Use The Force

Railfans in Ottawa are an impressive bunch, I have to say. We don't have much to see, but it doesn't stop many of us from capturing what little there is. Many also are not afraid to go far afield to capture something in Eastern Ontario. Just go the Eastern Ontario Rails Facebook group (you need to ask the administrator to join formally). I would say that, of late, an outsized amount of photos and chatter is focused on CN's weekly Arnprior Turn. The crew for that train must wonder how they have managed to attract so many fans of late. 

All of this is a lead-in to my story of using the force. By the force, I mean being ready at a moment's notice to identify 589 approaching my neighbourhood and heading out to catch it. Recently in October, I was working in my back yard, listening to a podcast with headphones when I thought I heard the distant sound of a freight engine's horn. Did I mention I am hearing impaired? Yes, my sixth sense for this train is quite impressive sometimes, if I do say so myself. 

An aside: when we had a visitor a few years ago and one of my children heard a distant train horn, I quickly identified it as a Via train, since I knew which direction it was coming from and knew the difference between a P42 horn and a geep horn. Our visitor looked me funny and asked how I knew the train was a Via. I guess my railfan was showing. I quickly pointed to the direction of the sound and said those were the Via tracks over yonder. The other way was where the freight tracks were.

So, back to my story. I rushed into my car with my iPhone as there was no time to grab my camera inside. This was going to be a tight timeline to get to Corkstown Road to get a shot. I saw 589 passing in front of me on the Moodie flyover, so I knew it would be tough to catch it at Corkstown Road. But I did get there with a few seconds to spare, although I couldn't get to my vantage point of choice on the sunny side of the tracks. 

I just barely made it to this spot in time to get some initial shots. Luckily, the lights on the Corkstown Road crossing were not working, which forced the train to stop short of the road as the conductor had to get out to guard the crossing. After one pickup went through, the train proceeded ahead across the road, slowing a bit to allow the conductor back on before the consist picked up speed. The sun flare on the train was some of the worst I've ever encountered, but I told myself I would fix it up with some photoshop later on. Note the conductor ahead of the blue geep.

Below, you will see the conductor looking west on Corkstown Road as the train approaches the level crossing. You can see the effects of the sun on the side of the engine. That was the best I could do with my photoshopping skills. Anything more would not have been true to the original image, so I avoided the temptation to alter things too far. I do have to mention that this is the first time I have seen this type of old school railroading where a conductor is guarding a level crossing like this.

As many local railfans know, work was recently done to shore up the Beachburg Sub ballast, ties and tracks between Federal and Nepean, which seems to be the last remnants of CN controlled trackage in the area, save for a few other scraps here and there. I'm not sure who is in charge of signalling repairs, but my guess is it's RailTerm, which is the company that does similar work for Via Rail in the city on its trackage. I guess they haven't gotten to this repair yet.

Notice the absence of crossing signals below. Now that I am moving away from the sun, the two-engine head end of the train begins to become a little more vibrant and less shadowy. Here's the lead unit, GMTX 2252. This leased unit has been making the rounds in Eastern Ontario as of late. I'd be curious to know why CN is still leasing units and why they might be short of motive power.

CN 9411 trails the lead unit as the relatively long consist approaches the curve in the track toward the old Nepean Junction. This is the first time that I have seen a two-engine lead on this train, which seemed to be a late summer/early fall change to CN 589. The shadows are still pretty brutal at this point, but I was able to touch up the image a fair bit to include a little more detail.

Here's one final shot of the consist, which includes seven (yes, seven!) tankcars all headed for Nylene Canada in Arnprior. Compare this to the one-car consist I have seen headed to Arnprior in the past. I'm not sure if this is a one-off or whether Nylene Canada's business is picking up, which is requiring more caprolactum.

At this point, I hustled back to my car and decided to test my luck at catching this train a second time. Given its relatively slow speed and my close proximity to March Road, I figured I would be able to beat 589 to the March Road crossing. Local railfans in Kanata say the train often stops at the Tim Hortons right next to the tracks, which would give me another opportunity to take some shots.

I'll save the second part of the story for the next post.

Ghost in the Yard, Part I

Those who have been with me on this blog from the beginning know that I often do a lot of rail photography in Sarnia, where I grew up. I was finally able to travel with my family this summer and even squeeze in a little time trackside at Sarnia's train station. 

I'm not a picky railfan. I see so little here in Ottawa, I will settle for watching a rail yard being switched. That was what was happening when I visited the yard on a cloudy morning in late July. To be honest, the cloudy conditions were ideal for me, as lighting from the station vantage point is tricky at the best of times, with the trains always being obscured by shadows. That morning, there were no such headaches, thankfully.

The first hint of activity was east of the station, as a consist of coil cars, a few hoppers and a long line of tank cars made its way toward the station. With the exception of the coil cars, this was a pretty typical consist for Sarnia, as much of the railway's local customers are in the Chemical Valley, which usually require tank cars and hoppers. These two types of cars are by far the dominant presence in this yard.

I tried to include some of Sarnia Station in the first photo. At this point, I caught a glimpse of a ghost in the consist, but I wasn't sure. In this photo, you can see an old GP9 long hood forward leading the way.

I had to wait a while for this train to make its way closer to the station. While I waited, I snapped a shot of this hopper car that is lettered NOKL, which you would think would belong to the Northwestern Oklahoma Railroad, but this is another case of a shortline leasing its reporting marks to a leasing company. 

I looked up its history, because I was interested in the plate on the upper right hand side of the car and found that this car once belonged to First Union Rail (FURX) and Iowa Interstate (IAIS). The plate in the upper right corner once sported the Equity logo, which you can still make out in the middle of the car. There's a tiny decal still there. Here's a closer shot of that old logo.

