Found in the rail yard (Part I)

Lambton County 2017 Part IV
London, Ontario, Part I

I've been to Sarnia Yard many times over the years and as anyone who watches trains in Sarnia knows, there really is only one decent spot to shoot pictures in that yard. The old Via Station, off Campbell Street, offers one of the few legal spots with a decent vantage point. The drawback is, given the direction where you are shooting the action, you almost always have to make do with terrible light. Cloudy days are usually best there. And now that the pedestrian portion of the Donahue Bridge is now closed off, forget about taking shots of the tunnel entrance.

When I went down to visit family in the Sarnia area, I tried to stay away from the yard so I could focus on getting some shots of trains moving on the Strathroy Sub (mission accomplished), the St. Clair River Industrial Spur (check) and the CSX Sarnia Subdivision (check).

However, I did manage to drop by the yard and spotted something I hadn't seen before.

Yes, it was track maintenance day in the area. I say this because I saw these types of MoW equipment on both the CN tracks and the CSX tracks in the area that day, although this was the only opportunity I had to get a decent shot. Other than that, all the action in the yard was taking place behind that long line (actually multiple lines) of covered hoppers.

The skies were threatening as you can see from the top image, but I did manage to see a set of GP9s and a slug idling away, no doubt in preparation for work on the St. Clair River Industrial Spur, which is where those engines are situated. It began to rain shortly after I arrived and the gantry was not suggesting that anything was imminent, so I moved on.

Shortly after my time in Sarnia, I visited London for a family wedding. It was during this week that I discovered the Highbury Road overpass, which offers a stunning view of the London East CN yard, and Egerton Street, which amazingly crosses over multiple tracks (I think it may have been seven) in the yard. I don't think there are many places where a rail yard is as open as this one, so I took full advantage of the opportunity. I was amazed at what I was able to see up close from Egerton Street and from Pine Street, which parallels the yard and allows you some great close-up shots of interesting rolling stock. Here is what I found.

The three units in the yard were idling and ready to go when I first arrived. I liked that they all represented a different CN paint scheme. Also, the yard engines seemed to parked on the track right next to a scrapper's yard, which helped add another industrial element to the shot. That's quite a pile of old cars heaped up next to the tracks.

There was nothing going on the first time I arrived, even though the yard engines seemed to be set for action, as the lead unit was lit and seemingly ready to go. The second time I visited the yard proved to be a gold mine as I was able to catch two eastbound freights in the yard, one from the Highbury overpass (stay tuned for those trains in future posts).

From Pine Street, I was able to get relatively close and take a shot of this twelve-axle heavy duty flat car. I have never seen one these in person and was happy to snap a few shots of these brutes. I was a bit surprised by the relatively small cargo attached to the car, which is clearly meant for much larger items. There were several of these cars in the yard, which were shunted around a few times in the days I was in the city.

This shot above gives you an idea of how close you are to the action while on the sidewalks of Egerton Road. Again, I am surprised that there is this type of access to a rail yard in London. You can see some large silos in the distance. I wasn't able to make my way to those elevators to see what they stored.

You can see the limits of the yard from Pine Street. I was surprised how many people ignored these signs and crossed over multiple tracks to get to where they were going. Security seems to be light here and the potential for danger seems immense, given how little people seem to care about the dangers of being around trains. Stay off private property, especially when it's something as potentially dangerous as an active rail yard. Railway officials often say anytime is train time. I can't stress this enough.

One final shot of a lonely ex-Government of Canada grain hopper, now patched for CN. I took this shot because it also gives you an idea of how large those heavy duty flatcars are.

I purposely spaced out all that I saw in this rail yard, as well as the CP London rail yard because there was simply too much to cram onto one post. Stay tuned for four more posts that will show you my meets with two massive CN freight trains, one CP local and all the rest of the miscellany I saw in the CP yard.

I can't wait to railfan in this city again.

My first great chase

Lambton County 2017 Part III

I've read about so many chases in other blogs over the years, but realized recently that I've never really had a good, long chase with a happy conclusion. Until now.

Recently, my family travelled to Southwestern Ontario, where we were visiting family. I decided to travel from a spot in rural Perth County, where we were visiting grandparents, to my hometown of Corunna using nothing but country roads. I did this with good reason. One of the roads that would lead me toward Corunna paralleled Canadian National's Strathroy Subdivision from its namesake town all the way to Sarnia. That drive would offer me a good chance to get photos of a freight train, since the road I was on (named Napperton Road in Middlesex County and Confederation Line in Lambton County) is not only close to the Strathroy Sub, it is also traversed by a number of intersecting country roads that lead to the tracks. Easy enough, right? Wrong.

