The tricky business of capturing the hidden Nova railway operation

Like it or not, plastics are vital to the global economy. Until we figure out how to properly recycle them all and keep them out of landfills, they will always be part of our lives. And someone has to make that plastic. This year in St. Clair Township, Nova Chemicals is investing $2.2 billion in a new polyethylene plant next to its existing plant, just east of Corunna on the Petrolia Line. This plant is crucial in the production of polyethelyne, which is the most common form of plastic in the world.

For those who like to watch railways in action, it means that Nova’s switching operations are likely to remain quite busy and quite possibly expand.

I’ve always been fascinated by this operation, which is partly visible from Highway 40, although it is not a great place to get photographs, since the rails are largely hidden behind a grassy berm. Also, the highway can be quite busy and the only place to get photos is on the overpass over the tracks that connect Nova’s railway to the CN St. Clair River Industrial Spur. Needless to say, there is no place to stop here.

Hoping for the best! This is a no-look shot. I left some of the highway guardrail in the shot. I was going pretty slow at this point.

My approach to getting any shots of this operation has always been the same. I only attempt a shot when I am sure the highway is not busy and there are no cars around mine. Next, I roll down the passenger window and slow down while keeping my eyes on the road. Finally, I point my camera in the general direction of the railway and hope for the best.

This summer, while visiting family in the area, I was passing by this operation when the conditions were right for a shot. The highway was empty in the middle of the day so I fired away and hoped for the best. Fortunately, I managed to get some interesting shots of this switching operation, which has a half diamond, what appears to be a genset locomotive and occasionally an on SW unit, although that old warhorse was nowhere to be seen when I was driving by.

Here’s a good shot of the genset switcher.

I did, however, manage to spot the SW unit later in the week as I was passing by CN’s Sarnia Yard, where I saw the old Nova switcher near the old roundhouse, where it was likely undergoing maintenance at the Lambton Diesel Specialists shop. I’ll save the rest of that adventure for another post.

The Nova operation isn’t terribly flashy, as it’s exclusively the domain of the tank cars you see on trains anywhere in Canada and the United States. But the refinery in the background does make for some interesting shots you won’t just anywhere.

I’ve always been fascinated by this operation, ever since it used to host those old GATX Tank Train branded tank cars. In recent years, Nova Chemicals has been expanding a fair bit in the area, which bodes well for the CN industrial spur that connects Sarnia to the Terra Industries plant at the edge of the old Sombra Township.

August 2017 at the Rokeby Line

In the last few years, trackage has been added off the CN spur near Mooretown. These tracks are shielded from view by a large metal wall lining the Moore Line, but some of it can be seen as you travel west down the Moore Line near Highway 40. I don’t know enough about Nova’s expansion in the area to be able to say what the purpose is of these new tracks.

I think the beauty in shooting the industrial switching in this area doesn't necessarily have to do with the trains, which are pretty standard tank car and covered hopper consists. I think the interesting element is the background.

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.

The busy spur with the long name

Lambton County 2017 Part II

I often mention my rotten luck when it comes to trains, but I have to say that I was incredibly fortunate to see lots of railway action and even knock a few items off my railfan to-do list. As I mentioned last week, I finally caught a freight train on the CSX Sarnia Subdivision near my hometown. This was the first time I have documented action on this line since the early 1990s. You can read that post here.

The next day, I was heading out to visit family when I was approaching the St. Clair River Industrial Spur level crossing along the Rokeby Line. As luck would have it, three warhorse CN GP9s were switching the industrial tracks near the crossing. Of course, since I didn't have any advance warning, I had to make do with a spot on the edge of a farmer's field, which was one of the few places I could stash my car on Rokeby, which has no gravel shoulders, but very, very deep drainage ditches.

Yes, there is a major hydro corridor right next to this line. Hard to shoot without running into a few towers!

I wasn’t sure if the crew was servicing the Suncor Energy Ethanol plant. I say this because the train the crew was assembling for a run back to Sarnia Yard was comprised of covered hoppers almost exclusively. So, my first thought was the train must have been serving the Nova Chemicals Moore refinery, which is located on the Moore Line, just a concession south. Upon further thought, the train might have been collecting hoppers that were used to deliver raw material for the ethanol plant.

