A year of firsts

I didn't get around to putting together a post about the best moments from 2017, although I did devote one post to the Via Rail highlights (and there were many!). So, although it's nearly February, I wanted to take a look back at some cool moments trackside from 2017. Although my time trackside was miniscule last year, I was happy to have some incredible luck this year.

The first instance of some good luck happened in May when my family made a trip to Southwestern Ontario to visit family and attend a family reunion over the Mother's Day weekend. I made my way to Wyoming and camped out at the town's tiny Via Rail station, hoping to catch a freight train on the Strathroy Subdivision.

After sitting for an hour, I was just about to return back my Dad's house in Petrolia when I saw something far off in the distance making its way west. The best part of this freight train was that it had five (count 'em) engines leading the way. This is a rare site in modern railroading, as most modern diesels are matched in pairs or trios on the head end of a freight train. This lash-up reminded me of watching trains when I was younger when four to five engines on the head end of a train wasn't all that uncommon. So, mark it down as the first time I have seen this type of locomotive line-up in many years.

Later in the summer, I was again visiting family in the Sarnia area when I caught my first train on the St. Clair River Industrial Spur near the Rokeby Line, south of Corunna. I lived near this spur when I was growing up, but I was never able to get a shot of any trains on this line. I managed to catch this rain switching near the Suncor ethanol plant. Check out the old motive power and the giant power lines. This might be my favourite shot from last year.

During the same week in late July/early August, I was able to stay at my sister's house south of Corunna. Her property backs onto the CSX Sarnia Subdivision, which is a pretty quiet line these days. I was hanging around my sister's backyard, as my daughters were enjoying an afternoon siesta when I heard a train approaching the nearby Rokeby Line. I was able to position myself near the tracks and get this shot of a short train heading back to Sarnia.

Later in August, I was in London for a family wedding when I was able to break away from the family events to get some trackside time in. I saw a number of cool things during my time at the CN London East yard and the CP Quebec Street yard. At the CP yard, I was able to watch a local doing some switching, which included my first golden rodent-clad unit.

At the London East CN yard, I saw a lot of interesting things, which you can see in this post, but the highlight was a CN container train rumbling through. I don't see these trains at all, since Ottawa had no mainline action of consequence, so it was cool to see my first container trains in years, especially from the Highbury overpass.

In October, I came across an idling mixed freight that was parked in between Wyoming and Camlachie Road. You can read about this meet here. This was a surprising meet for me, since it was the first time I have seen two cowl units on a freight train. It's always cool to come across these relatively rare units, but having two on the same train was especially cool.

And as you may have read from this recent post, I was quite happy to catch my first Goderich Exeter Railway action shots in Kitchener in November. You can read about my adventures in Kitchener in this post. For those who missed it, I caught a duo of GEXR units tying up at the Kitchener railway station, including this unit, LLPX 2236. I didn't share this photo in my original post.

There were a number of other firsts last year, but these are the ones that I feel are most significant. Last year was a year where much of my trackside time was condensed into a few jam-packed weekends. I'm hoping to get going on some photography this year. If I can check off half as many items from my to-do list as I did last year, I'll be quite happy.

Just how long was it?

When I was young, one of the great joys I had was to count the cars on a passing freight train, whether it was a mixed freight on the CSX line through Corunna or on a CN freight train in Sarnia or even a CP freight close to my grandparents' house in Windsor.

Today, I notice many railfans, particularly those who are fascinated by the technical aspects of railways, will report the approximate length of the train or an axle count. I am not interested in counting cars anymore or counting axles for that matter, but I came across a freight train recently that made me consider just how long freight trains are these days.

Before I get into the story, I will point out the obvious. Freight trains have grown longer over the last few decades, with the advancement of distributed power, the use of AC traction and the general progress of motive power compared to the geeps and GE units of yesterday. I remember when I was a kid and saw a train of 100+ cars. I was always impressed with a train that long, but that length is not even noteworthy today on a busy main line.

With that in mind, here is my story of a meet with a long freight train on the CN Strathroy Subdivision from this October. I was heading west toward Sarnia for a visit with family for the Thanksgiving weekend when I decided to take a break in Wyoming, after a long day on the road. Up until Wyoming, I hadn't seen anything on the Strathroy Sub from the Confederation Line, which parallels the sub between Strathroy and Sarnia.

When I arrived at the Broadway level crossing, I noticed the tail end of a freight train near the Wyoming train station. But, the train wasn't moving. It was stopped. I headed back to the Confederation Line and continued west, to see if I could find the head end. And I did find it. A full concession west of Wyoming.

Past Kerrigan Road is Camlachie Road, a north south county road that terminates in the lakeside village of Camlachie, just north of Sarnia's city limits. It was at Camlachie Road that I found the head end of this train.

I was intrigued as to why this train was stopped here. The sub is single track until it gets closer to Mandaumin Road, where the main line splits into double track until it connects with CN's Sarnia Yard.

