Canada's Railway Magazine since 1945

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1996 M^^^^^^S^S^I If''-'^'^1^^^^^^ PUBLISHED BY lBlH|lK|n •I^J^^^^B NOVEMBER- upper Canada RaHwaySot

T^r^eiWSW^^^^^^ ^"'^^^^ISSN 1193-7971

Features this month Research and Reviews Transcontinental LENVOI. THE TRAIN TO MARIPOSA 3 RAILWAY ARCHAEOLOGY 10 THE RAPIDO 15 • An excerpt from Leacock's Sunshine Sketches. • Stations in Montreal and the Niagara Peninsula. • More new railways; StL&H train changes. • More on the Gatt and Preston Railway. THE TRAINS TO MARIPOSA 4 THE PANORAMA 18 • Passenger trains north of Toronto in 1996. INFORMATION NETWORK 12 • VIA's plans for additional service to Jasper. • The Casino Rama Express. • GTR opening dates. IN TRANSIT 20 • A short history of the CN Newmarket Sub. STATIONS AND STRUCTURES 13 • Toronto Spadlna streetcar update. • Notes on current operations in Simcoe County • CPR bridge at Outlook, Saskatchewan. MOTIVE POWER 21 and passenger trains in Orillia. DIESEL LOCOMOTIVES 14 THE TRAIN SPOTTERS 23

Larry Partridge Bloxham was not able to make his presenta• to unprocessed film from airport baggage It was with great sadness that we learned of tion as had been planned, but he will in the security equipment being brought into use in the passing on November 3 of one of the new year. the U.S., Israel, and Europe. The company Toronto area's leading streetcar enthusiasts. The next meeting in Toronto will be at which manufactures the CTX-5000 said that Larry Partridge was a long-time member of 7:30 p.m. on Friday, December 20, on the the strong X-rays that it uses may fog film. the UCRS. In addition, he was one of the third floor at Metro Hall, on King Street at The column recommends that film not be founding members of the Toronto Trans• John Street, just west of St. Andrew subway packed in checked baggage but should be portation Society in 1973, serving as its first station and a short walk from Union Station. carried on board aircraft in hand luggage. president and also as the first editor of the Art Clowes will show selected slides from a TTS's newslettei; Transfer Points. Larry was trip to the western U.S. in 1984, and you are Cover photos also active in the Canadian Railroad Histori• invited to bring your slides and videos to fill The front cover photo, by Paul Bloxham, cal Association, for which he was editor of the rest of the evening. shows CN SW1200RSS 1361 and 1362 on the Toronto Harbour Commissioners' tracks on the local newsletter; Turnout, and instrumen• The following meeting, also at Metro Queens Quay East, at 12:57 on August 1, tal in seeing that the first new streetcar Hall, will be on Friday January 17. Pat 1995. The crew is heading back to Don Yard bought by the TTC, Peter Witt car No. 2300, Scrimgeour will show slides of some trips in after having switched Redpath Sugat where was preserved. different parts of Canada in 1996. In Febru• they had delivered two CP hoppers and lifted Larry will be remembered by many for ary Peter Jobe will present a photographic the hopper seen here. The crew said that his two books on the street railways of review of the predecessor railways to the Redpath is a CP customet but CN does the Toronto, The Witts and Mind the Doors, present-day Union Pacific, and the March switching. They also said that they usually Please. Larry's interests went beyond rail• meeting will be the annual general meeting. switched Redpath once a week, but had been ways and streetcars, though; he had a great Upcoming Hamilton meetings will be at running every day because business had love for theatre organs and was a member of 8:00 p.m. on Friday December 27, and Fri• been good. In the background are the Victoiy the Toronto Theatre Organ Society. Larry's day, Januaiy 24, both at the Hamilton Spec• Soya Mills, which were being demolished at contributions and overall enthusiasm will tator auditorium, 44 Frid Street, Just off the time. long be remembered by all who knew him. Main Street at Highway 403. The meetings On the back covec the upper photo is by He gave his advice freely and could always will feature recent news and members' cur• Steve Danko, of the northbound Canadian, be counted on when questions needed to be rent and historical slides. answered. He will be sadly missed. VIA Train 9, at Maple, on the CN Newmarket Help wanted for shows Subdivision in July 1987. The only passenger -Dove Morgon Al Maitland is looking for a volunteer or two trains through Maple now are GO trains UCRS meetings to help him with the UCRS's displays at between Bradford and Toronto. The date given in the last issue for the heritage shows in the Toronto area. You can The lower photo, by Ron Lipsett, is of December meeting in Hamilton was wrong. look forward to free admittance into the two CN trains meeting at Washago in 1984. This meeting will be on the fourth Friday as shows, and a lively discussion of history as it The southbound train, led by GP40-2 9622, usual, which will be December 27. was lived with the other people who attend. is on the main track of the Bala Subdivision, At the November meeting in Toronto, Please call Al at 416 921-4023. and the northbound, led by GP40-2 9645, is Scott Haskill and Peter Jobe showed slides of on the Bala Sub. siding. Film at risk from X-rays their recent trips and recent local events, and Ray Corley has forwarded a column from we enjoyed a commercial video of Amtrak TYains magazine which warns of the danger This issue completed on December 16, 1996 operations on their Northeast Corridor. Paul

Editor Contributing Editors Subscriptions Directors Pat Scrimgeour John Carter, Art Clowes, Scott Haskill, Subscriptions to Roi/ onJ Tranat are available Scott Haskill, President 604-2071 250 Queens Quay West #1607 Sean Robitaille, Gray Scrimgeour, with membership in the Upper Canada Paul Bloxham 905770-6916 Toronto, Ontario MS] 2N2 Chris Spinney, Gordon Webster. Railway Society. Membership dues are Art Clowes 924-9428 E-Mail: [email protected] j x $29.00 per year for addresses in Canada; Calvin Henry-Cotnam 287-9396 p, . ^ ... Correspondents $35.00 (or $27.00 in U.S. funds) tor AIMaWand 921-4023 Kkase send nev« items to the address p,u| Bloxham, Tom Box, Alex Campbell. addresses in the U.S. and overseas. Please George Meek. 532-5617 Shown with Mch news secuon Articles and i^hard Carroll. Calvin Henry-Cotnam, send Inquiries and changes of address to the Pat Scrimgeour 260-5652 photos should be sem to the editor. Bill McCuire, Don McQueen, John Reay. address at the top of thb page, PatSemple .WA3-9I23 Denis Taylor. Chris Spinney 281 -82 (I L'Envoi. The Train to Mariposa

It leaves the city every day about five o'clock red piush (how gorgeous it once seemedi) hard to its home! Don't tell me that the speed in the evening, the train for Mariposa. and with a box stove set up in one end of it? is only twenty-five miles an hour, i don't care Strange that you did not know if it, though The stove is burning furiously at its sticks this what it is. i tell you, and you can prove it for you come from the little town - or did, long autumn evening, for the air sets in chili as you yourself if you will, that that train of mingled years ago. get clear away from the city and are rising up fiat cars and coaches that goes tearing into Odd that you never knew, in all these to the higher ground of the country of the the night, its engine whistle shrieking out its years, that the train was there every pines and the lakes. warning into the silent woods and echoing afternoon, puffing up steam in the city station, Look from the window as you go. The city over the dull stiii lake, is the fastest train in the and that you might have boarded it any day is far behind now and right and left of you whole world. and gone home. there are trim farms with elms and maples Yes, and the best, too - the most near them and with tail windmills beside the comfortable, the most reliable, the most Naturally you don't know of the Mariposa train barns that you can stiii see in the gathering luxurious and the speediest train that ever now. Years ago, when you first came to the city dusk. There is a dull red light from the windows turned a wheel. as a boy with your way to make, you knew of it of the farmstead, it must be comfortable there And the most genial, the most sociable well enough, only too well. The price of a ticket after the roar and clatter of the city, and only too. See how the passengers ail turn and talk counted in those days, and though you knew think of the stiii quiet of it. to one another now as they get nearer and of the train you couldn't take it, but sometimes nearer to the little town. That dull reserve that from sheer homesickness you used to wander it is almost night now. You can stiii see the seemed to hold the passengers in the electric down to the station on a Friday afternoon after trees and the fences and the farmsteads, but suburban has clean vanished and gone. your work, and watch the Mariposa people they are fading fast in the twilight. They have Already the conductor has changed his glazed getting on the train and wish that you could go. lengthened out the train by this time with a hat for an ordinary round Christie and you can Why, you knew that train at one time better, string of fiat cars and freight cars between hear the passengers calling him and the I suppose, than any other single thing in the where we are sitting and the engine. But at brakeman "Bill" and "Sam" as if they were ail city, and loved it too for the little town in the every crossway we can hear the long muffled one family. sunshine that it ran to. roar of the whistle, dying to a melancholy wall What is it now - nine thirty? Ah, then we that echoes into the woods; the woods, 1 say, must be nearing the town - this big bush that Very few people know about it. Hundreds of for the farms are thinning out and the track we are passing through, you remember it them know that there is a train that goes out plunges here and there into great stretches of surely as the great swamp just this side of the at five o'clock, but they mistake it. Ever so bush - tail tamarack and red scrub willow and bridge over the Ossawippi? There is the bridge many of them think it's just a suburban train. with a tangled undergrowth of brush that has itself, and the long roar of the train as it rushes Lots of people that take it every day think it's defied for two generations ail attempts to clear sounding over the trestle work that rises only the train to the golf grounds, but the joke it into the form of fields. above the marsh. Hear the clatter as we pass is that after it passes out of the city and the Why, look, that great space that seems to the semaphores and the switch iightsl We must suburbs and the golf grounds, it turns itself open out in the half-dark of the falling evening be close in now! little by little into the Mariposa train thundering -why, surely yes. Lake Ossawippi, the big lake, and pounding towards the north with hemlock as they used to call it, from which the river There - you hear it? - the long whistle of the sparks pouring out into the darkness from the runs down to the smaller lake - Lake iocomotive, one, two, three! You feel the sharp funnel of it. Wissanotti - where the town of Mariposa has slackening of the train as it swings round the lain waiting for you there for thirty years. curve of the last embankment that brings it to But wait a little, and you will see that when the This is Lake Ossawippi surely enough. You the Mariposa station. See, too, as we round city is well behind you, bit by bit the train would know it anywhere by the broad, stiii, the curve, the row of the flashing lights, the changes its character. The electric iocomotive black water with hardly a ripple, and with the bright windows of the depot. that took you through the city tunneis is off grip of the coming frost already on it. Such a How vivid and plain it ail is. Just as it used now and the old wood engine is hitched on in great sheet of blackness it looks as the train to be thirty years ago. There is the string of its place, i suppose, very probably, you haven't thunders along the side, swinging the curve of the hotel buses drawn up ail ready for the seen one of these wood engines since you the embankment at a breakneck speed as it train, and as the train rounds in and stops were a boy forty years ago - the old engine rounds the corner of the lake. hissing and panting at the platform, you can with a wide top like a hat on its funnel, and with How fast the train goes this autumn night! hear above ail other sounds the cry of the sparks enough to light up a suit for damages You have travelled, i know you have, in the brakemen and the porters: once in every mile. Empire State Express, and the New Limited "MARiPOSAl MARIPOSA!" Do you see, too, that the trim little cars and the Maritime Express that holds the that came out of the city on the electric record of six hundred whirling miles from Paris suburban express are being discarded now at to Marseilles. But what are they to this, this Excerpts from Sunshine Sketches of a Uttie Town, try the way stations, one by one, and in their place mad career, this breakneck speed, this Stephen Leacock, 1912, copyright 1931, 1960 by is the old familiar car with the stuff cushions in thundering roar of the Mariposa iocai driving McQelland and Stewart.

