Summer Observations in Ottawa

Due to technical difficulties with my computer, I am not able to share the third part of my Bedell, Ontario series with you this week. I had loaded the images for this series on my main computer, but had yet to back them up on my removable drive, so those images are in limbo until the computer is fixed. Fear not. The images are not in imminent danger.

Rather than leave the blog idle for a week, I thought I'd share some thoughts about what is going on here in Ottawa lately. Let's start with Via Rail.

Service in Ottawa has been affected by two derailments this summer, as most readers already know. The most recent was the accident near Trenton. Although this has proved to be a tough summer for Via with service interruptions, the silver lining is that the railway's problems in Ottawa seem to have been solved. There have been no reports of any incidents in Barrhaven since late May, which I'm sure is a great relief to Via. The railway is continuing its work in the area, although I haven't heard where a planned passing siding will be constructed. I'm hopeful we'll get an update soon from the railway and its point man in the area, former Via COO John Marginson.

Above: Via corridor train from Toronto arrives at Ottawa's central station (July photo)

 

Here are a few photos of my meet with this corridor train from last month. I have to admit, as much as I dislike the P42s, they look like a good match for the streamliners. It's always nice to see these coaches in the corridor in the summer.

 

 

In the shot below, you can see the Belfast Road overpass, which is undergoing work as part of the construction of the city's Confederation Line O-Train line. The O-Train has been in the news recently as it gears up for the coming school year. The Capital Railway is preparing its Ellwood link for the beginning of the school year, when Carleton University students flock to the 8-kilometre line.

 

Unfortunately, recent work to switch the current O-Train line from its original signalling equipment to a new system has met with snags, delayed trains and frustrated commuters. Check out the story about the angry commuters in this story from the Ottawa Citizen. This latest round of work will complete the project started last year to expand the Ellwood line's capacity and make way for new trainsets. This was the state of the line in May (below). You can see below that the new signalling equipment had been installed but not activated.

 

 

In late July, the new signalling equipment was brought online. As you can see, everything was functioning this week and operations appeared to be running smoothly.

 

 

The final piece of this expansion will clear the way for the new Coradia-built trainsets, which will take the place of the current Bombardier trains (above and below). You can check out the new trains in this photo from an earlier post. I'm not sure when this change will occur, but I would guess it's going to happen soon. That means train watchers up here will have to get their final looks at these Bombardier trainsets.

 

Summer Reading

 

I came across two fascinating articles and I thought I would pass them along to you. The first is the incredible story of the lost railway train that is, according to many here in Ottawa, still trapped underground below a long-since demolished brewery. It's a mystery to me why no attempts have been made to locate this piece of history and preserve it.

 

The second story echoes what I've been saying for more than a year on this blog. A local writer talks about how Ottawa's Prince of Wales Bridge is being left to rust while various government officials twiddle their thumbs. He also points out section 146 of the Canada Transportation Act that is allowing a number of railway lines to be ripped up with very little critical thought. This article is more of an opinion piece, so beware of the political rants.

 





Bedell Ontario, Part II: Prescott Sub passes into history

A return trip to Bedell, Ontario proved to be quite sobering this past weekend. I had read that the Canadian Pacific has contracted a company to scrap the remainder of their North Prescott Spur in Kemptville. I decided to visit to see if this was the case. It turns out that this stretch of the old Bytown & Prescott Railway (CP's old Prescott Sub) is indeed being scrapped. Considering this line was the first to reach in Ottawa in 1854, I thought it was worth my time to take some shots and dig into the history a little more. I felt fortunate to get a few final photos, but there's always the underlying sadness to see history being taken away.

My first trip was to an old feed mill and grain elevator on Van Buren Street in Kemptville, which appeared to be one of the last rail-served businesses on this old line. I walked down the line from the Van Buren crossing, to see if there was a better vantage point to shoot the grain elevator. The overgrowth to the left, as you can see below, ensured that this elevator would remain mostly hidden.

Interesting fact: Kemptville owes some of its early prosperity to the fact that it was chosen to be a railway town, set up by the old Bytown & Prescott as a station stop.

When I arrived at Bedell, along the CP Winchester Sub, I found the old signal tower that stood next to the turnout for the North Prescott Spur, had been removed (below). Given the condition of these towers, I doubt they will have much use to CP.

 

 

This was the scene just two weeks ago, when the remains of the old signal tower still stood sentry over the abandoned spur (below). 

 

I also saw a stack of old rail trackside, waiting to be carted away to other parts of the Canadian Pacific network that are busier than this lonely old rural Ontario spur. A little way from this pile, another pile sat in the weeds, which included the rubber seals used for level crossings.

This was a little disappointing to me. The old Bedell marker had been taken down and left in the weeds. I turned it over to grab a quick shot of the sign. I was a little perplexed why the sign would be taken down. I suppose it's because this area along the main line will not be used for anything moving forward, but I thought the sign was a nice touch and reminder of busier times.

You will recall that just a few weeks ago, the sign was still standing in an area with wildflowers.

 

I made sure to return to the old feed mill to get a shot of the elevator, but this was as close as I could get from the parking lot of the shuttered facility. You can also see the storage huts for road salt and sand behind the fences. I have read that CP once serviced this road maintenance facility as well another on the South Prescott Spur.



 

Closer to the main line, many of the rails that had been pulled from the North Prescott Spur were labelled and ready for shipment. I'm not sure whether CP is sending a local to load these onto cars. It would be nice to shoot that.