I made sure to get as close as I could and take note of the power up front. I was quite glad that I took my time because the power on this train was pretty cool.

Here's a shot from the other side, with SD70M-2 8803 in the lead. I find these engines pretty ugly. The front end looks like some hideous compromise between the typical angled wide nose engines of today and the boxier feel of the old geeps. But the lead unit was not really what caught my eye. Do you see which locomotives are second and third in line on this train?

CN 2415. A Dash-8 40C cowl unit. But there was more!

CN 2434. Another  Dash-8 cowl unit. My brother says these units are pretty common on this subdivision, based on his sightings, but for me, it's always a coup to see one. You can also make out the flat car and the carbon black hoppers trailing the power. The last time I saw a cowl unit, it was a safety scheme cowl unit on a westbound mixed freight heading for the tunnel beneath the St. Clair River. You can see that post here.

I stuck around for a while to see if the train got going again, but it was definitely idling for some reason, most likely a bottleneck near Sarnia Yard. Either way, it's always a nice break when you can get a shot of a freight train and not have to rush around.

But the question in my mind remained: how long was this train? It extended from Camlachie Road all the way to the Wyoming Via Rail station.

Well, here's how I arrived at a solution. My first step was to plot a route on Google Maps from a place on the corner of Broadway Street in Wyoming and the intersection of the Confederation Line and Camlachie Road. I did this because I needed a measurement from a road close to the Via station (which has no fixed address and is located off a side street) all the way to Camlachie Road. Since I choose a point on Google Maps that went from intersection to intersection, I found out that the distance was 3.8 kilometres. A long train, right? But we're not done yet.

Since the train was basically extended to the Via station, which is not on Broadway, I had to find out the distance between Broadway and London Street, which is close to where the station sits. Technically speaking, the Via station has no address on Google, which made this calculation a little more difficult. Google Maps told me that the distance between Broadway and London streets is 200 metres. So, that means the train was about 3.6 km long, right? Well, not quite. As you might tell from the photos, the train is stopped roughly 30-40 metres from the crossing, so it was probably closer to 3.5 km long. For those who prefer miles, that means this train was about 2.17 miles long, not factoring in slack, which would certainly add some distance if the train was fully extended. So, all in all, it was a pretty typical length for a main line freight train.

Whatever the true length was, I thought it was a fun challenge to try and get a measurement on this train, particularly without the help of mileposts. For someone who loathed math in school, I'm happy I paid attention.

The great disappearing train

Happy New Year!

When people ask me what the Sarnia area is like, I usually tell them, "Picture the prairies, only with more trees." That pretty much sums up the topography where I grew up. It's really flat. That makes chasing and photographing trains fairly easy. The one exception is the approach to the rail tunnel beneath the St. Clair River. The single track leading to the tunnel offers a surprisingly steep grade in an otherwise flat stretch of CN's rail network in this region.

On August 18 last year, I made a trip to the CN rail yard in Sarnia where I was taking shots from various vantage points. When I started shooting, I noticed a large train was being assembled in the middle part of the yard, where the tracks pass under the Indian Road overpass. Seeing that it was not ready to move, I started taking shots elsewhere. A little while later, I found myself at the end of a cul-de-sac, which abuts the yard, since I was trying to get a shot of this train (below). I noticed the train was stopped before entering the yard, waiting for something. Hearing a train roaring toward my spot, I knew a train was heading down the steep grade toward the tunnel.

In all my years of photographing trains, this was the first time I caught a tunnel train.

CN GP9 7270 waits to enter Sarnia Yard. The bridge behind the GP9 is known as the Donahue Bridge, which connects the City of Sarnia to the adjacent Chemical Valley, the area's massive petrochemical refinery district.

Unfortunately, the positioning of the sun and my vantage point made for some tough obstacles. The weeds were pretty high so some shots of the train turned out like the image below. But, sometimes when you scramble, you have to make do with you have.

Happily, getting shots of the train from another angle (below) made for some better shots. I was pretty happy to see that the second unit was CN SD60F 5550, a genuine cowl unit. I have not seen one of these units in many years. An excellent catch.

This is where things began to get interesting. As the third unit in this mixed freight, CN 2635 (Dash-9 44CW) came into view, the train began to disappear. Unknowingly, I had stumbled onto an excellent spot to catch the train's descent into the tunnel. As I reviewed the photos of the train, I was quite pleased to see the way I caught the train's disappearing act.

This shot below captures the grade nicely. You can see the initial string of steel coil cars bound for the United States. If you look closely, you can also see a truck parked beside a covered hopper car at a transloading facility (upper left). You can also see some refinery towers to the left.

I did pan back toward the sun a few times, since the train had so many different types of freight in its consist, including a few shallow gondolas filled with what looked like scrap metal.