Rail and Transit • November-December 1996 • 3 4 • Rail and Transit • November-December 1996 The history of railways on the west shore of and is used by one GO Transit commuter The maps below show the change in the Lake Simcoe is drawing to a close. train each weekday between Bradford and route of VlAs transcontenental Canadian be• The CN Newmarket Subdivision - On• Toronto. CN plans to discontinue operations cause of the abandonment of the Newmarket tario's first railway Toronto's first connection on this line in the next three years, and is not Sub. between Barrie and Rama, and the with the transcontinental Canadian Pacific, promoting it as a potential short line. Aban- route of the Casino Rama Express. and the main route for passenger trains be• ' donment of the Newmarket Sub. would also VIA Train 2 of September 21 was the last tween Toronto and the north and west - is mean abandonment of the Meaford Spur; passenger train to stop at the stations at now reduced to a spur track from Toronto to which runs west fixim Barrie to CoIIingwood, Barrie and Orillia, but Newmarket continues Barrie. and the last remaining part of the Beeton to be served by the Bradford GO train. VlAs Orillia - the model for the town of Mari• Spur; serving industries in the southwestern only stops between Toronto and Sudbury posa in Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches part of Barrie. since the change in route are Washago and of a Little Town, and once a major junction There was an attempt at a specialised Parry Sound. between Grand Trunk, Canadian Northern, passenger-train service to the Orillia area in The Canadian continues to loop into and Canadian Pacific lines radiating in six the summer of 1996. A new casino opened at Union Station from the east and out to the directions - had its last passenger train leave Rama, on the east side of Lake Couchiching west, so that the train does not need to be and its last fireight train pass through on near Orillia, and the casino operators en• turned while it is in Toronto. September 21, 1996. tered into an arrangement with CN to oper• On the pages before this and those which At Barrie, there are still three lines, but ate a passenger train from Toronto. After follow, we present photos and commentary all could be closed in the next year The only two months of operation, the Casino on railways in the area surrounding Orillia remaining southern part of the Newmarket Rama Express service ended, because of very and thus also the fictional - even mythical - Subdivision connects Barrie with Toronto, low ridership. town of Mariposa.

Route of the Route of the Route of the Canadian Canadian Casino Rama Express Until September 1996 From September 1996 August-October 1996

Rail and Transit • November-December 1996 • 5 Casino Rama Express- a short-lived experiment

Trip report by Paul Bloxham

On Saturday, August 10, Scott Haskill and I made a trip on the Casino Rama Express. I arrived at Union Station and met Scott at about 08:15, and at 08:25 we climbed the stairs to Track 13, where a CN crew member directed us to the train. The consist of Train 191 was GO F59PHs 552 and 537, with coaches 2125, 2136, 2114, 2231, 2326, 2049, 2110, 2228, and 2233, and cab car 208. I noticed that this was an entirely different consist from the six-car train that was used during the week. The car we were asked to board was quite full, so we headed towards the rear of the train and found the next car to be all but empty We sat on the south side (the east side, once we'd left Toronto) on the upper level of Car 2231. At 08:32 we heard an announcement similar to those heard on regular GO trains, train at each station. The train headed into form of two people, one with a guitar and telling us that the train was northbound for the commuter track at Richmond Hill, then one with playing cards. The first played and Casino Rama, making all regular stops - all backed out to the main line. sang two songs, and then introduced his aboard, stand clear of the doors, please - Away we went northward from Rich• good friend, but forgot his name! The magi• and the train moved forward. In addition to mond Hill. We met a CN southbound freight cian showed us card tricks and magic tricks, Scott and me, there were five others in the train, No. 452 with SD40-2 5194 and GP40-2 including taking one person's watch without upper level of our car. 9622, at Quaket just after it had cleared the his knowing it. At each of the Oriole, Old Cummei; main. As we came up on the freight, one of Between Brechin East and Smail we re• Langstaff, and Richmond Hill stations, we the Casino Rama people came by and asked ceived our clearance for the Newmarket Sub. saw a GO employee in the ticket booths, and to see our tickets. Around Pine Orchard, the from Washago to Rama. We were to be Work we noted that five or she people boarded the on-board entertainment visited our car in the Extra GO 208, working between Washago

6 • Rail and Transit • November-December 1996 Photos South and Mile 89. (Mile 89 is about where the southbound advance semaphore signal to • Opposite page, top - The entrance to Casino the Atherley drawbridge is located.) Rama, with the Casino Rama Express at its platform We arrived at Washago about 11:00. The in the bactiground. train ran northward, engines first, through • Opposite page, lower- The Casino Rama Express the interiocidng and up the Newmarket Sub. at the casino platform. (the track closest to the VIA station building) • This page, top right-Tht platform at the casino, and stopped with the cab-car clear of the showing the raised platform section for wheelchair interlocking. We sat for a couple of minutes access and the temporary floodlights. before the slack ran in and we began moving • This page, lower right- The train at Rama. south. • This page, below- The Casino Rama Express, We arrived at Casino Rama about 11:15. north of the station at Washago, waiting for a signal Both the platform and the casino are on the to malce a reverse move and proceed southward. west side of the track, at approximately Mile • This page, lower- GO F59PH 54f on the north 91.9. The platform is about 500 feet long, end of the Casino Rama Express, on the Bala Sub• enough to accommodate she cars. Footings division trade in front of the Washago Station, and wiring for light standards had been The photos on the opposite page are try Paul Blox• installed along the platform, but there were ham (upper) and Scott Haskill (lower), taken on no light standards. The wheelchair-capable August 10. The photos on this page are by Norhert platform at Rama had the same railings as Krommer, taken on August 5. the GO wheelchair platforms, but was other• wise constructed more cheaply, with timber framing and asphalt paving instead of all- concrete construction. One of the CN crew members indicated that our train (which, with 10 cars, could seat some 1600 people) had 55 patrons. We spoke further with the CN crew membep and he indicated that the Casino Rama Express consists lay over in the Longford siding, north of the Rama platform, at Mile 93.7. A small shuttle bus was used to get the CN crew between the consist and Casino Rama during the lay-over period. During our stay until the southbound train. No. 194, we visited the casino briefly but took a taxi to Washago and spent most of our time watching trains there. Back at Casino Rama, we sought out photo locations for Trains 1 and 194. The Canadian was late out of Orillia but passed Casino Rama around 15:10, with VIA F40s 6446 and 6437 and the standard 18-car consist. We sat in the upper level of the car we were directed to board, No. 2114. There were about eight other people aboard the upper level when we departed for Washago at 15:45. Again, the Casino Rama Express pulled north of the interlocking on the New• market Sub., paused for a couple of minutes, then proceeded southward cab-car-first and onto the Bala Sub. We met northbound CN Train 219 at Pefferlaw; we took the siding, and about halfway down, the freight passed on the main at a moderate speed with GP40-2s 9482, 9429, and 9427, HR412 3584, and SD40-2 5371. The entertainment arrived in the upper level of our car and the same songs and tricks were performed. They received good applause from everyone. The CN crew member we'd spoken to on the northbound trip told us that there were 53 passengers on this southbound train. I left the train when it arrived at Rich• mond Hill, on time, after an enjoyable day. •

Rail and Transit • November-December 1996 • 7 The 147 years after Oats, Straw, and Hay

