Hide and Seek, Part II

Ah, to go back in time and right past wrongs. I often think of my time in Kitchener and kick myself for not using that time to capture the then-Goderich Exeter Railway Guelph Subdivision action. I lived in KW from 2007-2009. The only train photograph I came away with was a shot of the trestle over Kolb Park on the city's eastern boundary. You can check that photo out in this post. Since living in the city, I have had very few opportunities to return. I did go back in 2018 and managed to catch a few really cool things, which are even more meaningful now that GEXR is but a memory on the Guelph Sub. You can check that post out here.

This is all a very long-winded way of introducing the second part of my Hide and Seek posts. Hide and seek is really just a fancy way of putting a name to my maddening pursuit of railway pictures from the passenger seat of my car when my family is driving on Highway 401. This summer, my family made two trips to Southwestern Ontario and saw a few things on the way. The second trip was much more fruitful, but I want to focus on one area where I never expected to see anything, but I did.

When you are travelling westbound on the 401 through Kitchener, you don't have to wait long once you exit the 401 and drive onto Highway 8 before you might see some trains. You have to look to the right of your car as you head into Kitchener (west). If you strain your eyes and you are lucky, you will see the Canadian Pacific switching, mainly autoracks.

You will notice that this is not much of a photo. I had to blow it up, sharpen the blurred lines and crop out the extraneous highway dividers. But it feels so good to earn a bonus shot, especially for me, since I so rarely see freight trains and CP freight trains especially. You can even see a hint of some golden farm fields in the background.

I almost came away with a brilliant shot, but then this happened. The shot is pretty sharp and there would have been nothing blocking my view of these distant engines, but then the dump truck ruined my shot. Taking shots from a moving car is the definition of crap shoot. You never know what you are going to end up getting or just narrowly missing. Hence, hide and seek. Sometimes, you get something and sometimes, it all disappears in a flash.

But I was happy to get anything, to be honest. When I lived in Kitchener, CP was a busy railway in and around Cambridge, which is on Kitchener's southern border. CP switches for Toyota in Cambridge, along with a number of smaller light industries in the area. But, the automotive production plants are its big business here. The railway built Wolverton Yard specifically for its flourishing autorack business at a time when it was not really in the habit of such capital expenditures. The yard handles Kia and Hyundai distribution, as well. I do remember when I was covering stories for the Record newspaper in Cambridge, I would sometimes happen across CP's switching moves and my eyes would linger for a moment. There are some great spots in Cambridge to watch local switching. Alas, I never took any photographs.

I knew I had to be aware when we pulled into Kitchener on Highway 8 this time around, since I first noticed the CP switching moves last year when we travelled the same stretch of road. This year, I was ready and I was lucky enough to see a train once again. Great train karma for once!

The shot above is not bad, all things considered. You can see that the head unit, GP38-2 3118, is in need of new paint. You can barely see the Canadian script or what's left of the golden rodent. I wasn't able to get a clear shot of the second unit, which looked like it had newer paint. Considering how few CN geeps I have seen (excluding the GP20ECO rebuilds), I was happy to see this old warhorse.

This shot below is the one image that was clear enough to allow me to identify the one unit. As you can see, much of the train is obscured, but that's how this game is played.

It's not much, but when you see as little as I do, every small victory counts.

Postcard from Vaughan

This is the latest installment of an occasional series where I take a single photo and share some thoughts about it. You can read the other postcard posts by clicking the links below.

Postcard from Chemical Valley (2015)
Postcard from Saint Laurent Boulevard (2015)
Postcard from Twin Elm (2016)
Postcards from Alberta (2016)

Somewhere between the time when I was young and now, railways have become a lot less friendly. I don't mean to make this sound like a gripe, but merely an observation. I remember kids walking through my hometown on the CSX tracks all the time when I was young, even though the rail line was much more active than it is today.

