Something old, something new, something borrowed and all that

It's been a hectic week for me, as my family travelled to Southwestern Ontario for a quick trip to see family and attend a few family functions over the Mother's Day weekend. I made sure to try and fit some trains into the weekend. I got mixed results, but I thought I'd share a few shots from the weekend as well as a few other recent items of interest.

So, here's the new. Via P42 906 brings a Toronto-bound corridor consist into Fallowfield Station a few days before our trip.

The train was a mixed lot, with a refurbed Business Class car, this Canada 150 coach and two older painted coaches. This is probably the first time in a while that I've actively sought out Via Rail trains with any regularity. It's a great time to live near a Via Rail station.

Okay, something old. I managed to find the remnants of the CN Petrolia Spur, which is still slightly visible near the intersection of LaSalle Line and Tank Street, right on the edge of Petrolia. I recently read a local book, The Petrolia Spur, by local author Tom Walter.

The book details the fascinating history of the railway line, stretching back to its earliest days when it was financed by the town's business interests when the Great Western Railway didn't think it was worthwhile to build a rail line to the oil fields. In a few years, the line paid for itself.

Amazingly, the spur remained in place until 1997, even though it was rarely used in its later years. The last CN train delivered some pipe before the railway pulled up the track shortly afterward. Trying to find the remnants of the line in the town is tough but the right-of-way is more visible from LaSalle.

Here's the old railway line in the evening. I really wanted to explore, but I was a little scared of the mosquitoes in the shade!

Petrolia is a town very proud of its history. This mural was recently added to the back of the old train station (now library). This is one of the pictures that is in the Petrolia Spur book. Those looking to buy this book need to go to Petrolia and speak to Tom. I sourced my copy through my Dad, who lives there.

Read about Petrolia's historic train station here or the old Canada Southern Railway branch, which also served the town.

Okay, something borrowed. Ottawa train watcher, Keith B. kindly shared this shot of a CN freight crossing Ramsayville Road. Keith has encouraged me to check out the rail action in the east end of the city, which I intend to do this summer. Note the two locomotive lash-up. That's something you don't see west of Walkley Yard.

Keith has an interesting collection of rail images at Ottawa & Area Railways on Pinterest, which is worth checking out, if you are on Pinterest.

Okay, one last image, which was from a meet I had with a westbound freight train in Wyoming. I will save that for another post.

I really like how the heat lines worked in this shot. All in all, it's been an interest week.

CASO's long lost St. Clair branch

Almost as long as the famed Canada Southern Railway was proposed, a branch through Lambton County, south of Sarnia, was on the books. Barely a year after the original CASO was planned in 1868, the St. Clair branch was proposed as a way to connect the railway to oil fields in Lambton and to Michigan via a ferry crossing at the St. Clair River. That river crossing, which was the railway's top priority since it would have allowed for a Buffalo-Chicago connection, never happened. The St. Clair branch kicked off operations with an excursion train in July 1873, followed by the beginning of regular service in January 1874.

Although it was technically known as the Canada Southern Railway, most people came to know the railway by the names of its parent companies. CASO was ultimately owned by the New York Central Railway, but for a time it was part of a NYC subsidiary, Michigan Central Railroad, so either one of these monikers were what people saw on the trains that plied these railways.

This rail line is significant to Lambton County for several reasons. Not only did it spawn towns, industry and other development along its right-of-way, it also holds the distinction of being the first rail line to be abandoned in the county in the 1950s, at a time when most railways had not yet begun to actively shed trackage.

Today, very little is left to actually see. The right-of-way is all but invisible in most places while artifacts from the line are scarce. But the line's history is fascinating, particularly in a few towns that we will examine. Let's begin at the end of the line.

Photo - Moore Museum archives

COURTRIGHT (WESTERN TERMINUS)

This photo above is the St. Clair branch's terminus in Courtright, Ontario, a small town on the St. Clair River, south of Sarnia. Courtright is a quintessential railway town, for many reasons including its name. The town's name was a product of gratitude. Those who bought land where the branch line ended were grateful enough to CASO to name their town after the president of the company, Milton Courtright. Not satisfied with that honour alone, the town also named one of its streets Milton.