Historical notes by Art Clowes opening of the line to CoIIingwood. Competi• of $12 500 was typical of the time. Within tive water transport on Lake Simcoe and the Orillia, the question was whether it was VlAs Canadian of Saturday, September 21, connecting waterways to the north made worth $12 500 to have the railway and hence 1996, over the CN Newmarket Subdivision, early railway promoters nervous. a station within the community or let the ended passenger train service, and, for that The 1860s saw a trickle of early pioneers railway locate their station at the "Narrows" mattei; all railway service through some On• into the newly-opened northem territory. (at Atherley), about three miles away. The tario communities, service that had its roots Time had caught up, and the big lumber pro-railway group won, and the 22-mile line with the granting of a charter to the Ontario, companies were getting busy cutting pine in fixim Barrie to Orillia was put into service on Simcoe and Huron Union Rail-road Company the Muskoka River watershed. As of 1866, November 30, 1871. on May 30, 1849. A. E Cbckbum had his first steamboat, the A May 1871 article in the Barrie Northem With 20 000 citizens of Canada West Wenonah, mnning on Lake Muskoka. The Advance commented on the debate over the looking on. Lady Elgin, wife of the Right main obstacle to economic expansion in the gauge of the line north of Barrie. The merits Honourable James, Earl of Elgin and Kincar• region was the overloading of the existing of making the gauge 4 feet 8V2 inches instead dine, Governor General of British North transportation systems. Stage coaches and of 5 feet 6 inches were promoted. At that America and Captain General and Govemor- wagons plying the Muskoka Colonisation time, this would of have meant laying a third in-Chief in and over the Province of Canada, Road up fiximWashag o could handle but a rail on the Northem track between Barrie Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Island fraction of the potential commerce. This dif• and Toronto to suit the change. Such were of Prince Edward, turned the first sod of the ficulty of bringing in supplies and shipping the debates of the early 1870s, as gauge- Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Rail-road Union out natural resource products led to the conversion was on practically every Cana• Company on October 15, 1851. agitation for a railway extension to Muskoka dian railroader's mind. that began in the mid 1860s. This ceremony was held about where the The spring of 1871 saw Mr; CoIIingwood present Metro Convention Centre stands in So, practically everyone in Muskoka Harris being awarded the contract for driv• Toronto, on Front Street West, just west of wanted a railwajc the lumber companies, ing the piles for the bridge at Atherley Nar• Simcoe Street. This started the march north• because then they could build sawmills there rows. The work was progressing as expedi• ward of the railway line that we know as and thereby avoid having to float their logs tiously as could be expected under the cir• CNs Newmarket Subdivision. all the way down to Georgian Bay the set• cumstances (early spring weather). On May 16, 1853, after a train trip of a tlers, because then they could ship farm The Toronto, Simcoe and Muskoka Junc• little over two hours, train service to produce to city markets and obtain supplies tion Railway Company was leased to the Machell's Comets, now Aurora, was started. more cheaply and of course A. K Cockbum, Northem Railway of Canada under an agree• Constraction work continued, and the who knew the iron horse would stimulate ment dated April 1, 1871. The Northem trains kept travelling farther and farther economic activity and benefit his fledgling Railway of Canada amalgamated the north. They pushed through Bradford (on steamboat service on the Muskoka Lakes. Toronto, Simcoe and Muskoka Junction Rail• June 13, 1853), then Allandale (now the In the meantime the Ontario, Simcoe way Company and The North Grey Railway southern part of Barrie, on October 11, and Huron Rail-road Union Company Company into The Northem Extension Rail• 1853), and on January 2, 1855, reached (nicknamed the "Oats, Straw, and Hay") ways Company. This amalgamation was con• CoIIingwood on Georgian Bay. changed its name to the Northem Railway firmed by Ontario, Chapter 43, dated March From an 1855 perspective, the opening Company of Canada on August 16, 1858. 2, 1872. of this portage line was an economic boon to The Northem made its first move north• While The Northem Railway Company of the 37 000 hungry citizens of Toronto. Barge- ward in 1863 with the constmction of a Canada reported the start of service over the loads of grain from the mid-westem United 1.2-mile spur (authorised by 27 Victoria, 2.84 miles of The Northem Extension Rail• States that arrived at CoIIingwood could Chapter 55) from Allandale into Barrie. ways Company line from Orillia to Atherley now be shipped directly to Toronto. This Five years later in 1868, the Northem on September 15, 1872, it also bemoaned the eliminated the extra time - and money in• Railway was declared to be a work for the fact that it could not handle all the freight curred by shipping via Georgian Bay the general advantage of Canada. This is a status traffic on offe? due to shortages of rolling Detroit and St. Clair rivers. Lake Erie, the that made it easier for railways to obtain aid stock. Welland Canal, and Lake Ontario, a trip of at fixjm the Dominion govemment in the form This opening of course meant that the least three weeks even with fevourable of subsidies and grants. railway did not meet its prophecy made at winds. The. next yea? 1869, saw the first solid the Febmary 1872 annual meeting, that it To the people.living in the southern con• move for railway constmction northward would open the section from Orillia to fines of Canada West, what could they want along the west side of Lake Simcoe, with the Washago about the first of July 1872. The or need from the north? Their forests sup• incorporation of the Toronto, Simcoe and 10.66 miles from Atherley to Washago didn't plied wood for their fuel supplies, and lum• Muskoka Junction Railway Company on De• get opened until August 18, 1873. The final ber for their mills and factories. There still cember 24 (under Ontario Act, 33 Victoria, target, Muskoka Wharf, was reached on was no need to go very far north to obtain Chapter 30). One of its directors was A, E November 15, 1875. timber for the growing timber export mar• Cockbum. This act permitted the construc• So this sees the development of the rail• kets. The clearing of the southern land also tion of a railway from some point of the way line that effective Febmary 24, 1888, provided additional farmland for a growing Northem Railway of Canada within the became two of the companies to be amalga• population. While railway constmction activ- County of Simcoe connecting the waters of mated under the Grand Tmnk Railway. And 'jties continued in the southem portions of Lake Simcoe with the that of Lake Muskoka of course the well-known order-in-council of Canada West, with no needs, railway con• and Rosseau, with branches to Georgian Bay. January 30, 1923 resulted in the amalgama• stmction into the lands north of Allandale The squabble between the Village of Oril• tion of the Grand Tmnk Railway as part of didn't start for nearly 15 years after the lia and the railway over a request for a grant the Canadian National Railways. •

8 • Rail and Transit • November-December 1996 What remains in Mariposa to be dismantled, and stopped in town to get 08:00, and arriving back at about 18:00. something for lunch. • These notes were made on a visit in late The exploration made an interesting day and September to the recently-abandoned New• • though we didn't see any CN trains, we market Subdivision and other CN lines which After lunch, we headed west to see the found a few places to look for them in the still remained in Simcoe County. Meaford Spur: If you want to see straight future. And we'd better be quick with our We started out from Washago around track, this line is a good example. There are photography because there's a good chance 08:45 and drove south from there. At Mile only two curves between Barrie and CoIIing• that at this time next yea? none of this track wood - one at Angus, and the other just 91.25 of the Newmarket Sub., I noticed that will exist. -John Drake a stop sign had been placed to the right of south of CoIIingwood. The Barrie-Angus tan• the track to indicate the end of operated gent is about 10 miles, and the Angus- Notes on passenger service track. Going by the bridge at Atherley I saw CoUingwood tangent is about 15 miles. This track is in very rough shape. At one that someone had already grabbed the VIA Train 1 of Saturday September 21 was point, I checked the rail: 80 lbs., rolled in semaphore blade from one of.the approach the last passenger train to serve Orillia, and 1907 by a firm in Bufelo. "signals." The bridgetenders were just CN Train 192 of October 2 or 3 was the last I found no good locations for photogra• preparing to open the bridge for the day as passenger train to serve the Orillia area, phy between Barrie and Angus. Even the we stopped there. I took some shots of the leaving from Casino Rama at 17:20. closed bridge with the closure rails up in the diamond with the CPR MacTier Sub. isn't all ai? plus a few detail shots of the bridge that scenic, but a chase probably should Service to Orillia by CN and VIA transconti• tower and manual linkage used to lock the include the location anyway. The approach nental trains in recent years was: bridge (from the Armstrong lever in the signals are classic vintage CP searchlight . CN/VIA Trains 3 and 4 until Odober 28,1978. tower). After that we headed south. signals with the signal standard mounted on . VIAIrains 1 and 2, Odober29,1978, untilJune 15, the instmment case. We were lucky to see a 1979. As we went along beside the tracks, I CP freight there; at 13:30, a southbound acid couldn't help but think that this couldn't be • VIAIrains 3 and 4, June 17 until Odober 27,1979. extra rattled the diamond with GP38-2 3098 . VIAIrains 5 and 6, Odober 28,1979, until June 7, an abandoned railway. Welded rail, slag bal• and RS18 1832, one flat car with track ma• 1980. last, relatively weed-free - this isn't the kind chinery and 20-odd acid tank cars. • VIA Trains 3 and 4, June 8 until September 28,1980. of track you normally tear up. South of I noticed that despite the status of the • VIAIrains 5 and 6, September 29,1980, until May 31, Orillia, the brush hadn't been cut for several line as a spu? .the station name signs still 1981. years, and it showed. At places, the brush on remain. Colwell, Angus, and Stajmer all have • VIA Trains 3 and 4, June 1 until November 14,1981. both sides was cut back only by the passage signs which are good possiblities for photo . VIAIrains 1 and 2, November 15,1981, until May 31, of trains. At the 1.2-percent Carthew Hill, my spots. Just feast of Angus the line crosses the 1985 (east of Toronto, these trains ran through to/from thoughts drifted to the stories told by the Nottawasaga River on a deck-plate bridge. A Montreal). crews of the "stone train" about stalls and shot is possible from the riverbank to the • VIAIrains 9 and 10, June 1,1985, until January 14, doubling that were once common here. At south - a short walk from a road to the west, 1990. Oro, I noticed that the wooden station name and easy to find - follow the fishermen. • VIA Trains 1 and 2, January 15,1990, (with a major sign had been attacked by someone unsuc• Through Angus the line is reasonably schedule change on April 26,1992) until September cessfully trying to get a souvenir: attractive, mnning by some houses, and 19,1996, southbound, and September 21,1996, A dismantling crew was working around there is still wide-open land to the south of northbound. Mile 64.5 to remove the rail anchors in the "main" where the yard tracks once were The last VIA service to Orillia other than preparation for the rail-lifting train. (now all grass, with no weeds). The asphalt transcontinental trains was on January 14, station platform remains in Angus. West fixim 1990, Train 123 northbound to North Bay. • Angus, the track parallels a major county Ontario Northland service (operated by CN) South of Banie, we visited the Beeton Spun road for a while, and if you want to see was provided northbound fiximJun e 9, 1977, Its southem end is now directly undemeath decrepit track, this is the place. until April 25, 1992, but southbound only the Highway 400 overpass. In the industrial Just west of New Lowell, the track mns finm June 23, 1978, until June 16, 1979, park by the highway are two customers - one through a tunnel of trees. The bmsh is about though in 1977 and '78 the train passed which receives jumbo tank cars, and anothe? the height of the cab windows on a locomo• through town without stopping. Tarpin Lumbe? which gets boxcars and bulk• tive, and trees on either side of the track heads. I understand that on Monday have closed the gap above. From crossings to Here's a snapshot of what Time Table No. 39, Wednesday and Friday the Barrie job (Train the east and west of this spot, a shot would April 26, 1964, had for scheduled traffic at 540) comes down to switch these customers. be possible with a long lens. The next possi• Orillia: Closer to Barrie, I noted a few very specific ble shot is in Batteaux, where there is a small NORTHWARD TRAINS locations where photos can be taken of the bridge span on an embankment, a good First Class spur: The track here is in pretty bad shape - height above a parallel local road. Train 53, Passenger, Daily - 2:10 AM (to Bala at Washago) 80-lb. rail, with maybe three out of four ties In CoIIingwood, the switch at the south Train 51, Passenger, Daily - 7:30 PM (to Bala at Washago) rotten and the fourth not too good. end into the Pretty River Spur is now spiked Train 4T, Passenger, Daily - 9:48 AM (to Huntsville Sub) There is an old concrete whistle-post on to keep it aligned for the spur Some track SOUTHWARD TRAINS the Beeton Spu? located halfway between was removed during a road rehabilitation First Class the two crossings of Huronia Road, and project around Mile 30, and besides, there Train 50, Passenger, Daily- 4:23 AM (from Huntsville Sub) directly south of a feirly new road mnning are no customers, downtown anjmiore. On Train 52, Passenger, Daily -10:48 AM (from Bala Sub) the Pretty River Spu? two industries are east-west at the halfway point. The post is Train 44, Passenger, Daily-7:24 PM (from Huntsville Sub) served - Canada Mist and Nacan Ltd. The for northward trains approaching the second Second Class former gets tanks and grain hoppers, and the Huronia Road crossing. Train 345, Express Freight, Daily except Sunday- Just north of the second Huronia Road latter gets CN covered hoppers and those 3.11 AM (from Huntsville Sub) crossing, there is a new customer which has new CN 410000-series box cars. Between the Fourth Class two brand new spur tracks. The firm takes in two companies, about six cars come in and Train 962, Freight, Daily-1:25 PM loads of clay prirriarily in AXSF and BN six cars go out on each trip of Train 540. Train 966, Freight, Daily except Sunday - 4:00 PM covered hoppers. Just beyond this firm the CN No. 540 mns to CoIIingwood on Train 968, Freight, Daily except Sunday - 5:45 PM (from spur to Molson's diverges to the west. Tuesda3« and Thursdays, leaving Barrie at Midland Sub) We travelled by the old Banie yard, soon