Check out the tree behind the GP9s!

Whatever they were doing, they were assembling a pretty impressive consist for a spur, which is what the line is. As I have mentioned in this post, this industrial spur is quite long and likely among the busiest spurs you will find. CN boasts some siginificant customers on this line, including the above mentioned customers, along with Nova Chemicals’ Corunna refinery and the Terra International nitrogen products plant near Courtright. These are all big facilities, which require significant service. In other words, this is not a spur like the Renfrew Spur, which sees a lone train to and from Arnprior each week.

This is my favourite shot from the meet. It shows you a little of everything, including the thunderstorms south of Rokeby.

As I will explore in a future post, CN is about to see business increase on this spur as Nova Chemicals is in the midst of a massive expansion of its operations in Corunna and near its Moore site. You can see the signs for the expansion of its rail facilities along the Moore Line. The company has already bolstered its operations at the plant and is operating two switchers each day.

But at this moment, I wasn’t thinking about all the developments along this line. I was simply enjoying the show as the old geeps trundled back and forth and assembled a train bound for Sarnia. This meet marks the first time I have caught a train on this line. I have taken photos of rolling stock, like this shot taken at the former Serviplast plant near Corunna, but I have never captured a train.

I backed up the zoom in this shot to show a little bit of the Suncor ethanol plant (at left) and the high-voltage towers to the right of the spur.

So, if you’re keeping score, that’s two big items I had on my list for this trip down south that were crossed off. I caught trains on the CSX Sarnia Sub and the CN industrial spur. As I will show you in a few more posts, I managed to cross off some other items from my to-do list. It was an eventful trip for sure.

Some cool random sightings in Sarnia

Picking up from last week's post about my recent trip to Sarnia, I thought I'd share some random photos from the trip. I really tried to look for some different photos and I was rewarded with no shortage of rarities and special sights over the course of the weekend. The first shot isn't all that rare, but I have to say it's the first time I've seen two slugs hitched together in Sarnia Yard. Local railfans know all about these slugs, which are used to spread out the tractive effort of the yard engines, allowing them to more easily shunt around the yard with some big consists. Here we see two of the slugs connected to one of the GP9 yard engines.

This next one was hard to capture, but I'm glad I snagged it. This is what the Cabot Carbon plant in the Chemical Valley uses to move hopper cars around on the tracks within its plant. I don't know much about this machine, other than to note that it appears to be a Trackmobile 4150.

Those who watch the trains in Sarnia will recall that Cabot once had its own fleet of black covered hoppers with the Cabot logo on them. It was a common site to see these hoppers lined up on three tracks parallel to Vidal Street. The company appears now to use whatever cars it is provided by rail, judging by what I saw when we passed the plant. I should mention it has been this way for some time. The last time I saw a Cabot branded car was likely in the 1990s or early 2000s. I did see one minus the logo, which I shared in this post.

Cabot produces an elemental form of carbon, called carbon black. The products that come out of the plant vary in form, with some coming out like aggregates and some coming out as particles. The product is mainly used in tires as a way to strengthen the rubber. It also is useful for printer ink.  Outside of the trackmobile, Cabot's car movements are handled by short line VIP Rail, which you may recall from this post.

This shot made me laugh. I never noticed the slogan on these tank cars until I watched a tunnel train go by the station at close range. I decided it was too good to not photograph. Apparently, the Union Tank Car Company likes to be known as The Tank Car People. Simple and effective. Also, note the French graffiti, Oeuf. Not the best tagger brand I've seen.

This car caught my eye because of its green colour and that giant arrow on the right side of the car. I snapped a few shots and did a little research on these cars. They are lettered BKTY, which is an old reporting mark for the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (The Katy), but the mark now belongs to the Union Pacific. You may have read recently on the Trackside Treasure blog Eric Gagnon's lament about the lack of variety in rolling stock these days, given that so many cars are owned by leasing companies. I share that lament, so I am trying to snap photos of as many interesting pieces of rolling stock as I can. When I was researching this car, I read a few comments on rail photo sites where railfans suggested this type of boxcar is very rare these days. Lucky me for catching it.