Even here in Ottawa, I love to see the old images of Walkley Yard and other rail installations around this city from decades past. It is obvious from those images that people could walk onto railway property and take photos of trains at just about any time. Go to any rail history blog or website and you're sure to come across tales of people who made friends with railway workers and took photos on their railway's property at will.

No more.

Railways have become much more serious about their property in the last two decades. There are a number of reasons why this has happened, not the least of which is the heightened concern over security. When I was young, I often walked along tracks and wandered onto railway properties. I'm sure many people of my vintage will say the same thing. Try that today and you're sure to get yourself into a lot of trouble (in other words, don't try it).

This summer, as my family made its way to Southwestern Ontario to visit family, I kept my camera nearby in the passenger seat of our car, just in case we got lucky and saw a train along the highway. Sadly, I had no luck in Kingston, where the Kingston Subdivision parallels Highway 401 for a lengthy stretch.

However, as we were making our way through Toronto on the 407, I readied my camera near CN's massive Macmillan Yard and hoped there might be something worth capturing. In fact, there was. Barely discernible above the concrete highway barrier  was a CN unit marshalling a long line of autoracks.

I tried to clean up the image a bit, but there's only so much you can do as your car is passing by at 100 km/h. But it did get something, which is better than nothing. Especially for me.

I've said this in posts recently. As much as I liked going to rail yards when I was kid, I really try to stay away from them now, given the choice. I find I'm much happier out there near a busy main line (when I am near one) finding a good piece of landscape to frame a passing train.

But I remember being mesmerized by the thought of seeing this yard when I was young. I suppose if I find myself in Vaughan in the future, I might seek out the one small viewing platform on the edge of the yard at the side of a busy road. It would no doubt be fun to capture a bunch of trains all at once, provided there was activity in the yard at that time.

I guess I'm so used to the thrill of the chase along a main line and having to work extremely hard for my shots that the allure of something easy doesn't excite me like it once did.

Maybe I like this shot because it was so hard to capture.

Reasons to appreciate rolling stock (Part III)

Sometimes, a single photo of a single railcar is just not worth it to a railfan. However, even if something like a blank sided hopper car or similarly drab tank car doesn't excite you, maybe it's time to think outside the box. Yes, one railcar might not be worth a shot, but what about a shot of a bunch of railcars?

Read Part I and  Part II of the Rolling Stock Appreciation Society posts.

As railfans, we often chase diesel units and focus almost exclusively on the head of the train, but I think there's merit in shooting the middle of the train and the end of the train. Why? Because when taken together, railcars can sometimes tell a story of their own.

The best example I can think of is a container train. Intermodal trains are commonplace to say the very least and for the most part, aren't terribly exciting to shoot. Well, not so fast. I think when you take the container trains as a whole, they are actually fairly compelling to the eye. This photo above is one of a number of examples of containers trains I have shot. This train was one of my favourite meets. It also tells a story about railroading today. And check out the CN Mandaumin sign. The containers really form a great backdrop for the sign.

You'll never see just one container car on a train like you might with a boxcar, hopper car, flatcar or tank car. Intermodal cars are always part of a unit. These units are huge. They tell you a lot about how railroads operate today.

This shot, above, is one of my favourites. It doesn't contain a great deal of detail, but it tells a story. This is what railroading looks like today. This is how goods are shipped on the rails today. This is what intermodal is all about. This is what railways do best these days. Check out my post about this meet here.

You'll notice in each of these shots that the container cars are framed by an interesting looking sky. This is where I think many railfans could benefit from paying a little more attention to rolling stock. This shot, above, may not have an engine in it, but it gives you an idea of the scale of unit intermodal trains today and it is framed by an interesting backdrop. Sometimes, even a throwaway rolling stock snap can be worthwhile.