Rail and Transit • November-December 1996 • 9 Research and Reviews

Just A. Ferronuf s By this time, you have probably guessed proposals for the former CPR Park Avenue the boo-boo! Somewhere within Colonel station. Well, Doug Brown has forwarded Railway Archaeology Stevens' research team, they confused the their decision. The October 19 news account Salisbury and Harvey Railway part of which tells us that Loblaw's proposal got the nod. Art Clowes became part of the CNR, with the projected They will pay the city $3-million for the 50 Alexander Street #2406 CPR lihe that had one terminus the same, property that the city had purchased in 1984 Toronto, Ontario M4Y I B6 but in using the shortened names of the for $2-miIIion. E-Mail: 71 [email protected] other community (Harvey BonJc, versus Har• Loblaw plans to convert the former depot With the sunny fell days drifting by I am vey Station) totally confused the lines in into their Quebec corporate headquarters, finally starting to get back to wandering question. The other smile comes from the and have indicated they will spend $2.5- around southem Ontario. I am getting set• researchers using 45 miles as the distance • million for this work. They also plan to build tled in my Toronto digs, and I hope that I from Salisbury to Harvey Station. In feet it is a "superstore" with underground parking on will soon get back to putting some more about 125 miles, and the 45 miles is the the site. Included in this phase with be the substantial columns together: length of portion of the Salisbury and Harvey construction of a public park, and I am Railway that became part of the CNR, since presuming that that will be part of the green joys of research? the 7V2 miles between Albert and Harvey space between the fixint of the station and As I was mentioning last month, I spend Bank had been abandoned in I9I0, with the Jean Talon. considerable time playing with my electronic removal of the rails in 1916. Don't expect to see any work until at scrapbook. In looking for new goodies, I How easy is it to reach an incorrect least next summe? because while this pro• periodically go through some of the index conclusion if one does not pay attention to posal has executive committee approval, it cards that were prepared by J. G. Cote ftom all the details. must also have city council approval, and the volumes of notes that researchers col• they have until next spring to agree with the lected for G. R. Stevens in preparation for the Station houses in the news executive committee. writing of his books on the Canadian Na• One station that I should have mentioned Also, I used a wrong date for the end of tional Railways. The mix-up on one card was last month, but didn't, was the former CPR VIA service at Park Avenue in my ramblings so comical that I must pass it on. I am not station in Hudson, Quebec. This station was last month. Richard Carroll spotted the erro? quite sure where the confusion started, but it .constmcted by the Montreal and Ottawa and pointed out that the last VIA train was definitely points out how easy it is to arrive Railway Company in 1890. The Montreal on Saturday April 28, 1984. Tom Box for• at a totally erroneous conclusion. and Ottawa Railway Company had started warded the following notation horn, a VIA At many times in our column, mention life in 1884 as the "Vaudreuil and Prescott Rail notice of the time: has been made of the Albert Railway Railway Company. By deed dated November "VlAs CONVENIENT CONNECTION AT CENTRAL (Salisbury and Harvey Railway). This line, in 15, 1892, the Canadian Pacific Railway STATION - AS an added convenience to our southeastem New Bmnswick, ran from Salis• leased the Montreal and Ottawa Railway passengers, effective Sunday April 29, 1984, bury about 15 miles west of Moncton on the Company in perpetuity. The line was com• VlAs passenger trains "between Quebec City old European and North American Railway pleted to Ottawa in 1898. During the 1980s (Sainte-Foy) and Montreal via Trois Rivieres south though Albert County to Albert, about Canadian Pacific abandoned and removed will use Montreal's modem Central Station. 45 miles. It opened on October 4, 1877, with the line from the outskirts of Ottawa south• This will facilitate more convenient connec• a 7V2-mile extension opened in 1883 to Har• east to Rigaud. Rigaud, a few miles north• tions with VlAs trains to and from Ottawa, vey Bank. west of Hudson, is the current end of the Toronto and, Western Canada." Now, during the 1880s, the company we M&O, and is also the western terminal of the Another Montreal area station in the know as the Canadian Pacific was construct• STCUM commuter train from Montreal. news is the former CP Valois station, on their ing a section of railway between Mat- The Hudson station was closed in 1992, West Island commuter line. The St. Lawrence tawamkeag, Maine, and Megantic, Quebec, and requires substantial repairs. A group of and Hudson, in a program to dispose of some to join existing railways to form the CPR Hudson residents, led by Ron Ritchie, of their older stations, has handed the Valois "Short Line" ftom Montreal to Saint John, formed Heritage Hudson and have negoti• station to the local municipality to be used and that line was opened in June 1889. In ated a lease of the station fixim the railway. for community purposes. New Brunswick, this line transverses the The lease started on July I, 1996, and has Valois is in the city of Pointe-Claire, and southwestern portion of the province, via the proviso that the group can purchase the at present two community service organisa• McAdam, to Saint John. As' part of this pro• , station at such time as the railway no longer tions are using it for their offices. Again ject the CPR had made numerous statements requires it. Heritage Hudson has replaced the thanks to Doug Brown for this information. about extending their line to Halifex. In New windows and installed lighting around the Before we leave the Montreal area, we Brunswick, the strongest proposal for this building. They will be replacing the roofing should throw in a few words about some of projected CPR line to Halifex was from Har• and installing a new heating system. the current discussions conceming the CPR's vey Station, about 20 miles east of McAdam, As the station is a stop on the commuter Angus locomotive shops. The Angus Shops,in \da Fredericton and then across the central line. Heritage Hudson's present plans are to the Rosemont district of Montreal, dated portion of New Brunswick to meet the Euro• restore the outside of the building to its from 1904, although like most industrial pean and North American Railway at or near original glory. Inside they propose to mod• complexes, they became like living organ• Salisbury. This is the same Salisbury that was ernise the washrooms for public use and isms and evolved over time, with an ultimate, the northem terminus of the Salisbury and perhaps add a snack ban workforce of 12 000 during the second world Harvey Railway. Of course this projected CPR In the last issue, I mentioned that the war A spin-off of these shops was the Rachel line was never built. Montreal executive committee was reviewing