I was also happy to catch this Canadian Wheat Board cylindrical hopper. There were a few paint schemes applied to these cars, including the Canada wordmark scheme, the Government of Canada wheat sheaf scheme and this one. There were variations on all three schemes, but this is usually how I group them together. This was the first time I have caught this particular scheme. You can read more about these cars in this post, also from Trackside Treasure.

Final shot was a lucky shot. I was driving on the Highway 40 near Corunna when I passed the Nova Corunna refinery. I stuck my camera out the open passenger window and snapped a few shots blindly, since I had to watch the road. I was lucky enough to get this panorama shot of the refinery and the Nova SW switcher (left side of the photo in the middle). You can also see a line of white tank cars on a curved track heading into the refinery. This is just north of the wye that the company uses to interchange cars with CN's St. Clair River Industrial Spur, which is on the other side of the highway. You can read more about this refinery rail operation in this previous post.

I have a few other themed posts from this visit that I want to share, but I couldn't resist putting together this motley assortment of images and having a little fun.

Homecoming

It's funny that, no matter how long I've lived elsewhere, I still refer to the Sarnia area as 'home.' It's weird to me to think that my daughters will grow up thinking the same of Ottawa. And yes, Ottawa is where I live and have lived for some time, but I rarely call this city home.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I was lucky enough to carve out some time to visit the Sarnia CN Yard, or at least the station. It's always worth reminding everyone to stay where it is legal to watch the action. Sarnia yard is so large that you have lots of choices, but the closest vantage point is the Via Rail station.

What made my time trackside even more special was the fact that I was able to share some time watching trains with my brother and my nephew. My nephew loves trains and wants to be an engineer when he grows up. My brother has also really enjoyed sharing his son's love of the big machines.

So, with that, I thought I'd share some first glimpses of what I saw over the weekend.

When I arrived on Friday, a tunnel train was making its way west toward Port Huron. I didn't catch the front end, but I was happy to catch a long row of flat cars carrying truck chassis to an automaker in Michigan, no doubt. I don't often see this freight other than in Sarnia.

Here's the tail end of the tunnel train making its way below the gantry. I've really come to love the shots of the tail end of long freights. You can see the CN Hobson sign in the distance. More about Hobson in a future post.

There was some shunting going on. I took a couple of quick shots, but the sun was not kind that day and was washing out most of my shots.

Once the shunting cleared away, I had an interesting view of the old roundhouse, where a yard engine and a slug were idling next to one of the Novacor switchers. I've seen this unit before. You can also make out the outline of a few other CN units that are in the old roundhouse for servicing from Lambton Diesel.

I was lucky enough to catch the CSX interchange on Saturday with my brother and nephew. This turned out to be one of the highlights of the weekend. I will devote more space to this in a future post. But this view shows you the front end of the CSX transfer emerging around the old roundhouse with two GP38s pulling what turned out to be a very long consist into Sarnia Yard. You may recall my other meets with this train in this post and this one.

And one final shot of some of CN's heavy hitters putting together a train, likely headed for points west on the other side of the tunnel. I know it may seem strange, but this is the first time I've caught this type of smoke coming out of a diesel. I actually caught a few dramatic smoke shots on the weekend, which I will share in a future post. It was really gratifying to catch this, since it really does capture the essence of what goes on in a rail yard.

So that's a very short primer of some of the things I caught recently in Sarnia. Special thanks to my brother and my nephew for sharing the experience. Thanksgiving is all about family and homecomings, at least to me, so I couldn't think of a better way to spend a little time with some fellow railfans.

St. Clair River Industrial Spur at Rokeby Line

My brother surprised me a few weeks back with a couple of shots he grabbed while meeting a CN local on the St. Clair River Industrial Spur. This shot was taken at the level crossing just south of Corunna. The power on these trains often looks like this, with a couple of geeps from Sarnia yard facing in either direction helped out by a yard slug. This shot was taken in early August. In St. Clair Township, CN has a number of customers, not the least of which is Nova Corunna, which you may recall I wrote about a little while back, and Nova Moore.

Given that CN mostly services petrochemical plans in the township, the trains along this spur don't offer a great deal of variety. Most trains consist of black or white tank cars, depending on the loads, and covered hoppers. You can read about what CN carries on this line and their carload numbers by checking out the Nova Corunna link I posted above.