Another example of this is the humble autorack. This car hardly inspires excitement among many of us, I would imagine, but when you take a shot of group, you are telling the story of how cars are moved via rail today. You never see just one autorack on a train. They are always grouped together in large units. This tells you the scale of this source of revenue for railways. I like this shot above for that reason, but also because these autoracks are framed by some cool wildflowers trackside.

Here's another example of the whole being more than the sum of its parts. I like the lines that this image captures. On the surface, a unit ethanol train isn't terribly exciting, but when I reviewed this shot and looked at the lines this long string of tank cars created, I really liked the shot. The other thing I tried to capture was the anomaly. In this case, there is one white tank car in a sea of black ethanol cars.

Full disclosure. I don't see a lot of trains, so many of these revelations I have come across about rolling stock are really the product of a dearth of meets. I don't see many trains so I am always taking as many photos as possible when I do see one. I also can admit that I threw many of my old shots of rolling stock away in the 1990s, which in hindsight was a dumb move. I can only imagine if I had those photos today how much more compelling my image collection would be.

Learn from my mistakes. Take a shot of everything. You'll be glad you did.

CP Rail's Windsor Rail Yard in 1991



I only visited Canadian Pacific's Windsor rail yard twice, but neither time disappointed. As readers know from past posts, my grandfather worked for CP for forty years, many of them in this yard. He first took me to this yard when I was very little (possible three years old) and took me aboard a locomotive to show me how it worked. The second time he took me, I was a teenager. It was the summer of 1991, on a very hot dry day. The visit did not disappoint.

 

I wasn't there more than a few minutes when yard switcher 1621 whizzed by with a CP multimark-equipped cylindrical hopper trailing behind (see below). You can see an autorack and an old CP Rail caboose on the track behind. This was right around the time when the multimark was fast becoming a memory on CP's locomotives and rolling stock. This GP9 looks like it is due for new paint soon.

 

In many ways, CP's Windsor yard is very much like CN's Sarnia yard. Both yards feed international tunnels and both have a wide variety of rolling stock making its way across the border. In the case of the Windsor CP yard, there were fewer tank cars than in Sarnia, but there were some oddities like a centre beam lumber car (left, below). These were a rare site for me (although they are more common in Ottawa). You can also see the difference between two GP9s below. 1619 looks like it is next in line for new paint sans multimark while 8226 is fresh with new paint.

Here's a better look at 8826, without the multimark, but with a much fresher coat of CP's famous red paint. You get the idea of what a dozen or so years of harsh summer sun does to a locomotive's paint job (left).

I've included this photo before in Favourite Train Photos #1. This old Alco relic was just coming off the turntable after receiving service in the roundhouse. As this was happening, my grandfather was talking to his old co-workers, many of whom were quite happy to see him again. One mentioned that they really needed someone with his expertise around the yard again. Other than the fact that this is my only roundtable shot in my collection, I like this image because you can see a rare open-air autorack in the background. These autoracks were nonexistent in CN's Sarnia yard at the time. You can also see Detroit's Renaissance Center in the background, which gives you an idea how close this yard is to the Michigan border.

In 1991, CP's Michigan Central rail tunnel to Detroit had not been expanded to handle larger rail cars, although a few years later, it was expanded to accommodate autoracks. This tunnel still failed to accommodate double stack container trains, which left CP with a massive competitive disadvantage compared to CN's St. Clair Tunnel in Sarnia, which was completed in 1994. This disadvantage has yet to be resolved, although there are hopes that a new rail tunnel will be built to give Windsor and Detroit a fully functional rail tunnel that is able to handle modern rail operations.

For the purposes of a rail fan, having a yard crowded with cars that were queued for the rail ferry was a good thing. There was no shortage of traffic when I visited, including this train, headed by SD40 5744.

Here's another shot you've seen in an earlier post, Relics on the rails. I included it because I wanted to feature the entire set of photos from that day. I had more at one point, but I have lost those prints. You can see the Renaissance Center, a boxcar and a CP Rail flatcar behind this St. Lawrence Railroad boxcar, sitting just outside the roundhouse. Also, check out those axles! I was very lucky to have such access to these areas of the yard that would have otherwise been out of bounds for me.