10 • Rail and Transit • November-December 1996 Research and Reviews street community home to many of the shop fixim its owne? Alexander Gibson, the pro• The first Smithville station was stmck by workers. Canadian Pacific built a library moter and owner of the New Bmnswick lightning and burned. This resulted in the hospital, and fire and police stations for its Railway This narrow-gauge line was con• present one being built about 1903. employees. stmcted on the east side of the St. John The importance of Smithville as a rail• After a transformation from an industrial Rive? and extended from Gibson, now Fred• way community increased following the May complex for building, to one of maintaining ericton North, to Northampton (Grafton), 27, 1914, incorporation of the Erie and On• railway equipment, CP closed these shops in opposite Woodstock, and then northward to tario Railway Company to build a line fixim 1992, by which time there were only 900 Edmundston. This railway along with the this community south through Dunnville to employees left. This closing not only permit• New Bmnswick and Canada Railway and Port Maitland. ted the removal of most of the shop support Land Company was acquired by the CPR in The E&O was amalgamated with the trackage, but also a number of buildings in 1890. TH&B on December 24, 1914, the day after the complex. The vacated land permitted the While Woodstock has been attempting to the official opening of the 14.9 miles fixim construction of housing units on the eastern get control of this station, at present it has Smithville to Dunnville. This occasion was portion and made the western portion avail• not finalised plans for its future use in the marked by a special TH&B train on Decem• able for light industrial uses. This left the community. ber 23, I9I4, that was mn fixim Hamilton quarter-mile-long locomotive shop along During a recent outing to the Niagara over the line to a dinner at Dunnville. Rachel Street and the maintenance building peninsula with Gordon Shaw, we left the The TH&B line in the vicinity of north of it outside these plans. freeway at Grimsby and headed cross• Smithville had 105 lb. rails and rock ballast The current argument between Canadian country towards Welland. We picked placed in the fell of 1924. Pacific and the various heritage groups is Grimsby since Gord wasn't aware that one of CP acquired 100 percent ownership of about the historical value of and future uses the oldest frame railway buildings in Ontario the TH&B on April 19, 1977. Four years late? for the locomotive shop. CP is proposing that still exists there. It is a Great Westem build• April 25, I98I, was the date of the last a portion of the shop is all that is needed as ing constmcted around 1855. While some regularly-scheduled passenger train service a monument, and therefore would like to people have called it a station, based on the through Smithville. The Toronto, Hamilton demolish parts of the shop, to form three maps of the period, I would consider it was and Buffalo Railway Company ceased to ex• separate buildings with space for roads be• more likely associated with freight traffic. ist as a legal and separate entity on March 3, tween them. The heritage groups are cam• This single storey building, now used as a 1987, when it was absorbed into the CP paigning for the retention of the complete warehouse, is south of the present CN main system. building. line, just in back of where the former GTR The single-storey ftame station at As one urban-geography professor said in station (which burned on December 31, Smithville, with its decorative turret and commenting on the fact that complete loco• 1994) was situated. Early maps show a small gingerbread triir? had sat decajdng until motives were built in the one shop, "It was yard at Grimsby a passenger shelter on the 1990 when the West Lincoln council pur• an industrial city." north side of the tracks, and a GWR building chased the station and property fixim CP. The heritage groups have made several adjacent to the south yard track that would They arranged to move the building back suggestions for the buildings' use, including appear to be this building. ftom the railway right-of-way and place it on the relocation of the Canadian Railway Mu• We then scooted up the escarpment and a new concrete basement. The Local Archi• seum fixim Saint-Constant. Since Doug headed for Smithville on the Toronto, Hamil• tecture Conservation Advisory Committee ar• Brown sent along this article, perhaps he will ton and Buffalo Railway. Our goal was to get ranged to have it designated, provincially as keep us posted as the saga unfolds. a look at the former TH&B station there, in a stmcture of historical and architectural Moving farther east, the Woodstock, New its final state of restoration. We were in luck significance. Brunswick, Bugle has announced that the and were privileged to get a touc In December 1993, the West Lincoln His• former CP station in their community The Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Rail• torical Society purchased the station house presently owned by the Irving group, is being way was incorporated on March 25, 1884, to and then got prepared to spend thousands of offered to the town. This single-storey brick build a railway fixim Toronto, via Hamilton, hours of love and care and plenty of loonies station, a heritage station under the federal to the International Bridge on the Niagara in creating a stmcture reflecting the features Heritage Stations Protection Act, while built River The proposed work sat dormant for that the station had had in 1903. Part of the by the CPR, apparently became Irving prop• five years. In 1889, under the influence of funds were from the sale of a local history erty when they acquired the lands of the Mr Vanderbilt and the railways he con• book that the Society published. New Bmnswick and Canada Railway and trolled, the charter was revived, authorising While the result doesn't have the smell of Land Company the constmction of a main line fixim Hamil• dustbane to greet you, and the spittoons are This station was built in 1911 and for ton to Welland and a branch line ftom missing, it doesn't take much imagination to years was the northem terminus for daily Hamilton to Brantford. A year late? the char• see the ladies in long dresses milling about trains from Woodstock to McAdam and St. ter was amended so that the TH&B could be the depot waiting for a train, or a well- Andrews. In the latter years, a CP Jubilee, leased to either the Michigan Central Rail• groomed commercial traveller arranging often 2926, was the motive power on this road or the Canada Southem Railway (both with the baggagemaster to unload his sample mn, and the engine would spend its nights in Vanderbilt-controlled). The TH&B became a tmnks from the horse-drawn wagon in the Woodstock roundhouse. The other daily pawn in Vanderbilt's attempts to penetrate preparation for his travel to the next town. that called the Woodstock roundhouse home the Grand Tmnk network to reach Toronto, Then there was the agent instmcting the was the train over the "Gibson" line to Minto and resulted in deal-making with the CPR delivery boy on taking a telegram over to a and Chipman. At its peak in the late 1940s that gave both companies access to desirable certain community business. terminals in Toronto and Buffalo. and 1950s, service over this line was with an The historical society started with trim oil-electric and a trailer; Woodstock was also At Smithville, a station was built in time ftom one door as a pattem to recreate a stop for the daily passenger train that for the start of service in 1895. On May 30, enough material to encase all the other doors operated between St. Andrews and Edmund- 1897, through Toronto-Buffalo passenger and windows. Walls were stripped and ston. Passenger service at Woodstock totally service was inaugurated by the CPR, TH&B, where possible the original material was ended about 1963. and New York Central (which had taken over kept. Where this was not possible, new mate• The Gibson line acquired its nickname the MCRR and the CASO). rial was milled to match to represent the