As you can see below, it's not always a complete wash when you railfan on this spur. My brother was lucky to catch this old Union Equity covered hopper (GROX 60662). It's a three-bay hopper. You can just make out the patch on the upper right hand side of the car. Here's another shot of this car, which gives you a better look at the patch in the corner.

In late August, my brother was taking his son to the rail yard, as is their weekend custom, when he caught an unusual yard engine tied up to a CN GP9 and slug 230. This unit, CCGX 4009, has previously worked on the Orangeville Brampton Railway (OBRY), but has found its way onto the CN system of late. I found a few shots online of this same unit in London. CCGX is the reporting mark for Cando Contracting, which operates freight trains over the OBRY line between Orangeville and Mississauga.

Here's another interesting find from my brother in late August in Sarnia. This boxcar, SLR 140, is an XP commodity handling boxcar for the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railway. It's not often you find a boxcar with such a short car number. The railway is a Genesee & Wyoming concern operating between Montreal and Portland, Maine.

My thanks to my brother for continuing to provide some interesting shots from southern Ontario. I can only hope I have such luck when I go down to visit in the coming weeks.

Nova Corunna's tiny railway

CN's St. Clair River Industrial Spur is a rail line with a strange name. It stretches from Sarnia south all the way to the Courtright area, a distance of 23 kilometres, or 14.2 miles. CN and CSX (via operating rights) move 450 cars a day in and out of a number of refineries in Lambton County. The line sees four CN trains and two CSX trains every day. Major customers include Nova Chemicals (Corunna and Moore sites), Imperial Oil and Terra International, among others. The railways carry plastics, ethylene, polyethylene, butane, ammonium nitrate, nitric acid, methanol as well as other raw materials.

The word "spur" seems out of place for such a long right-of-way with a fairly busy schedule. Over the Christmas holidays, I was able to get some photos of one the line's major customers, Nova Chemicals' Corunna site (formerly known as Petrosar). This refinery, pictured on Christmas Day, was built in 1977 and accounts for a large portion of CN's consists on a daily basis.

This shot below shows an overview of the refinery, as seen from an overpass on Highway 40. The highway was completely empty on Christmas morning, which allowed me to pull over and take these shots before I continued on to my sister's house for a visit. Getting these shots would be very tough at any other time since there is no place to pull over here and photograph this operation.

You will notice from the top photo and the one below that Nova performs its own switching duties, with the help of the old warhorse switcher you see below. Also, check out the ancient tank car on the wye (below).

The refinery is actually a fair way from the CN St. Clair spur, but is accessible via a long turnout that branches off east from the spur and leads to a large rail yard before proceeding below the highway onto the refinery's site. 

Here's a better shot (below) of the old switcher. I have not been able to determine what this is. (see comments below for answer) I would say it's a modified Electro-Motive (GM Diesel) SW model, but the unit doesn't have any numbers on it, so I'm not sure what it is. The refinery formerly used NCLX 2003 locomotive on its tiny railway, which I have shot before.

You will notice the sign beside the locomotive that advises all operators that the speed limit is 5 m/ph beyond the wye. The refinery produces 1.8 billion pounds of ethylene per year and another two billion pounds of related products, so the speed limit is probably a good idea. Ethylene has a number of uses in the chemical industry (think of the many uses of ethylene glycol) and is a key component in products used in agriculture to hasten the ripening of fruit.

This switching operation is pretty constant most days, given the number of cars that need to be delivered to the plant and shipped out to Nova's other area plants. The Corunna site feeds the Nova Moore and Nova St. Clair sites, which means this little railway is a busy one.

On the other side of the highway, you will find this rail yard, which leads to the CN St. Clair River Industrial Spur. Again on most days, this is a busy spot. However, given that I was passing by on Christmas Day, everything was quiet.

When watching trains in this area, it's common to find cars lettered for Nova. The company has a number of cars lettered NCIX and NCLX. You will recall from an earlier past post that Nova inherited these colourful cars when it purchased local DuPont operations, also in Corunna.

I was glad to get some shots of this operation, even if it was on a day when nothing was happening.