In terms of its contribution to revenue service, Courtright wasn't a huge source of business for the branch. The town once boasted a grist mill and other small scale industries, but nothing of major importance to the branch. Before the branch's end, Courtright accounted for 80 revenue carloads in 1955 and 225 in 1956. Shortly before the branch was abandoned, CASO's customers in Courtright included the province's transportation ministry (likely for road maintenance salt), the local township and a construction company. All orders were handled through an agent in Brigden, a small town just east of Courtright.

Of greater importance, before the line began to decline, Courtright was CASO's connection with the C&O (now CSX) Sarnia Subdivision. This junction was obviously some sort of diamond since records show that the two railways interchanged cars.

Undated photo of Brigden railway station, which was a typical-looking structure on this branch. The railway agent in this town also took orders from shippers in nearby Courtright.

BRIGDEN

East of Courtright, another small town was spawned by CASO. The town of Bridgen owes its existence to this rail line, being that it was otherwise in the middle of the wilderness when the railway was built through the area. Over time, Bridgen spawned some small cottage industries that were typical of such towns in the 1800s and early 1900s. By the time CASO abandoned the St. Clair Branch, Bridgen accounted for a handful of shippers, including two lumber companies, a farmer's co-op, a coal supplier and a shipper that appears in numerous railway documents as "Lyle Allen." This name is also listed as a shipper in Courtright, so it might have been a large-scale farmer. Today, there is again little trace of the railway in Bridgen, which was also named (according to Wikipedia) after a CASO official, William Bridgen, who was a railway engineer. Today, Brigden is a farming community and is best known as the site of the annual Bridgen Fair, the premier Thanksgiving event in the county.

Even today, some sixty years later, you can see evidence of this old line near Brigen even though it was last operational in the late 1950s. Other sections farther west are all but indistinguishable from County Road 80, former Highway 80. The orange arrows show you the old right-of-way while the blue circle shows you the old pilings of the railway bridge over Bear Creek. Those pilings can still be seen from County Road 80, for the railway archeologist.

Here's a photograph posted in the Lost Lambton Found history website. For those interested, this history group has largely migrated to Facebook and their photos and conversations can be found there. Some locals call these pilings Lambton's "Stonehenge."

OIL DISCOVERY DISTRICT

Once east of Brigden, one enters the Oil Discovery district of Lambton County. Few people realize that the site of the first commercial oil discovery in North America was in Lambton County in a town called Oil Springs. Soon afterward, another large discovery was made in Petrolia while another was made in the ambitiously named Oil City, which is little more than a hamlet now. These discoveries were made in the 1850s, but a century later, oil was still being transported by CASO along the St. Clair Branch.

PETROLIA (PETROLIA SPUR)

Six miles west of Brigden and two miles west of Oil Springs, you would find Petrolia Junction and the beginning of the Petrolia Spur.

Besides the typical shippers you would find like local farm co-ops and other small commercial shippers like hardware stores, Petrolia's main contributions to this branch included Reliance Petroleum and National Steel Drum Company, two companies that were still in the oil business. Amazing as it may sound, there is still oil being steadily pumped out of the ground in Petrolia. A few companies in this area still regularly supply oil to energy companies, including Fairbanks Oil, which has been around since the boom days and is still family owned.

The other key element to this spur was the fact that it provided CASO with an interchange point with the Grand Trunk Railway, later the Canadian National. The railway line paralleled Albany Street and met up with the GTR/CN once it crossed what is now known as Petrolia Line. CASO even had a station in Petrolia. That little station, which had a witch's hat turret, was moved to Bright's Grove, north of Sarnia, and now sits as a private residence near Lake Huron. Here's a shot of the station now, taken from public property. Thanks to my brother for grabbing this shot. Can you see the lake in the background?