Rail and Transit • November-December 1996 • 11 Research and Reviews

styles of the period. The station is definitely stopped with "a lurch." joumey to Fairchild's Creek, returned safely a must-visit for those who are interested in There was a lookout near the upper sta• about twelve o'clock, to the former place, such restoration work. tion of the railway. The lookout had seats where a sumptuous Lunch was prepared. The Gord and I finished our outing in Fort and with a roof over them, it was claimed repast was partaken of by the leading inhabi• Erie. The MCRR-NYC station is showing its that on a good day it was possible to see for tants of the town, and a number of friends of lack of care. It is difficult fixim looking at the more than 100 miles. the Road from other places. A number of CN yard to visualise how massive a railway Mrs. Pennock remembered "the heavy toasts were proposed and drank with great operation once existed here. A drive along machinery" of the railway. Its huge wheels enthusiasm, after which the party dispersed. Thompson Road under the west end of the awed her She recalled that there was a The Railway from Gait to Preston is about yard area reveals that the bridge span for the "strong smell of heat and oil." This machin• four miles in length." former Pere Marquette yard trackage has ery included sheaves, six feet in diamete? So another one put to bed, thanks to Ray been removed firom the group of track- which guided the two operating cables to More on Fo|rt Whyte carrying structures. On the riverfront at drums made of wood and iron, 10 feet in Last issue I ryas meiitioning a couple of items Lavinia Street, south of the International diameter These were used to directly pull about the near battle between the railways bridge, the semi-flattened roadbed of the the cars. There was a third cable, a centre or at "Fort Whyte," Manitoba. Since then I have Erie and Ontario Railroad (not the same safety rope, that ran independently of the noted that, for those with a copy of D. B. company as the Erie and Ontario Railway at engine, and was attached to both cars, so Hanna's "Rains of Recollection, there is an Smithville) is quite conspicuous from its sta• that, in the event of the fwo outside ropes expanded version of this story. The other tion and wharf site through the park. In fact breaking, the centre one would hold the cars point that may be of interest is that William the track alignment and old roadbed is also in check. The large wheel of II feet diameter Whyte had started his railway career as a obvious as its sweeps around of the riverside was also provided with brakes which could brakeman on the Credit Valley Railway Here of the Fort Erie railway museum and display. be applied from the platform at the top of the he worked his way up to superintendent, and incline by the engineer Montreal transit in 1885 was sent to Winnipeg as superinten• Both articles agree that the fare was Among the recent clippings from Doug dent of the westem lines of the CPR. William cheap. It cost five cents to go up and three Brown were a couple on Montreal transit. Whyte later became Sir William Whyte. cents to come down. Children's fare was The timing of one on the Mount Royal In• three cents up, one cent down. cline Railway was perfect, since I had just The incline railway was used by millions put an 1885 Railroad Gazette item in the during its years of operation. With age and Information Network electronic scrapbook. declining business, it closed in I9I8. It stood Item 72 (September-October 1996) The November 1996 article in the Mon• rusting for a yea? then it was sold for scrap Grand Trunk Railway anniversary treal Gazette quotes 1884 as the opening metal. Reply from: Art Clowes date of this cable railway while the Septem• I think I am going to keep Doug's other Tom Box's item in the last issue on the I40th ber 25, 1885, issue of the Railroad Gazette transit article for another month. anniversary of the start of regular through states: "The cable railroad or elevator by passenger service between Montreal and which the summit of Mt. Royal, back of More on the Gait and Preston opening Toronto on October 27, 1856, brought to Montreal, is reached, has now been in suc• Back in our March 1995 column we covered mind a number of other little tidbits about cessful operation nearly a week." Also, I some of the early railways along the Grand the early days of Grand Tmnk service. First, believe that this incline was part of the River Valley. I had used the date of Wednes since the "opening" date is often a point of Montreal Park and Island Railway and 1885 day November 28, 1855, as the date for the discussion, it is probably timely to remember was the year that that company was incorpo• opening of the four miles of this railway that there can be up to four openings of a rated. company's line between Gait and Preston. railway line: The two five-foot gauge tracks of the Our historian, Ray Corley has sent along • The arrival of the builder's first locoriiotive incline had a 403-foot horizontal measure• a clipping from the February 1958 issue of or train. ment, with a rise of 275 feet. The length of The Railway and Locomotive Historical Society • In some cases, the start of train service, each track was thus 510 feet, and they as• bulletin reporting that this date should be freight or passenge? by the builden This cended the mountain at about a 33-degree November 26. The R&LHS article credited service did not always occur: angle. The cars were drawn to the\|op by the American Railroad Journal of December • The takeover or start of train service by the means of a stationary engine of 75 horse• 22, 1855, which credited the Montreal Post railway owners. power at the top of the mountain. as its source. The article as published: • The official opening of a line. The 1996 Gazette article is woven around "The Hamilton and Toronto Railroad was While Tom was concentrating on the an interview with Ruby Lydia Pennock, who opened for traffic on Monday December 3rd, inaugural mn of the through passenger ser• in 1898, at the age of eight years, went with arrangements having been made to run three vice, the Grand Trank's timetable dated Oc• her father for a trip on the incline. They rode trains a day. The road is 40 miles in length. tober 18, 1856, lists three local trains on the the Park Avenue streetcar to the base of the The Great Westem of Canada have leased the Toronto-Montreal line. There was a "local" mountain, where everyone transferred to "a road. The railway between Gait and Preston train that left Brockville at 8:30 a.m. for quite differently designed car" There was a was opened for business on the 26th, on Montreal, retuming fixim Montreal at 3:30 bench at the back of it but, as Mrs. Pennock which occasion the inhabitants of Preston p.m. The second train ran between Belleville remembered, no one sat down. got up a grand celebration in honour of the and Brockville. This train left Belleville at As they started to rise "a hush" fell over event." 7:00 a.m., arriving back at 3:15 p.m. The the passengers. No one spoke. Then came a A check of the Brantford Spectator indi• third train left Cobourg for Toronto at 6:30 sudden "sound of astonishment" as the mag• cates: "This undertaking was opened on the a.m., retuming from Toronto at 4:45 p.m. nificent view spread out before them. It was 25th Novembe? to the great delight of the It is interesting to note that this early a clear day and they could "see for miles." people in that prosperous and well-favoured local service leff a gap between Belleville and To a child, it seemed as if they were locality. The iron horse, harnessed to one Cobourg. This early timetable also advised hanging on the face of a cliff, but soon the baggage and two passenger cars, left Preston that: "Freight trains will not mn between car slowed as they neared the top, then that morning, and after having completed a

12 • Rail and Transit • November-[>ecember 1996 Research and Reviews

Brockville and Toronto during the first The Stratford Beacon of Friday Septem• they would be replacing it. Well, the October week." ber 5, 1856, carried two items about the 27, 1899, issue of the Railroad Gazette, pub• Tom also mentioned that the Grand Grand Trunk. lished the following item about the elimina• Trunk was operating on Montreal time. The • "The track of the Grand Trunk is now laid tion of the GTR's last tubular bridge: GTR listed that Montreal time was: beyond the Stratford Station. The iron "The Grand Tmnk Railway during the • 8V2 minutes faster than Brockville time. horse made his debut into town on past few months has been double tracking • 12 minutes faster than Kingston time. Wednesday last, in the presence of a num• the line between Vaudreuil and St. Annes • 14'/2 minutes faster than Belleville time. ber of spectators." stations, Quebec, a distance of four miles, • 23 minutes faster than Toronto time. • "We understand that Mr. J. J. Lowndes has building at the same time double track In a Canadian National Railwqys Maga• received a supply of goods on the Grand bridges in place of the former single track zine article in 1931 marking the 75th an• Trunk to Stratford. - We also understand stmctures across the two branches of the niversary F. E. D. McDowell wondered how that I. N. Hall has received a stock of Ottawa River at Vaudreuil and St. Annes, the many people missed their trains because of Watches and Jewellery by the Grand intervening space being an island known as this differential. Tmnk." He Perrot. The rebuilding of the bridge at St. From the westem side of Toronto, while I throw these tidbits out not to cloud the Annes has done away with the last tubular October 27 is generally used as the starting issue, but to show how cloudy the issue of bridge on the line of this company." date of regular passenger service, the official railway opiening dates can be. Item 75 opening at Stratford was held on Wednesday Finally Tom mentioned some of the re• N&JB Railway abolished October 8, 1856. alignments as the double tracking of the Message from: Calvin Henry-Cotnam It would appear from accounts in the Montreal-Toronto line. Our September 1995 On September 17, the Ontario govemment Stratford Beacon of Friday, October 24, 1856, column mentioned the problems that the passed bill S-7, an act to dissolve the Nipiss- that: "The travel on the Grand Tmnk Railway GTR was having in 1899 with their new large ing and James Bay Railway Company. The fixim this town eastward is increasing won• locomotives not being able to get through company was incorporated in 1884 and ac- derfully considering that no public advertise• the old tubular bridge at St. Annes, and that ment of the opening of the line has been published. Surely the Grand Tmnk Company Denis Taylor's and Alex Campbell's can afford to let the public know in the usual way that the line is open to Stratford for Stations and structures passenger traffic? For the benefit of our read• ers at a distance, we may inform them that the line of the Grand Tmnk is regularly opened to Stratford; and that the time of the train leaving is a quarter past one o'clock in the aftemoon, and the time of arrival one o'clock. We see it stated in the Leader (Toronto) that the first train from Montreal to Toronto reached the latter city on Monday last (October 20, 1856). The road will be formally opened on Monday next (October 27, 1856); but the Montreal celebration on the occasion will not take place till Novem• ber 12 and 13, 1856."

These November celebrations included the usual parades and banquets, but also had a torchlight parade and steamboat excursion to the Victoria bridge. The westem leg from Toronto to Strat• ford was opened in sections. The Woodstock, New Bmnswick, Carleton Sentinel of Satur• day October 20, 1855, advised that the GTR started operating trains between Toronto and Brampton, Ontario, on Thursday Octo• CPR bridge at Outlook, Saskatchewan - In my prairie wanderings this fall I discovered ber 18, 1855. CP's impressive steel trestle over the South Saskatchewan at Outlook, Saskatchewan, The Berlin (Kitchener) Chronicle of abandoned but intact. The stmcture is at Mile 0.8 of an 8.6-mile abandoned section of the Febmary 6, 1856, indicated that: "a train Kerrobert Subdivision, from which track has been removed for several years and which containing our Provincial Nabobs has mn ends in Outlook. The very impressive stmcture is about one kilometre in length and 50 to over the line from Toronto to Guelph." This 60 metres in height. The centre portion consists of eight tall deck tmss sections on was an inspection train looking at the line's concrete piers while the outer ends are made up of a total of 19 plate girder sections progress in order to evaluate the amount of supported on steel bents. The eastem girder sections have now settled noticeably which the next govemment grant. may have been a factor in the severing of this once-through line. An employee timetable The Kitchener paper of Wednesday June horn 1983 shows a 10 m.p.h. limit, and prohibits heavy engines and engine operation in 18, 1856, quotes from the Toronto Leader multiple. There had to be at least three cars 177 000 lbs or lighter following the engine. that: "The first trip of the passenger cars on Beyond that, any cars heavier than 222 000 lbs had to be separated by at least two cars no the Grand Tmnk Railway has been remark• heavier than 177 000 lbs. The inevitable dismantling of this stmcture should be an ably successful. The train from Guelph this interesting challenge, but meanwhile it makes for an interesting monument. morning brought down nearly 150 passen• -Photo by Bob Samhsky, October 2, 1996 gers."