This view below brought me back to my teenage years, when I used to watch long lines of autoracks making their way down the CSX Sarnia Subdivision and then being queued up in Sarnia Yard, where they were then ferried over the river on the CN ferry. Of course, CSX no longer handles autorack interchange traffic between Chatham and Sarnia. In fact, CSX doesn't even operate in the Chatham area anymore. I took a shot of the autoracks, just for nostalgia's sake.

Of course, all good things come to an end, but check out the variety at the end of the train. A few high-cube box cars, a lumber car, a white tank car and a few other loaded flat cars, all headed below the river. You can just make out the other train (right) waiting for clearance to enter the yard. I stuck around to catch that train, which turned out to be carrying interchange traffic for two waiting CSX GP38s, which were idling near the Via station. I shared a few shots of that train in this previous post. I will have more to share from that interchange in a future post. You can also make out some longer than usual rail ties, which indicate there was once a turnout located here.

So, all in all, I was pleased to get some decent shots of this tunnel-bound train, given my less than ideal position and the position of the sun. There's always something happening in a big rail yard. I can only dream of similar activity in Ottawa's Walkley Yard.

More relics on the rails

My travels to southern Ontario this summer resulted in some interesting sites trackside, including a few run-ins with railroading history. It's always a good day when you capture a piece of the past, especially when these relics are becoming rare. I managed to snag a few notable relics. You can read my first entry about relics in this post.

The first relic I shot was located at the end of the line on CSX's Sarnia Subdivision, along the shores of the St. Clair River. This antique maintenance-of-way crane car was quite far from the parking lot where I was standing. There was no way to legally get close to the car, so I had to rely on my camera's zoom to get what I could. But the lighting was good and the view was mostly clear, minus a hydro pole.

As you can see, the zoom was stretched to its limits, judging by the look of the tracks leading up to the old car. This old Burro crane is still clad in Chessie yellow. I have seen this car tucked away here a few times, but this was the first time I had a fairly clean view of the car. You can see the St. Clair River in the background and Michigan on the other side. This car is pretty close to where the old CSX rail ferry was located. This ferry service ended right around the same time the CN ferry stopped its operations. What's interesting about the old CSX ferry is that I didn't even know it existed until recent years.

Later on the same day (August 18th), I made my way to CN's Sarnia Yard and was able to catch the CN/CSX interchange as a string of cars was being delivered for pickup by two CSX GP38s in the yard. This train contained the second relic. Below is a long shot of the interchange making its way into the yard. Can you see the relic? It may not be obvious.

Here's a closer look. It's an old Family Lines System hopper car, still fully clad in its original livery. It may not be all that significant to some, but for someone like me interested in the convoluted history of CSX, it's an interesting holdover from the merger era. You can see a second hopper with the same paint, although it has been re-lettered for CSX.

You can see the Louisville & Nashville lettering on the hopper and the all-encompassing logo to the right. Here's a closer look at the logo, below.

Family Lines System was one of the precursors to CSX. It is important to note that the system was itself not an actual railroad, but a common marketing scheme adopted by a number of allied railways, including the Seaboard Coast Line, Louisville & Nashville, the Clinchfield Railroad, the Georgia Railroad, the Atlanta & West Point Railroad and the Western Railway of Alabama (these lines were known as the West Point Route). You can see that all the railroads are represented in the logo. This entity was created in 1972 and lasted until 1982, when the Seaboard System was created. The Seaboard System itself lasted until 1986, when Seaboard and Chessie System were combined to form CSX. That's the simplest explanation. Technically, Chessie was brought into the CSX umbrella in 1987. I'm not sure I understand the specifics of how CSX, as we know it, came to be in 1986-87.

This next shot below isn't necessarily a relic, but more of an rarity or oddity. This is a manifest freight heading west toward the St. Clair River rail tunnel (I will have more to share about this train in another post). The middle unit pulling this train is CN 5550, an SD60F cowl unit. I only ever snagged one other cowl unit in my exploits around this yard. You can read about the other cowl unit I saw, a Bombardier HR616, here. This unit looks massive, with six axles and six safety stripes.

The final relic I found along the CN Strathroy Subdivision in Wyoming. Whenever I visit this area, I visit the tiny Via Rail station and wait for a passing freight train. I didn't end up catching a train but I did find this old loading ramp in the weeds. It appears that this ramp has not been used in some time. Still, it's interesting that pieces of the old track leading to this ramp still remain. You can see the main line to the left of the photo.

I was quite happy with some of these catches over the summer. As I mentioned already, anytime you can shoot some history, it's a good day.

Thanks for reaching out

I posted my email in a previous post and was happy with the messages I received from readers. I was happy to know that I have a good following from various points in Ontario and around Canada. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you may have at hammond.michael77 AT gmail.com. One reader has reached out and will be featured as a guest blogger in the near future. He has already showed me some of his material and I am excited about sharing his photos and experiences. Stay tuned!