It's not the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)

The summer of my not-so-amazing luck continues, but before I get into some new content (finally have some new meets and pics to share!), I wanted to touch on something that seems to be top of mind here in Eastern Ontario and Ottawa these days.

No, it's not the perpetually awful O-Train.

It's the fate of freight railways in the capital. In case you've been living under a rock, you know that CN has filed to discontinue service on the former Ottawa Central in this region. It doesn't come as a surprise to me, since this is hardly a strategic or important operation for this railway.

But I do want to remind you of a few things. You might recall (or you might not) that the former head of the Ottawa Central told this blog that he thought there was a good opportunity for a short line to resume operations in the city. This is not a railfan offering his opinion. This is the guy who successfully operated OCR in this region for years, before a recession forced the hand of OCR's parent company.

Here's another item to consider. Closer to my hometown, there is a significant portion of the old CSX Sarnia Subdivision, which has been dormant for several years. The railways wanted to pull up the line, but the Municipality of Chatham-Kent bought the rails in its territory to try and salvage an important freight link for its businesses and farmers. The prospects of a new operation were dim for years. At one point, Ontario Southland considered the operation, but backed away.

Well, lo and behold, a company has indeed purchased the line with the intention of operating a short line, mainly for rural customers along the line. I mention this because I see the CN operation here in Ottawa as very much the same type of short line. It has a limited customer base, but the beautiful part is, there seems to be very little overhead, compared to what OCR had to shoulder when it operated here. And who knows what a company focused on carload business can do when it has feet on the ground in the city who are solely focused on small customers?

So, I will say once again that this is not the end of freight railways in Ottawa. Not yet, anyway.

The Final Days of CN's Northern Transcon

The end of the last remnants of CN’s Northern Transcontinental began with a closure of the Smurfit-Stone plant in Portage-du-Fort, Quebec, in the Pontiac Region. The mill closed in 2008, putting 200 people out of work. At one point, the mill employed more than 400 in the Pontiac and neighbouring Renfrew County in Ontario.

By 2008, the Beachburg Sub was essentially a sparsely used Upper Ottawa Valley rail line that served what few local businesses still required rail service. Ottawa Central Railway operated over the old transcon, but the economic recession was in full swing in 2008 and hit the short line hard. The customers along the old sub began to disappear. The Smurfit Stone plant was essentially the last remaining major customer and the rail line’s raison d’etre.

The end was nigh for the OCR as the short line struggled to cope with the impact the recession had on what little heavy industry remained in the Valley and in Ottawa. Just days after the mill announced its closure in October, OCR announced that CN would reacquire all of its former Ottawa-area properties from the company that owned OCR. That deal included the 156 kilometres of rails between Ottawa and Pembroke, not to mention the 40 plus kilometres between Glen Robertson and Hawkesbury that was once the Ottawa-L’Orignal Railway (purchased by OCR’s parent company).

It wasn’t long before the Beachburg Sub north of Nepean Junction was essentially deemed out of service and put on the chopping block. But the battle that ensued for the rail line meant that the old transcon hung on a lot longer than CN likely wanted.

The governments of Renfew County and the Pontiac fought to keep the old Beachburg Sub in the ensuing years. The first move was to organize an entity called Transport Pontiac Renfrew, which was aimed at retaining the rail line and finding a new operator for it, not to mention new uses including commuter rail.

OCR co-operated with TPR and ran a special Rail Day commuter train up the Ottawa Valley line, just before CN took over. The double ender included two classic CN coaches painted in the railway’s olive green scheme, with an old OCR MLW warhorse on each end, like these beauties below.

That initiative generated some interest in the media and goodwill. There was an appealing element to having a solid commuter option for residents of the Upper Ottawa Valley who might travel into Ottawa and Gatineau for work.

In the midst of this goodwill in the months and years that followed, Renfrew and Pontiac struggled to come to any agreement with Canadian National on a deal that would save the line and help their municipalities find a new operator.

It wasn’t until 2009 that it was revealed in the media that James Allen, the former general manager of the OCR, was in fact working closely with TPR to come up with a workable plan to move freight and establish some sort of long-term commuter vision for the Beachburg Sub.

I was lucky enough to be that reporter who broke the story in the now defunct OpenFile.ca. At the time, what James Allen told me was a real departure from the dismissive or ambivalent attitude most people have toward railways in the city.

Allen pointed out that the Trebio wood pellet plant in the Pontiac was interested in rail service. He estimated that the plant would form the basis for upwards of 800 carloads a year. It wasn’t a huge number by any means, but it was a decent start.