Rail and Transit • November-December i 996 • 13 Research and Reviews

quired land to build a railway but none was throttle in IDLE and the selector in OFF), the brake application by the conductoc The ever constructed. The last deadline for con• locomotive can be disabled. Brake Warning light is installed on units with struction expired in 1908 but the company A group of switches and meters is located dynamic brakes. It indicates that excessive was never formally dissolved. The company on the front face of each controller. The braking current is being used. failed to file any returns to the federal gov• operating and control switches contain three Other equipment on the control stand ernment, despite numerous requests, and push switches which alternate between up includes air gauges (indicating main reser• relinquished all responsibility for the prop• (ON) and down (OFF). For multiple-unit voir air pressure) and switches for ground erty. No stockholders could be located. The (MU) consists, the switches in the lead unit lights, step lights, and gauge lights. Also City of North Bay requested that the com• would be "on" and in the trailing units they present could be an attendant call button, pany be dissolved, as the railway company would be "off." This allows the lead unit to and an air hom valve handle. holds title to approximately 4000 square feet control these functions for the whole consist. The locomotive control panels are lo• of land within the city limits. By dissolving The three switches are: the engine run cated under the front windows, on the rear the company the land reverts to the crown switch, the generator field switch, and the wall in older units, and on the engineer's whereupon the city can attempt to acquire it control and fuel pump switch. The engine console in newer units. These panels are for its own uses. run switch must be on to obtain throttle almost always a series of switches, buttons, control of engine speed. If the switch is off, and reset controls. They are usually associ• the engine will run at idle speed regardless ated with the locomotive's electrical system. Bill McGuire's of throttle handle position. Some of these controls are described below. Diesel Locomotives The generator field switch must be on to Dynamic Brake Cut-out Switch - On units complete the excitation circuits to the main equipped with dynamic braking, this switch Locomotive cabs and control stands generator. If the switch is off the engine will controls the operation of dynamic brakes on There are usually three or four control han• respond to the throttle, but the main genera• the unit. It is possible to cut out the opera• dles on each control stand. The first is the tor will not develop power. The control and tion of the dynamic brakes in certain multi• selector lever. On switchers there are usually fuel pump switch must be on to provide ple unit consists. four positions: OFF, SW (switching), SER power to various low-voltage control circuits. Engine Start Switch - A three-position (series), and AUTO (automatic). It must be on to start the engine and operate switch that allows a hostler to prime the The first two functions are obvious but the fuel pump. engine with fuel prior to starting or start the what is "SER?" This allows the locomotive Also on the control stand is the load- engine with battery power. circuits to change to series-parallel motor indicating mete? which is used to indicate Engine Stop Push Button - Normal stop connections even though transition speed the locomotive pulling force. The meter button. has been reached. reads amperes of electrical current, with Emergency Fuel Cut-off and Engine Stop The AUTO position allows automatic 1500 being the maximum. The meter is con• Button - Stops the engine and shuts of the transition forward depending on locomotive nected to the leads of one traction motor. On fuel supply to the engine. speed. Backward transition is made in either units with dynamic braking, the meter is a Ground Reset Button - Used to restore of two ways: by reducing the throttle to IDLE zero-centre type which swings to the right to locomotive power and reset the ground relay and then opening it again, or by moving the show power load and left to indicate dy• when the "ground relay tripped" light is on. selector lever to SER position while leaving namic braking. Isolation Switch - A two-position switch, the throttle open. The dynamic brake control circuit one position labelled "Start" and the other The selector lever on road units is usu• breaker is located on the control stand of "Run. Used in the Start position in addition ally simpler than this, having only three units equipped with dynamic brakes. The to the Start switch previously mentioned positions: PWR (power), OFfi and B breaker is set for the up position, and a above. The Run position is used after starting (braking). These require no further explana• tripped breaker indicates that more than one and is considered on-line in this pxrsition. tion other than to note that the selector lever dynamic brake handle was out of the off Remote Headlight Switch - On locomo• has no spring return and, accordingly always position at one time. tives equipped for multiple-unit operation, a stays in the last position selected. The headlight control switch controls the remote headlight control switch allows the A dynamic brake handle is present on all front and rear headlights. These lights can be engineer to control the operation of the units with a selector lever. The brake handle set for bright, medium, or dim settings, and headlight of the rear unit from the lead unit. has two positions, OFF and SET-UE Set-up can also be turned on or off. In single unit operation, the switch is posi• has an operating range of 1 through 8. The The manual sanding switch is used to tioned to "Single Unit." In multiple unit oper• dynamic brake handle will not move out of provide sand to the front wheels of the ation, the switch in the lead unit is posi• the OFF position unless the throttle is in the leading locomotive truck. On most modem tioned to "Controlling - with unit coupled at IDLE position and the reverse handle is in units the sanding is automatic through the No. 2 end" or to "Controlling - with unit either forward or reverse operation. wheel adhesion system. When in use, this coupled at No. 1 end." In the last unit of the The throttle handle controls engine switch lights an indicator lamp. consist, the headlight control switch is posi• speed and has ten positions: STOI? IDLE, and There are usually four indicating lights tioned to "Controlled - from another unit running speeds of 1 through 8. These func• on the control stand. These are: the Wheel- coupled at either end." When more than two tions speak for themselves. When operating slip, PCS Open, Brake Warning, and Sand units are coupled together, the headlight in dynamic braking (selector lever in B posi• lights. The Sand light has already been cov• control switch in all units coupled between tion), the throttle handle serves as a braking ered above. The Wheelslip light flashes inter• the lead and the last unit of the consist must handle. mittently to indicate the wheelslip control be positioned with the switch to "Single Unit The reverse handle has three positions: system is working and is correcting wheel or Intermediate Unit." FORWARD, NEUTRAL, and REVERSE. This slippage as it occurs. A steadily burning light TYaction Motor Cut-off Switches - Allows lever is operated only when the locomotive is would indicate a pair of locked sliding the shutdown of any of the traction motors standing still. With the handle in NEUTRAL, wheels. The PCS open light indicates that in the event of a traction motor failure. With no power will be applied if the throttle is the pneumatic control switch has operated to one traction motor off, the engine can still be opened. By removing the reverse handle, automatically reduce engine power in the operated, although no cars can be moved in (from the REVERSE position and with the event of an emergency or a safety control air this position.

14 • Rail and Transit * November-December 1996 Transcontinental Railway and transit news from coast to coast

''-"-=1= t^^ao •'•*;^ , j^CCC~"-

tied some trains up in the station instead of and 3057. Of the 17 minutes at Smiths Falls, taking them to Bathurst North Yard, where only three are allocated for the crew change, they are normally stored between the morn• in an effort to speed up service, and the ing and aftemoon peak periods. StL&H says it will use extended crews for the —ftit Scrimgeour and CaWin Henry-Cotnam whole mn if the three minutes are exceeded.

EXTRA CHALEUR SERVICE KAWARTHA LAKES RAILWAY VIA will be adjusting its service over the The first of the CPR's intemal short lines, on ^^STlRN CANADA Christmas holidays again this year with some the Havelock and Nephton subdivisions, has Scott Haskill extra trains. The Chaleur, which normally received the name Kawartha Lakes Railway. Gordon Webster operates combined with the Ocean between The KLR is an operating division of the St. Montreal and Matapedia, will operate as a Lawrence and Hudson Railway. No equip• VIA RAIL CANADA separate train, numbered 616 and 617, from ment win be especially painted, and the Montreal on December 18, 20, 22, 27, and name will only appear in a marketing role. IC3s RETURN 29, and January 1, 3, and 5. It will depart The KLR's principal customers are Unimin The two sets of leased ICS equipment Montreal at 19:45, arriving in Gaspe at 11:30 (formerly Indusmin) in Blue Moimtain/Neph- returned to fvill service on November 19 after the next day and return from Gaspe at ton, 3M and GE Railcar in Havelock, and being removed from service on September 30. 15:50, arriving back in Montreal at 07:40. Quaker and General Electric in Peterborough. Final testing was conducted on the CN Dund- The C/ra/eur will operate on its normal sched• Two new customers in Peterborough are as Subdivision on November 12, the Guelph ule combined with the Ocean on December using the new short Rne on a test basis Subdivision on November 13, and the StL&H 25 and 26. —Tom Box and Earl Roberts before they make a commitment. Brockville and CN/VIA Smiths Falls subdivi• sions on November 14, before approval to The KLR is considering offering passenger operate the equipment was obtained. The CANADIAN PACIFIC service between Peterborough and Toronto. If an economical way to offer the service and a first train to resmne iC3 revenue service was ST. LAWRENCE & HUDSON Train 681 on November 19 from Toronto to partner to help with the operation can be IRON HIGHV/AY UPDATE Kitchene? minutes after approval was found, service may begin next year. The short Regularly scheduled Iron Highway service received from Transport Canada. line is also planning to close the Havelock began on November 12 after a number of station to save an estimated $48 000 each The trains had freen removed from their weeks of testing. The trains, numbered 121 year in heating expenses. demonstration service on VIA after problems to 124, are operating on the following sched• were experienced within the first few days of ule, which has been altered slightly from the TRAIN CHANGES operation with the signal system not being original schedule printed in last month's Rail StL&H Train 901 is now a Montreal-Toronto able to detect the trains all of the time on the and Transit (all trains are daily except Satur• train that operates daily, handling traffic track. This was resolved by installing cast- day): from the Quebec Southem Railway and the iron brake shoes and also metal brushes on Canadian American Railroad. Train 901 was 122 124 the wheels to keep the tread surface cieane? previously an extra intermodal train from West Toronto dp 10:30 21:00 and to thus make better electrical contact Montreal's Lachine terminal to Toronto's Toronto Yard 10:58 21:27 with the rail. Conventional equipment, buses, Obico terminal. Any extra intermodal trains Smiths Falls or 15:01 01:31 and taxis were used to provide scheduled now operate as Train 929, which is the dp 15:18 01:48 service in place of the ICS trains. regularly scheduled weekday Montreal- Dorion 17:10 03:40 Toronto intermodal train. The new Train 901 DAYS OF ACTION Dorval . . 17:28 03:58 is also used by the StL&H's locomotive man• A labour demonstration in Toronto on Octo• Saint-Luc or 18:00 04:30 agers to move power from Montreal to the 121 123 ber 25 forced VIA and GO to alter their Toronto Yard diesel shop. It operates on the Saint-Luc dp 10:30 21:00 operations slightly. The cars from VIA Train following schedule: 1, the Canadian, were stored in Union Sta• Dorvai 11:02 21:32 tion overnight. The equipment for Train 697, Dorion I 1:20 21:50 Saint-Luc ... or from Quebec Southern Ry 23:00 the Northlander, was stored, overnight just to Smiths Falls or 13:12 23:42 dp 00:0! dp 13:29 23:59 the east of the station. At 03:00 on the day Dorval 00:30 Toronto Yard 17:33 04:03 of the protest, equipment for many other Dorion 01:00 West Toronto or 18:00 04:30 trains was also brought to the station for use Smiths Falls or 03:30 The four GP38-2s used on Iron Highway dp 04:30 on trains later in the day. GO Transit also trains at the start were: 3024, 3025, 3038, Toronto or 10:30

FIRST CUSS COACH COACH PREMIERE CUSSE CONFORT CONFORT (32 PASS.) (64PASS.) (45PASS.)