I had just checked out two level crossings in Strathroy before I headed out onto Napperton Road, as I was convinced a meet was not going to happen in that town. I was about five minutes outside of Strathroy when I noticed the tail end of a freight train thundering its way west toward Sarnia, and at quite a clip. Clearly, I was going to have to drive for a while to catch up and maybe dart down a road (safely, of course) to catch this train. I managed to reach the head end of the train after about 10 to 15 minutes of patiently trying to catch up. I fired a few blind shots with my camera, being sure to keep my hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road. Needless to say, very few turned out, especially considering how far the track was from the road at this point.

This shot reminds me of some of the shots I took with a cheap camera in the early 1990s. It's blurry, but given the distance to the tracks and the movement of my car, it was the best I could do. This gives you an idea of where I was in relation to the Strathroy Sub.

The chase lasted far longer than I had anticipated because of a few wrinkles, mainly the fact that the road I was on passes through Kerwood, Watford and Wyoming before it reaches Sarnia's city limits. I managed to get ahead of the train by the time I reached Watford, but the speed limit near the Confederation Line-Highway 79 intersection fell to 50 km/h, which meant the train passed us, as it was maintaining a steady speed of about 80-85 km/h.

The train must have slowed a bit because as I pulled out of Watford and continued west, I found myself just about caught up with this massive train by the time I hit Wyoming. I was hoping to pull ahead of it and catch it at the Broadway Street crossing, just like this meet I had at the Wyoming Via station earlier this year.

But the slower speed limit in Wyoming (again 50km/h) ensured I would have to catch up to this train again. The slowdown in Wyoming was made worse by the fact that a tractor trailer took an unusually long time to turn from the Confederation Line onto Broadway.

So, after more chasing, I was finally able to overtake the train for a third time as it neared Sarnia. In fact, I managed to set up on Blackwell Side Road, the last road the Strathroy Sub crosses before it enters Sarnia yard. If you're keeping count, that means I had to cover about 60 kilometres before I was able to get proper shots of this train. It's a good thing I was heading in this direction anyway otherwise that's a lot of time and distance devoted to one train.

Here's what I saw.

The early morning sun washed out the sky beyond the limits of my photoshop program. However, I did like that I was able to frame the train against this farmer's field, which looked to be a soybean crop. Had I been given the luxury of a little more time, I would have been able to cross the tracks and set up in a more sun-friendly location although it was still fairly early in the morning (before 9 a.m.) so the sun would have posed a challenge from any angle.

Here it is a little closer. Note that the position of the sun was such that the sky began to reveal itself a little more in this shot. A typical cut of covered hoppers led off the consist, likely destined for a number of refineries, possibly in Sarnia or possibly farther afield in Michigan or Chicago, depending on where this train ended up.

Above you see the going away shot (with blue sky). Below is a shot of the power crossing Blackwell Side Road.

Now, staying true to my recent emphasis on rolling stock, let's see what CN ES44ACs 2875 and 2916 were pulling.

St. Lawrence Railway boxcar 163. Railfans love these. I often see them elsewhere.

A new railway logo for me. GACX 516123 Southern Illinois Railcar hopper.

Some of the more colourful hoppers out there today - Potash Corp. hoppers. It's always refreshing to see rolling stock on the rails that isn't just a blank sided car with the reporting marks of some leasing company.

Tidewater Grain Company  GRDX 7739 hopper looks like it's seen a lot of action and a couple of touch-up paint jobs.

Who says flatcars are boring? Steel a glance at this load! Reporting marks HJPX. Another first.

There were a lot of visual hazards near this crossing, so not every picture was distraction free. However, despite the pole, I was pleased to catch this BRIX-patched hopper, branded for Incobrasa Industries of Illinois. This company deals with soybeans and makes all sorts of products based on soy. So, through observation, it appears that this train had a definite Illinois flavor to it (there were also a few Wisconsin Central and Illinois Central cars). Of course, most trains rolling through Sarnia are headed for Chicago, so this is hardly surprising to see.

I made sure to take a quick couple of shots of long strings of freight cars just to serve as a reminder of how long this train was. With the exception of the trains with mid-train DPU, this was one of the longest consists I have seen pulled by two lead units.

Always a bonus when I come across a fallen flag (sort of). I used to have multiple photos of GT and Central Vermont rolling stock, only to lose those shots some years back. Now, I at least have one shot of a GT hopper. I wish the light was more forgiving, but still a great catch for me.

Also, it was great to catch a Cargill-branded hopper. As previously mentioned, anytime you see rolling stock with any colour, it's worth capturing. I have not seen many hoppers painted for Cargill, which has a huge grain and oilseed elevator facility on Sarnia Bay, served by the CN Point Edward Spur.

Finally, the end.

When I went to visit family in the Sarnia area, I didn't think I would have so many railfanning adventures outside Sarnia Yard, but it ended up that all of my adventures took place outside Sarnia Yard. It made for the start of a record railfanning month for me.

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.