Allen told me that the Trebio plant was the anchor in a strategy to develop a rail-serviced industrial park in the Pontiac. What was even more surprising was TPR’s plans to launch some form of commuter service over the old sub as well as tourist and recreational trains up the Valley. It all seemed very positive for Pontiac and Renfrew, two areas that are far too remote to attract large-scale economic development opportunities without this mode of transportation.

Unfortunately, not long after I wrote that article, which was not surprisingly dismissed locally, the deal to buy the Beachburg Subdivision fell through. That ended all reasonable hopes for the line to be saved. Depending on who you ask, there are various reasons why the line was ultimately killed. The biggest reason was likely cost. Politicians in the Pontiac claimed that CN had set the sale price well beyond the reach of Renfrew and Pontiac. In other words, it was priced far beyond the scrap value of the line.

Surprisingly, the Pontiac region fought on for several more years, even without any reasonable hope of success. The region’s tactic was to pass a local bylaw essentially designating the railway land as a key transportation corridor, which prevented any dismantling. The province of Quebec signed off on the bylaw, but CN fought the move in a higher court and won.

In fall of 2013, the last stretch of CN’s Northern Transcontinental route was pulled up from Pembroke to the Pontiac region, but the work was stalled when the region barricaded the tracks, preventing CN crews on a CWR maintenance of way train from stripping the rails. That stand-off was short lived.

There was one last-ditch effort to enlist the help of the City of Ottawa, since the Beachburg Sub still connected Fitzroy Harbour, in Ottawa’s northwestern boundary, to Nepean Junction, near Bells Corners. The efforts included enlisting the help of the city’s councillor for Kanata North and for West Carleton, the ridings where the rail line’s removal would happen.

Predictably, those efforts went nowhere as the city maintained that it was only interested in the land upon which the tracks sat, for possibly future use as a multi-use recreational trail.

That meant that the CWR train made its way into West Carleton and stripped the rails from much of the line, although various scraps were kept in place at level crossings, including one in Dunrobin, which meant motorists still saw disconnected crossing signals for a rail line that no longer existed.

By spring 2014, the line was completely dismantled all the way to Nepean Junction. Not long after the last train rolled through with the last bits of useable rail, the switch was removed at Nepean. The last little bit of the Beachburg Sub from Federal to Nepean Junction was then directly connected with the Nylene Canada-owned Renfrew Spur.

Today, as CN looks to leave the Ottawa region once more, the rails in the west end of the city continue to exist with a large question mark hanging over them. When CN first proposed discontinuing service to Arnprior, it was Nylene Canada's predecessor BASF that put the wheels in motion to purchase the tracks and continue service. That arrangement continues today, mainly because the company cannot find a way to economically receive what it needs by trucks. The main reason why rail service continues is because the chemical it needs, caprolactum, can only be transported via a specially insulated tank car. As it stands now, there is no way to have the same amount of this product delivered via truck at a comparable cost.

For what few rail enthusiasts there are left in west Ottawa, the question of what any future rail operator will do about Nylene Canada is a big one. There's also the larger question of who will step up to provide rail service in Ottawa when CN eventually leaves?

It's not a great time to be a railfan in west Ottawa, but that could change in an instant if a short line operator with a vision and a much better understanding of a carload freight based business model steps in to save the rails.

And, coincidentally, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if a revitalized freight railway could take a few trucks off our congested Queensway.

It's interesting that, in a city that struggles to cope with congestion and the onslaught of truck traffic in older neighbourhoods, a simple solution of encouraging a short line railway would go a long way to clearing the air. For Ottawa in particular, encouraging less congestion, especially downtown, is almost an economic necessity since it has a huge impact on the tourist experience. You would think that someone in charge would figure out what a benefit it is to have a healthy freight railway in a city of nearly 1 million people.

Track work in Ottawa

This summer has been spent trying to keep up with my two daughters, one of whom is now nearly five months old. The end result of our recent addition is that my train watching has basically ground to a halt for the most part, minus a trip to Smiths Falls in July. On Labour Day, I made my first trip to Walkley Yard just to see if there was anything to see. I ended up with a few tidbits I thought I'd pass along.

The shot below was my favourite from my quick trip. In the distance, you see CN 4771 parked in front of the local CN facilities, framed by a few bulkhead flatcars and a string of gondolas. Those flatcars, gondolas and that pile of wood next to 4771 lead me to my first bit of news.