I don't have many shots of CP Rail trains in my collection, which is what made that trip to the Windsor yard such a treat for me in 1991. It's a great memory I have of my grandfather, one which continues to fuel my fascination with railways.

CN's St. Clair Tunnel (Part I)

Sarnia has always been a railway town, thanks to its petrochemical industry and its location along a key rail corridor between Toronto and Chicago. The Great Western and the Grand Trunk railways were the first major railways to establish operations in Sarnia. By the end of the 1800s, the Grand Trunk's main line through the city was an extremely busy link between Toronto and Chicago. However, ferrying cars across the St. Clair River into Michigan was hurting the railway's business, which led to the construction of the St. Clair Tunnel, North America's first underwater rail tunnel. The tunnel was constructed at a cost of $2.7 million and opened in 1891.

Some quick statistics about this tunnel:

• It is 1838 metres long (6028 feet). 
• At its lowest point, it is 40 feet below the surface of the river. 
• It was dug by hand by crews in Sarnia and Port Huron, Michigan, at a rate of 10 feet a day.
• The width of the river where the tunnel is located is 698 metres (2290 feet). 
• The tunnel's diameter is 6 meters (19 feet, 10 inches). 

Amazingly, when crews met and completed the digging process, they were off only by a fraction of an inch, which many consider to be an incredible feat of engineering for 1891.

The tunnel, seen in this undated Pesha Studio photo below, reliably served the Grand Trunk and its successor, Canadian National, for decades. Trains were originally pulled through the tunnel by Baldwin-built locomotives, which gave way to electric units and catenary wires in 1907 when concerns arose over engineers and crewmen suffocating in the tunnel amid the exhaust from the Baldwins.

Sarnia was proud of its tunnel, which was once regarded as the longest underwater rail tunnel in the world. The city was sometimes known as "Sarnia Tunnel" as you can see from this postcard below. Notice the two types of horsepower in the 1920s onward. The Baldwin locomotives were replaced by the Westinghouse electrics for the tunnel trips, but they were still used around the Sarnia rail yard.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, railway cars grew, mainly due to the advent of large boxcars (hi-cubes) and tri-level auto racks. These cars were essential pieces of rolling stock in southwestern Ontario, since so many auto parts and vehicles had to be shuttled between automotive production facilities throughout Ontario and Michigan. This presented a problem to CN, since the tunnel could not accommodate these cars. By the 1980s, the old tunnel became more of a liability, with the advent of double-stack container trains. CN ferried many of these oversized cars over the river, creating the same problem the Grand Trunk faced in 1890s. The flow of goods was simply too slow between Toronto and Chicago.

This created scenes like this one below from 1992, with CN workhorse SW1200s shuttling long lines of auto racks onto its Point Edward spur, which led to the CN ferry along Front Street in Sarnia's downtown waterfront area.

This also created the problem of lag time in the Sarnia yard (below photo from 1992), with hi-cubes like this Conrail boxcar (coupled to a Burlington Northern autorack) languishing in the rail yard for long periods. In an era of just-in-time delivery demands, CN knew it had to serve its automotive customers in a more timely manner.

Autorack traffic continued to expand on the CN Strathroy Subdivision, which ends at CN's Sarnia yard, and along CSX's Sarnia Subdivision, which interchanges with CN near the yard. This created a backlog of oversized freightcars at the ferry staging yard in downtown Sarnia. The photo below is from Summer 1993. I'm not sure what the cargo on that flatcar is, but my guess at the time was that it had something to do with what was going on in the photo at the bottom of this post.

In 1993, a boring machine called Excalibore started clearing the way for a new St. Clair Tunnel that would accommodate the oversized rail cars (below photo is from Summer 1993). This would usher in a new era of railroading in Sarnia.