Below is a map of where the rail lines once made their way into Petrolia's downtown. I have not been able to access historic maps to figure out exactly how these lines connected, but as you can see below, CASO, in red, made its way up Albany Street while the GTR/CN, in yellow, made its way to the town's main station where its spur off the Strathroy Subdivision ended. Somewhere between the red and the yellow, there was some sort of junction where CASO and CN interchanged cars. I'm guessing on the property now occupied by the Scotiabank.

Below is a shot of a CASO 4-6-0 engine working along Albany Street in this undated photo. I found another photo of a 4-6-0 working in Courtright, which you can see here. The photographer of the Courtright engine mentioned that it was taken in 1956 and, by that time, the water towers were gone, which explained why there was an extra tender behind the engine to ensure it had enough water. My dad tracked down the photo below at a photo shop in Petrolia. You can see a tank car behind the tender, which may mean this image was taken as late as the 1950s, when steam locomotives still prowled this branch, but without the use of water towers. This image was the first I had ever seen of CASO operations in Petrolia. As you can see, CASO always operated under the name of its parent company, New York Central, or for a time, the Michigan Central Railway, which was a subsidiary of NYC. You can see a small piece of the town's United Church to the far right. That church is still standing.

OIL CITY

Oil City was a relative flash in the pan when it came to the oil boom, with a brief boom and a quick bust. The town still provided a few shippers to CASO, mostly small scale agricultural customers as well as local government.

As you can see from the photo, the railway was listed as "MCR" since the line was essentially a Michigan Central operation by all appearances. The one interesting note about this town is that its main rail customer was the Canada and Dominion Sugar Company. It should be noted that sugar beets were once a major staple of railway operations in Lambton County at one point, although I can't say if that was the source of the traffic.

EDDYS (EDDYS MILLS SPUR)

Travelling west from Petrolia and Oil City,  you would encounter the Eddys junction near the Oil City station. First stop on the Eddys spur would have been Oil Springs.

OIL SPRINGS

When this St. Clair branch was built to Courtright in the 1800s, it was done so with the oil fields in mind, no doubt. Oil Springs was the site of the birth of Canada's oil industry and the town continued to pump and ship oil well into the twentieth century. When CASO discontinued operations on the St. Clair branch, Imperial Oil (Esso) was still listed as a shipper from Oil Springs. Given that CASO had a connection to CN close to here in Petrolia, I'm sure there were a number of tank cars interchanged in Petrolia that originated in Oil Springs.

Today, those interested in a glimpse of this old line would find it at the Oil Museum of Canada in Oil Springs. Besides telling the story of Canada's first oil discovery and the related industrial development, the museum also features the town's 1895 CASO railway station and an old tank car, which was typical of those used on the line up until it was removed.

EDDYS MILLS

Today, Eddys Mills is little more than a place name on the map. It is located a few kilometres due south of Oil Springs on the spur. Two customers listed for this spot include the county and the local township. There was a siding here and all freight orders were handled through Oil Springs, a little east of this spot. Most of the freight originating here was based on local farms.

INWOOD

Back on the main branch, if you remained on the main line at Oil City, your next stop east would be another town created by the railway, Inwood. At this point in the line, CASO's operations took on more of a rural feel, with most shippers being local hardware and construction concerns, not to mention the farmers' co-operatives. When looking at the documents for this line, most customers in towns outside of the oil district fell under three categories: farming, construction/hardware and local government.

ALVINSTON

Before leaving Lambton County, you would travel through Alvinston, another town created by the railway. Its primary shipper on CASO before the line closed up shop was a feed mill. At one point, there was a GTR/CN crossover near Alvinston where the Strathroy Subdivision crossed over the St. Clair line. Here's a shot of the junction, undated.

So, as we leave Lambton County, the St. Clair Branch served two more rural towns, Melbourne and Muncey. There it served feed mills and other agricultural customers. From there, it was on to St. Thomas, where the branch originated.

Along the way, the branch crossed the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National main lines to Windsor (due to the path of the CN line, the St. Clair Subdivision actually crossed CN's line twice).