 

First off, gondolas and these types of flatcars are usually a sign of two things in railways. Either a railway is transporting scrap metal, pipes or some other similar commodity or the railway is doing track work. I took a shot of this car, below, because the colours, including the yellow stripe, intrigued me. The reporting mark was for American Metal and Iron LP.

 

A close-up of GP38-2W 4771 shows that there is a load of ties next to the engine. Also, get a load of the paint. The red cab paint is bleeding through the black and white safety scheme on the long hood. I've seen a lot of shabby units in Ottawa over the years, but this one might be the worst (or best, depending on your point-of-view).

A little further down the road alongside the yard revealed more wood and other supplies in the vicinity of a ballast car (below). This looks to be wood that might be used at a level crossing or as decking on a trestle. I wouldn't have thought much of this if I hadn't found out earlier that track work is being done on the Renfrew Spur in Carp. I appreciate Eric Gagnon of Trackside Treasure for passing along the news.

It's great news to know that, despite the final removal of the Beachburg Subdivision northwest of Nepean Junction, there is some work being done to maintain train service in western Ottawa. This is also a great opportunity for me to pass along some pictures that local rail watcher Patrick Stever sent to me from the siding in Carp. He spotted this equipment in the spring, including this brush cutter.

The below shot, also courtesy of Patrick Stever, shows that the groundwork for track improvements was being done months ago. Look at the piles of ballast to the left of the main line. I'm glad Patrick sent me these photos. I was trying to fit them into a post and now I am able to pass them along.

For those who don't know, this spur is owned by the City of Ottawa and maintained by Nylene Canada, a customer in Arnprior that requires rail service once a week. CN continues to operate a weekly train, usually consisting of three to four tank cars, to and from the plant. The spur has seen pretty restrictive speed limits for years, due to the condition of the track. I don't expect this work to change things. But, it's good to see that there is work being done to keep trains operating in the west end of the city for years to come.

A few days later, I was trying to catch the Arnprior local and noticed bundles of ties along the Beachburg Sub, just northwest of Bells Corners, where the line turns toward the Queensway. Here is what I noticed trackside. When I blew up the photo, I noticed that bundles of ties have been placed trackside all along this straightaway, meaning CN is investing in a bit of maintenance on this line. You can see the ties below. The case was the same on the trackage in Bells Corners near the junction between Beachburg the old CP Carleton Place Subdivision spur. New ties are all trackside, awaiting work crews.

Getting back to Walkley Yard, I noticed when I first arrived that the former Devco caboose, still in its Devco green black and yellow colours, was not at its usual place close to the CN offices and maintenance facility. I also noticed that the hideous Millennium caboose was missing.

As I drove east down the access road next to the yard, I noticed an addition to DAWX caboose and RDC on a storage track. It turns out, the old Devco caboose has reached the end of the line.

It's sad to see this caboose is being left prey to looters and vandals. Here's a shot of this caboose in (slightly) better days. I guess it's no longer being used for shoving maneuvers in the region anymore. I'm not sure if the Millennium caboose is still around either. It makes me wonder what's being used for shoving these days.

 

Also sad to see that vandals have continued to have their way with this old CN caboose. A fire was clearly set in the cupola at one point. As I have mentioned before, the security at this yard is a joke outside of operating hours.

 

One final note to pass along. Via Rail had completed work on a new passing siding at Wass, east of Federal, to allow corridor trains to operate more efficiently. The siding is part of Via's investment in its local network. As I have pointed out before, Ottawa's main train station is Via's third busiest station in Canada, behind Toronto and Montreal. Thanks again to Eric at Trackside Treasure for passing along that news via another local rail watcher.

 

So there a few tidbits from my trip and from my readers. Not bad considering I have only railfanned a handful of times this summer.

Going, going, gone: Nepean Junction

The photo below, taken last spring, us now a historic relic. Nepean Junction, a point on the CN network that once brought together its transcontinental main line with its former Renfrew Subdivision, is now gone. The turnout you see below has recently been replaced with the second photo down.

Read last year's posts about the final days of the Beachburg Subdivision north of Nepean Junction here and here.

It's tough to see in this photo since I was shooting into the blazing sun, but you can clearly see by the two long ties near the bottom of the image, the switch has been replaced by a continuous link to the Renfrew spur.

 

Here's another shot of the turnout last April. Even then, it was apparent that Beachburg northwest of this junction was doomed. The rails were covered with snow and not maintained while the Renfrew Spur was in reasonable shape. The shot below is looking south. You can see that the switch was already permanently aligned to accommodate the Renfrew spur.