As I noted in my previous post about this spot, Bedell was once an important stopover on the CP main line, where steam locomotives were once serviced and where an interlocking tower, rail yard and station were located. The area had an interlocking crossing between the main line and the old CP Prescott Sub at one point, but this was replaced by a diamond. The spot fell into disuse in the 1960s onward, when CP began to direct its freight traffic from Smiths Falls. The old Prescott Sub was officially abandoned in 1997, with the majority of the line torn up in1999 between Leitrim Road in southern Ottawa and Kemptville. The remnants of the remaining line, the North Prescott Spur, was officially abandoned in 2012. Now, Bedell and the Prescott Sub are pretty much historic footnotes.

And, yes, I did get some time to shoot actual railroading in action along the main line. I struck out this past weekend, since there were no freights hustling by when I was there, but my previous visit two weeks earlier resulted in a great encounter with a westbound manifest freight, with a number of interesting pieces of rolling stock. I will end my initial series on Bedell Ontario with that meeting next week. Here's a small teaser below. Can you make out what type of cars are immediately behind the lead units?

Bedell Ontario Part I: The Ottawa Connection

Just south of Kemptville, Ont., you will find milepost 103.4 on Canadian Pacific's Winchester Subdivision. The area is better known as Bedell, a rural spot with a few homes along CP's mainline between Smiths Falls and Montreal. The area was once a busy spot along the CP main line, with an interlocking tower, station and other facilities. I visited this area recently to shoot some mainline railway action. I am going to make this a regular stop in my travels, since my collection of CP images is sadly lacking. The first trip yielded far more than expected, including a reminder of Ottawa's railway past.

When I arrived, I quickly found a gravel parking lot, which appeared to be the site of former railway structures. There were an array of rolling stock debris, tie plates and other railway material in the weeds. I found the railway's marker in some overgrowth, including a surprising number of wildflowers, including these black eyed susans above.

I sat trackside on a brilliantly sunny Sunday afternoon, enjoying the gentle sounds of the summer, including the buzzing and clicking of insects and the chirping of birds. It is a very peaceful spot to shoot, tucked away from Kemptville along a sparsely used rural road.

When I arrived, I made sure to take shots of the mainline, which is double tracked, although as you can see from this shot looking east, there are remnants of old tracks on either side of the main line. These lines were once part of a larger rail yard. One line appears to be in the process of being dismantled (left) while the other line ends in a pile of gravel, but appears to be in some sort of operating condition.

 

As I walked around the site, I came across this separated turnout, which I knew from research was the old CP Prescott Sub, the line that once linked Ottawa to the CP main line here. This line ran north along the same path as Highway 416. Of course, most of the Prescott Sub is long gone. The remnants of the south end of the sub have been reduced to about two miles of trackage that still extends into Kemptville. You can see below the sign that reads "circuit end." This stretch of track was renamed the North Prescott Spur and served industry in Kemptville until the line was formally abandoned in July of 2012. The other remnant of the Prescott Subdivision, known as the South Prescott Spur, is still operational since CP serves industry a few kilometres south of Bedell in the town of Oxford Station.

 

The North Prescott Spur turnout was a familiar scene to me, since it reminded me of the out-of-service Beachburg Sub north of Nepean Junction in Ottawa.

 

 

Doing a little research on this sub, I discovered that its roots date back to the 1850s, when the Bytown & Prescott Railway was created to shuttle logs from the Ottawa River down to Prescott on the St. Lawrence River. This line was the first to reach Ottawa in 1854 and, after undergoing name changes and a bankruptcy, was purchased by the Canadian Pacific in the 1880s. At that point, it became the Prescott Sub. In the image below, you can see the plows up sign and a crossing sign to the left, where the old spur crosses Bedell Road.

 

 

After shooting some mainline action at Bedell (stay tuned for this in the coming weeks), I followed the remnants of the North Prescott Spur into Kemptville, where I found much of the line still in place, although covered in weeds (shot below). The spur in this image leads to what was likely the last industry served by CP in the town. I saw a grain elevator (left) and a building for sale at the end of the turnout. I wasn't able to get close enough for a good photo, but have made a mental note to return here for more photos. You can also see the whistle sign to the left, since this industrial spur is very close to a level crossing.

 

 

I'm not sure why CP has left the rails in place in Kemptville, since the line has been abandoned for two years. I'm guessing the rail isn't terribly valuable, otherwise it would have been snapped up quickly, like CN did when it started dismantling the Beachburg Sub in Renfrew County.

 

I read that CP stopped assigning its Ottawa trains via Bedell in 1967, right around the time when the National Capital Commission began tearing up most rails in central Ottawa. CP monitored and assigned much of its traffic to and from Ottawa through Smiths Falls. The Prescott Sub continued to operate via the St. Lawrence and Hudson railway, until 1997. At that point, the last customers in Ottawa dried up, which forced CP's subsidiary to pull up stakes in the capital. The rail between Kemptville and Ottawa was pulled up in 1999. 

 

It should be noted that the northernmost stretch of the Prescott Sub is still in place in Ottawa, as part of it is still used for the O-Train service. A stretch south of the O-Train Greenboro Station terminus is still occasionally used by CN to send cars to the National Research Council facilities on Lester Road, near the Ottawa airport. There is another stretch of the old Prescott Sub that is not in use, which ends at Leitrim Road, on the periphery of the airport lands, right next to a golf course.

 

This stretch of the old sub is now being seriously considered as the route of a possible southern extension of the O-Train into Ottawa's growing southern subdivisions including Riverside South and Barrhaven. The route beyond Leitrim Road is still in place and is used as a 20-kilometre recreational trail extending to Osgoode.