With an assist from Eric Gagnon at Trackside Treasure, I was also able to find out a few more things about this car, which Eric told me was once referred to as the "sash scheme" hoppers, which have a capacity of 4,750 cubit feet. They were made by Thrall. Eric also shared that there are a number of more common yellow hoppers with the Equity plate on them.  

Here was another NOKL lettered hopper with the XTRA lettering down the side. I know I have said this before, but taking photos of any type of rolling stock that is out of the ordinary may seem like a waste of time now, but it could one day prove interesting. I always make sure to find a car or two to capture whenever trackside.

This car once had the reporting marks CFWR, which belong to the Caney Fork and Western Railway, a shortline owned by Ironhorse Resources in Tennessee. 

As the yard job finally approached the station, I was able to confirm my suspicions about the rare piece of motive power in the consist. And there is was. Ex-GT 5849 GP38-2 still in its original GT colours. I know this might not seem all that rare to some more regular rail watchers, but it's the first time I've seen this scheme in person since the early 1990s. So, rare for me. What's even cooler is that this unit was once Pittsburgh and Lake Erie 2156. So it has a lot of history.

Here's a shot of just the GT unit. A nearby railfan at the station told me that the unit has been making the rounds in Sarnia for a few months. In the shot below, you can see that one of the front number plates had to be replaced. Not a great match, but it gets the job done, I guess. I also find it interesting that there is no CN stencil below the side numbers. It's as if the GTW never ceased to be its own operating entity.

 

Here's an overall shot of the yard job. I had to strain the limits of my camera's capabilities to get a clear shot. It was a hazy morning and the rain was just about to fall. You can see three yard signal sets in the background as well as the Indian Road overpass over the rail yard.

Here's a more conventional shot of the yard job, with a bit more clarity.

You can even see a carbon black covered hopper behind the coil cars. That hopper is either coming from or going to Cabot in the Chemical Valley. I got a better shot of that type of car when another yard job approached from the west end of the yard from behind a string of other cars. Stay tuned for that in the second part of this series.

In a way, I was lucky enough to catch a meet between two yard jobs, although they were a few tracks apart. It was quite a challenge trying to capture an image with both trains in the frame. I will leave that for the following post.

Ghost in the Yard, Part II

In the last post, I shared some photos of a Grand Trunk locomotive still sporting its red and blue Grand Trunk scheme in Sarnia Yard. I haven't seen a GT painted unit in person since the 1990s, so I was quite happy to finally see one again in real life.

As I mentioned in that last post, I am not a picky railfan. I will take what I can get, especially considering how little there is to see here in Ottawa. So when I saw two crews switching cars in the Sarnia rail yard back in late July, I was quite happy to stand on the Via Rail station platform and try and get some images. The problem with each consist was that they were quite a way east of the station, so I had either hope they would get close or use my camera's zoom to get something worthwhile. Luckily, both came fairly close, which allowed me to capture a few rare sights (at least for me).

The second yard job I saw was being led by two old warhorse GP9s, one with the strange CN 15 logo that was applied to celebrate the railway's 15th anniversary as a public company. Up until that morning, I had no idea the railway applied this logo to one of these locomotives. Most of the recent photos of this unit show it with the ordinary black long hood with the CN lettering. However, it appears the special scheme was added in the  2010s, judging by this 2013 image taken in Winnipeg. (Update: Steve Boyko at Traingeek.ca caught up with the CN 15 GP9 in Winnipeg and blogged about it. You can see his post here.)

Sadly, given where I was on the station platform and the angle and distance, I couldn't get a clear shot of 7258, which soon pulled away from a string of carbon black hoppers toward the east end of the yard. Here's my attempt at a closer shot.

I don't know what to think of that special paint scheme. It really doesn't do anything for me and I would imagine it would confuse a lot of people who aren't familiar with the corporate history of CN. Imagine if someone was really observant, but ignorant of railway history. They might see the CN 15 logo one day and the CN 100 logo another day. Which one would make more sense? Thankfully, this scheme was not terribly prominent and isn't all that widespread anymore, from what I can tell. 

While I was watching these two crews do their work in the yard, I met another local railfan, who is the man behind Shortt Rail videos on YouTube. I take it that he's a constant presence here. I spoke with him for a bit and he assured me that both the GT unit and the CN 15 unit had been around Sarnia for a while. I believe him, given that he has close to 800 videos on his YouTube channel. He also had a Shortt Rail logo on back window of his car.

Anyway, before the rain began to fall, I tried to see if there was anything else to capture. I always had a fondness for these carbon black hoppers. When I was a boy, these cars, which were loaded at the Cabot plant in the Chemical Valley, were ribbed and had the Cabot Corp. logo in the upper right hand corner of the cars. You can see an example of that ribbed hopper design on the left. Now, all you get is the CABX reporting mark as a clue as to what these cars are for and where they are heading to or coming from. Still, I'd love to have a few of these on my layout at home.

I did manage a meet photo of the two yard jobs in action. Trying to get them both in one frame in a way that did them both justice was difficult. 

For a train-starved Ottawan, even this short time in the rail yard was a lot of fun. Shortly after this photo, it began to rain. There was a father on the station platform with his two sons, who were enjoying the rail yard with some donuts from Tim Hortons. We were all chatting about trains before the heavens opened and we all dashed for our cars. 

In retrospect, my timing couldn't have been any better. Two rare sightings at the same time in the span of less than half an hour. Talk about great train karma.