Mooretown on the CSX Sarnia Subdivision.

If so, I'm glad I was able to capture some images of this railway, whose history stretches back generations, and several predecessor railroads, in Lambton County.

Looking for some railway history

Chances are, you can take just about any town in Canada without rails and find some sort of railway influence in its past. Even now, in communities where railways still pass through, you will likely find a much more extensive railway past.

This year, I hope to dig up some more rail history as part of my meanderings here on the blog. In the coming months, I am hoping to share some photos and thoughts about some historic railway towns here in the Ottawa Valley. I am hoping that some of my blog's readers who live in the Ottawa area can make some suggestions for some piece of local rail history they would like to see me approach.

As an example, I am putting together a post about Almonte, which is a beautiful town west of Ottawa that was once served by the Canadian Pacific's Chalk River Sub. I am proud to say I have witnessed action along this old rail line in Almonte.

With that in mind, I thought I'd share some interesting photos that will kick off Beachburg Sub's Year of Rail History. Since this year marks Canada's 150th birthday, I think it's only fitting that we take a couple looks back and celebrate our history.

This photo above is a shot of Mooretown's old Pere Marquette railway station, which was saved for the museum after it was moved from its spot on the St. Clair Parkway where it was used as a private home. The station itself was sold off for use as a home when it was deemed redundant to the railway at some point. In 1988, the family living in the old station moved to a larger home so the station was moved to the Moore Museum grounds, just down the road from the tracks.

Of course, Mooretown's train station is a success story. Some locals obviously felt the old station should have been saved, so they loaded it onto a large trailer and brought it from its spot on the river and to the museum. The image above is from the Moore Museum. It was sent to me by a reader, but I don't know much about the circumstances of the move. This is only one of two stations to survive along this old rail line, the other being the Dresden station.

Of course, many other buildings on the Sarnia Subdivision were not so lucky. For a time, CSX kept a trackside shed in Port Lambton, which bore the town name. That trackside structure was sold to a local resident and used in the family's back yard as a shed.

The other day, I saw a larger shot of this timetable on one of my Facebook railway groups, which began to get me thinking about history.

As you can see, there were once eight passenger trains plying the Sarnia Subdivision. This is not surprising, since railways were the main mode of transportation between towns before cars became the dominant mode of personal transportation.

But what I found interesting is how many stops these passenger trains made. For example, in my hometown, Corunna, you had four trains a day, two northbound and two southbound. I am determined to find out more about passenger service on this line, particularly when it ended. I am guessing it was discontinued shortly after the Second World War, but it may have been sooner.

My hometown is a place with almost no visual history remaining. There are possibly two or three Confederation era homes left in the town and one church, built in 1862, but that's it. The rest of the town appears as if it was thrown together after the 1960s. I would love to find out more information about my hometown's train station. This timetable is the first document I have seen that proves there was some sort of passenger station (or possibly shack) in Corunna.

Closer to my current home, I recently uncovered two references to two railway stations in Bells Corners. I am pretty sure the old CN station was located behind the fence in this picture, where Northside Road meets Cassidy Road (Cassidy Road used to be part of Cedarview Road).Sadly, it was not saved. In fact, Ottawa had many more stations scattered around the city but none were saved, except the old Union Station downtown.

I also read a reference to the other Bells Corners railway station, which was located along the old Canadian Pacific Carleton Place Sub (now a recreational trail) along what is now known as Fitzgerald Road. I wasn't able to find anything more specific as to where the station was. What makes this task so tough is that there is very little online about the history of Bells Corners (same problem with Corunna).

This is a shot of the old Carleton Place Sub. The station would have been located somewhere on the right side of the trail. My goal this year is to try and find out where the old station was located.

So, that is my mission for this year. I welcome any suggestions from anyone out there as to what they might want me to research. Hopefully, we can shine a light on some long forgotten railway relics this year.