This branch has been gone for more than half a century and there is precious little to see along its former right-of-way now. However, the importance of this line to swath of Lambton County is undeniable. The same can be said for a number of former rail lines in any part of this country. That's why I am fascinated by the history of these old branches. Revisiting history helps us understand just how important railways were in the building of this country.

Memories of 2014

That's a wrap for 2014. This post closes out my first full year of blogging (I started this blog in the spring of 2013). This past year has been an incredible experience for me. Here is what I am thankful for this year.

The first thing I am thankful for is having a better idea of the schedules of local freights in Ottawa. A big thank you to a few readers who privately reached out and filled me in on the local schedule here. This allowed me to meet up with CN 589 a few times, including this initial meeting in April, on the Smiths Falls subdivision near Moodie Drive. You will notice in the image below that the second hopper car is a former Chicago and Northwestern hopper. I was looking through photos the other night and noticed the faded logo. It just goes to show that there's treasure even in the smallest things (No pun intended, Eric Gagnon of Trackside Treasure!).

The second thing I am thankful for is the continuing light rail drama in Ottawa. Regular readers will know all about the O-Train plans here in the capital. I will not rehash the tale other than to say that the city is on track to have about 8 km of east-west rails in place between Tunney's Pasture and Blair by 2017. This route is the first phase of the project and has not come without a great deal of debate, including why anyone would build a rail line that parallels a bus expressway and has two endpoints in sparsely populated areas. Never mind the fact that existing, and sparsely used, rail lines still exist in the city and are not being considered for transit purposes.

The second phase of this project is off to another dramatic start as the city and the federal National Capital Commission are locked in a stalemate over an extension of the western leg of the railway. The city wants to run about a kilometre of the western line through NCC property, where the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway runs next to the Ottawa River. Of course, the NCC wants no part of a rail line near its precious parkway, even though the city has agreed to dig a trench to make the short span of line less obtrusive. The NCC wants the city to redirect the line through Rochester Field and through city parkland near Richmond Road. The Byron Linear Park is off limits to rail, the city has countered. And on and on it goes. Great fodder for a blog, though!

O-Train approaches Somerset Street in July along the former CP Ellwood Subdivision.

While local railfans resigned themselves to the fact that the Beachburg Subdivision north of Nepean Junction was being torn up, I made sure I tried to focus on existing CN operations in the city, like this local freight that was passing through Twin Elm in late September. I had set out to catch a train in this rural part of the city at the beginning of the year. You can read about this meeting here. I never used this shot below, but I like it because it captures some birds in flight and showcases a harvested hay field. So, you can say I'm thankful to live in a city where these types of images are possible.

This year started with a holiday visit to Sarnia in southwestern Ontario, where I met up with this long container train near Sarnia, in the farming hamlet of Mandaumin. The prairie-like feel of this area is a train watcher's best friend, since the lay of the land makes it possible to capture images such as this one from late last December. You can read about this meet here. I was especially thankful to be able to capture an Illinois Central unit on this train.

This next one may come as a surprise. I am thankful for the preservation conscious town of Petrolia in southwestern Ontario. This small town bills itself as Canada's Victorian Oil Town. Its Victorian charm is evident in its beautifully preserved Grand Trunk railway station, which is now the town's library. I was blown away by how many hits my post about this station garnered. This post has been my most popular one by far. I think I may have picked up a few readers in the area with this post.

Petrolia's former Grand Trunk Railway terminal on Aug. 18, 2014.

I am thankful for luck. In July, I made my way to a new spot, Bedell, Ont. This is a trackside hamlet near Kemptville, Ont., just south of Ottawa. It was here that I stumbled across the final dismantling of the former CP Prescott Subdivision, which once connected Ottawa with the CP's Winchester Subdivision. My timing allowed me to get some final photos of this old line and learn about its history through a series of posts. You can read Part I here, Part II here and Part III here. The shot below shows my meet with a CP mixed freight on its way west. It was the first CP train I have photographed in more than 20 years.