And this is the site on Sept. 4. Remnants of the transcontinental line are still in place, although I would imagine CN may run a work train out here at some point to collect what's left. Given that Nepean Junction isn't accessible by road, it would be tough to get the rest of the rail out of this area. You can see the CN sign in the shade. It used to signify a junction but now it's just a place name on the CN map.

This begs the question in my mind, what now for the Renfrew Spur? The shot below shows that the spur is now the main. There is no turnout, just a curious curve on the line. My guess is that the Renfrew Spur moniker will remain. This is because the rails west of that Nepean sign are owned by the city and maintained by Nylene Canada, a CN customer at the end of the tracks in Arnprior. This plant requires one train a week to deliver raw materials to the facility. You can read more about this weekly train here and here.

As you head northwest on the old Beachburg Sub, this is what you will see. This is not the world's narrowest gauge railway. This is the end result of a dismantled railway track. I found this image amusing. It was a little bit of levity.

This also was pretty cool. As I walked alongside the track (it is still private property), I saw this family of deer having an afternoon snack. They didn't pay much attention to me until I got closer. Still, it was cool to see the local wildlife. I also came across a small garter snake, which was surprising. It was the first snake I have seen in Ottawa in ages. Makes me wonder why snakes bother to live this far north in the first place.

 

So, that closes the book on this rail line. You will notice that I have refrained from ranting about this line not being purchased by the city for commuter purposes. After all, a stretch into north Kanata was still in place until very recently. I have said my piece and am ready to move on.

 

I have to thank fellow blogger Eric Gagnon of Trackside Treasure for passing along an email from a local rail watcher, who found out about this work going on, which inspired me to pay one last visit to the old junction.

 

I should mention that I had three other titles in mind for this post, which I rejected.

 

Don't call it a junction: Nepean Junction scrapped

From Junction to junk: Nepean Junction scrapped

Junction no more: It's just Nepean now.

 

Can you pick out the LL Cool J reference?

The Beachburg Sub's 1st Anniversary

A year ago today, I posted my first entry on this blog. Without dwelling too much on a year, here are a couple of observations on the past year.

Observation 1: Much to my surprise, the Canadian National Beachburg Subdivision, from which this blog takes its name, is still standing. For how long? I suspect it will be gone by the end of this spring, but stranger things have happened. With it, the last remnants of a transcontinental rail line will disappear from the Ottawa Valley.

Observation 2: There's treasure everywhere. Even in Ottawa, I have found that it is possible to maintain a railway blog, provided you really, really scour around for photos. This is one photo I took this past weekend when I finally caught CN Local 589 on the Via Rail Smiths Falls Subdivision, headed toward Richmond. To catch this train on this track, you need to be at the right place at the right time twice a week, since this is twice-weekly out to Richmond. More on this to come.

Observation 3: Throwing away film is perhaps the dumbest thing I have ever done. The next dumbest thing is throwing away old prints that I didn't deem to be interesting at one point. When it comes to railroading's past, everything is interesting, I'm finding. Sadly, this is a realization that came too late. This shot below, taken July 20, 1993, is one of a few rolling stock photos that I kept from my archives. I'm glad I did, but it only makes me pine for my shots of the Central Vermont and Burlington Northern rolling stock that were thrown out.

Observation 4: When life hands you lemons... I have tried over the last year to present a mix of photos that tells the stories of railroading in Ottawa as well as other locales in Ontario and occasionally elsewhere. Since the opportunities for train watching here at limited at best, it means you have to look for opportunities to get creative shots. This shot is one of a few that were taken on a very windy day in January. I've taken many shots at the central Via station, many of which I have not posted, but I do try and share the ones that are a little different or tell a story. Like this one.

Observation 5: This blogging thing is fun. I was a little reluctant to start blogging, since there are many knowledgeable people out there who know far more than me. I didn't want to create an uninformed blog that was scoffed at by the experts. This has made some posts tricky, due to the limits of my knowledge. But, thanks to a very forgiving and supportive community out there, I have learned a lot and I hope to have returned the favour a bit. The shot below is of me at the Canada Museum of Science and Technology next to CN's Northern steam locomotive 6400.

 

So, those are just a few thoughts from the past year. The Beachburg Sub thanks all its readers for their support over the initial year, especially those who took the time to leave messages or to educate me when I was a little off the mark. Over the last few weeks, I have collected a fair bit of material that will begin my second year with a bang. All Aboard for the second year!