 

Finally, I am thankful to have been able to catch some final glimpses of the last action on the Beachburg Subdivision. Gone but not forgotten.

One of the last CN trains on the Beachburg Subdivision at Torbolton Ridge Road, on Nov. 11, 2014.

Finally, and most importantly, I am incredibly thankful to everyone who has dropped by to read the blog and especially those who have taken time to leave a message or to educate me when I am off the mark (special thanks to Dave M., my blog's first guest contributor). I never thought the blog would garner as much interest as it has and am thankful for every single page view. We've had some great discussions in the last few months and I'm hoping I can continue to engage everyone in the same way in the new year.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone from The Beachburg Sub home office in Bells Corners, Ontario.

Cheers!
Michael

A station with a story: Petrolia's GTR station

The Grand Trunk's legacy lives on in a few scattered communities around Canada, but nowhere is the grandeur of the railway better reflected than in Petrolia, Ontario, a beautiful Victorian oil town in southwestern Ontario, east of Sarnia. The town's central square faces the wonderfully preserved Grand Trunk Railway station, which has long served as the town's central library. I passed by this station a number of times when I was younger but never really knew much about it until I dug into its history last year. The results were surprising.

Above: Petrolia's central library, formerly a Grand Trunk terminal, is a town centrepiece. This shot was taken Dec. 22, 2013.

The most remarkable feature of this building today is that it is virtually unchanged from its railway heyday, as you can see in this undated photo below. Note the muddy streets and the alternate town spelling. The town has long since changed its official spelling from Petrolea to Petrolia.

 

 

For those unfamiliar with its history, Petrolia's claim to fame is that is was the site of the first major commercial oil discovery in North America, although many in Pennsylvania have long since debated this fact. With the influx of oil riches, the town grew quickly. Its main street, the Petrolia Line, is lined with enormous Victorian mansions, which housed a number of oil company executives.

 

The rail station was built in 1903, although rail service to Petrolia predated this station. The rail lines hosted oil trains and passenger service, since roads between the town and Sarnia were often unreliable "plank" roads (corduroy road) as they were called locally. It's interesting that passenger rail was seen as such a vital service, since Petrolia is not more than a 15-minute drive from Sarnia, but in the late 1890s, when a town was built in a middle of a marshy swamp, roads were at the mercy of the elements.

 

The town had one small problem. The station was built on the east-west main street, but there was no room for an east-west track due to the development along the street. The solution was a strange one. The railway built a track that ran north-south from the GTR main line between London and Sarnia. That meant that trains would reach a dead end at the station, meaning the station was actually a terminal (see image below from the Lambton County Archives).

 

 

Here's another shot below of the back of the station in 1909 during the Old Boys Reunion (Lambton County Archives). As was the case in many small towns at the time, the train station was a focal point for town gatherings, since it was such an important gathering place for travellers. The tower behind the station is Victoria Hall, home of the town's civic offices and the famous Victoria Playhouse arts centre. The building still houses town offices and the theatre.

 

 

But, the usefulness of a terminal in a town so close to a major centre like Sarnia diminished. The Grand Trunk was purchased by the Canadian National and the station was closed in 1927, meaning the station's railway use lasted only 24 years. Luckily, Petrolia has always been conscious of its heritage, which led to the station being preserved, thanks to efforts of people like Robert Nicol (see below).

 

 

I made sure to get some shots of this building late last year. The shot below is the rear of the station where the trains reached the end of the line.

 

 

Even an old baggage cart has been preserved by local officials, although the CN noodle logo is a little out of place in this context, but that's nitpicking.

 

 

It's interesting to note that, at one time, Petrolia had another railway station, which belonged to the Michigan Central Railway's St. Clair Branch. That station was not preserved, as far as I know. Information about the MCR station is hard to come by, but I know that the Petrolia trackage was a spur off the St. Clair Branch, much like the Grand Trunk line was a spur off what is now known as the Strathroy Subdivision. Today, there are no tracks in Petrolia, although the only reminder of its railway past remains faithfully preserved.