( 11 .!( 11 i( If !( m

4 R G 03/27/36

Rail and Transit • September-October 1996 • 15 Transcontinental Railway and transit news from coast to coast

There is an eastbound counterpart to Train THREE-YEAR PLAN REVISED November 1 and was returned to CN at 901 that is numbered 902 on the QSR. It The CPR has issued a revised three-year plan Allenby. CN had their line cleared early in the operates from Saint-Luc Yard to the Quebec to reflect the transfer of eastem operations to morning of November 2. Southem with traffic that arrives from its subsidiary, the St. Lawrence and Hudson The railway suffered two more derail• Toronto on Train 906. Railway. ments in Quebec on November 9 and 10 after StL&H also operates a separate Train 902 The new plan shows everything in the heavy rainfalls caused track damage. The first from Toronto to Trois-Rivieres. It handles east being transferred or abandoned, except incident involved SW1200RS 1392 derailing empty paper boxcars for Gatineau (set-off at for the main line north from Toronto. Some and faUing down a 40-foot embankment on Smiths Falls) and Trois-Riviferes, miscel• of the transfers are to the StL&H, which will the Shawinigan Falls Terminal Railway. The laneous traffic between Toronto and Montre• issue its own three-year plan. The CPR says track stmcture collapsed beneath the locomo• al, and all traffic from Montreal to Trois- there are no real changes in the plan, and tive as it was travelling down the line. The Rivieres. The daily schedule is: that StL&H will keep, transfe? or abandon locomotive was scrapped on-site. The next moming around 01:00 near Charette, Mile Toronto dp 01:30 lines following the previous CPR plan. 62.2, Joliette Subdivision, 23 cars derailed Smiths Falls or 07:30 The Scarborough Pit Spur is shown, dp 09:00 howeve? to be abandoned on the CPR plan, from Train 427. The train's power and the Dorion 1 1:30 rather than being transferred to the StL&H. first 24 cars passed over a culvert before it Grovehill 12:00 Also, the portion of the Belleville and Gait collapsed, causing the derailment. The line Saint-Luc or 12:15 subdivisions between Leaside and West was closed until 20:00 on November 12, to dp 16:00 Toronto via Union Station is now shown as allow the replacement of the culvert and Jacques Carrier Jet. 16:45 being transferred to the StL&H rather than restoration of trackwork. Most of the derailed Lanoraie or 18:00 for abandonment. This does not necessarily cars were scrapped on-site. dp 18:30 mean that the StL&H will not place it on On the evening of November 21, the last Trois-Rivibres or 20:00 their plan for abandonment. —Tom Box four cars of Train 431 derailed near St. Train 903 originates on the Canadian Ameri• Marys, Ontario. The train was travelling west DISPATCHING OFFICE can Railroad at MRHnocket, Maine, and mns when the accident occurred aroimd 20:00. The previous plan to relocate the StL&H rail to Saint-Luc on the CDAC, the QSR, and the The derailment occurred at Mile 96.1 of the traffic control office to the former Leaside StL&H. It operates daily on the following Guelph Subdivision, but the derailed cars Station has been dropped. The Montreal RTC schedule: were dragged a mile before the train brake office will move to Toronto, and the building line separated and initiated an emergency Millinocket dp 18:00 at Leaside was determined to be too small to stop. The line was closed until 08:00 on Brownville Jet. (lift) or 20:00 accommodate the RTCs and the accompany• November 23 for the repair of damaged dp 21:00 ing network management offices. The office track. VIA Train 89 was terminated in Strat• M6gantic 01:00 will either stay at its present location in ford and the equipment was used to operate Sherbrooke or 03:30 Union Station, or will move to a nearby Train 84 from Stratford back to Toronto. (change crew, lift/set-off as req'd) dp 04:00 office tower. Farnham (lift/set-off as req'd) or 06:00 Trains 85 and 88 were detoured over the dp 09:40 TWO CROSSING ACCIDENTS Dundas Subdivision. Westbound CN freight Saint-Jean 10:00 An Urgences Sante ambulance and a super• train No. 395 was held in Kitchener the night Saint-Luc 11:00 visor's truck responding to a call for a StL&H of the derailment, then turned back east to Silver; from where it also proceeded on the The eastbound equivalent of Train 903 is train striking a teenager at a railway crossing Dundas Subdivision. A turn to Stratford Train 904, operating daily: near Montreal were demolished November 4 when they were hit by another train. No one operated as Train 431 and 432 on November Montreal dp 00:01 was injured in the second incident. The teen- 22. On November 23, an extra Train 431 Saint-Jean 00:40 aged girl was in serious condition in hospital. operated to handle a backlog of traffic. This Farnham (lift/set-off as req'd) or 01:00 train normally does not operate on Saturdays. dp 04:00 —La Presse via Rex Bundle All VIA traffic was back to normal on Novem• Sherbrooke or 06:00 ber 23, and CN freight No. 395 was operated (change crew, lift/set-off as req'd) dp 06:30 CANADIAN NATIONAL via the Guelph Subdivision to pick up tmck M6gantic 09:00 DERAILMENTS frames in Kitchener that had not been picked Brownville Jet. (lift/set-off as req'd) ... or 13:00 A CN freight derailed two locomotives, up for two days. When Train 395 left Kitche- dp 14:00 HR616 2111 and M420 3524, and more than ne? it was 9042 feet long. One of the four Millinocket or 15:30 10 cars, on the Joliette Subdivision on Nove• derailed cars was scale test car GTW 52265. Train 906 handles aU traffic including special mber 1, near Joliette. The derailment dangerous, dangerous, dimensional loads, occurred when the train stmck a highway At 23:00 on the evening of November 26, and cars with speed restrictions from Toronto tractor-trailer. A total of three trains were Train 302-26 derailed 28 cars at Mile 115.9 to Montreal, Famham, and beyond Sher• detoured over StL&H track from the Parsley of the Allanwater Subdivision in northwestern brooke, coimecting with the QSR 902 at interchange in Montreal to Shawinigan on Ontario, near the siding of Ghost Rivet The 15th to 43rd cars of the train went on the Montreal. It operates daily on the following November 1 and 2. The detoured trains were: ground, tearing up a section of track. Trains schedule: • VIA Train 605 (6406-6453 and five cars); were detoured via the former Canadian Nor• it left Parsley at 10:45 on November 1 and Toronto dp 00:01 them line through Thunder Bay. Train returned to CN at Shawinigan at 16:30. Smiths Falls or 06:00 117-26 was first, leaving Longlac around (change crew, set off locals as req'd) dp 07:00 • CNTram335 (9669-4025-9641-96714036 03:00. To follow 117 were 115-26, VIA Dorion 09:30 with 105 cars); it left Parsley at 13:15 on No. 1, 101-26, 203-26, and 219-26. Dorval - 10:00 November 1, and returned to CN at Allenby. Saint-Luc or 10:30 • CN Train 369 (9631-9665-9485-3502 with The westbound VIA Canadian that left (set off Mtl locals and deliver to QSR) 77 cars); departed Shawinigan at 18:30 on Toronto on November 25 detoured at Longlac dp as QSR 902 12:00 onto the Kinghom Subdivision to Thunder

16 • Rail and Transit • September-October 1996 Transcontinental Railway and transit news from coast to coast

Bay, where it arrived at 11:50 on November THREE-YEAR PLAN UPDATE OTTAWA VALLEY RAILINK 27, and departed at 12:25, on the CPR to Three minor changes were made to CN's After failed attempts with CN to consolidate Winnipeg. The eastbound Canadian that three-year plan on November 1. All changes their Ottawa Valley lines, CPR has leased the departed Vancouver on November 25 are alterations to mileages previously, listed operation of its fine to RaiLink Investments detoured on the CPR all the way from Win• for lines to be transferred or discontinued. for a 20-year period. The transfer of 341.7 nipeg to Sudbury, changing over to the CPR The changes are: miles of track, which took place at 00:01 on at Manson on the Keewatin Subdivision in • The Sherbrooke Subdivision, in Quebec, is October 30, includes the foUowing subdivi• eastem Winnipeg at 14:05 on November 27. to be transferred from Mile 15.80 to 109.60. sions: The train ran aU the way to Sudbury on the It was previously listed to Mile 110.20. • ChaBt River between Miles 0.5 and 115.3 GPR because of a shortage of crews on CN. • The Sorel Subdivision, also in Quebec, is to • North Bay between Miles 0.0 and 117.3 As cleanup of the derailment progressed, the be discontinued from Mile 45.50 to 47.20. It • Cartier between Miles 0.0 and 69.1 Allanwater Subdivision reopened on Novem• was previously listed to Mile 48.20. • Temiscaming between Miles 0.0 and 40.5 ber 29 and the detours ended. • The Erwood Subdivision, in Manitoba, is to The new railway is called Ottawa Valley be discontinued from Mile 6.10 to 24.00. It RaiLink and operates run-through trains with THUNDER BAY CHANGES was previously listed from Mile 0.00. CPR motive power as well as serving its on• ChPs Thunder Bay North yard wiU be shut line customers. OVR has running rights down, track ripped-up, and 13 people laid OTTAWA OPERATIONS , extending east to Smiths Falls and west to off, in an attempt to streamline operations. CN's operations in Ottawa now consist of Cartier to expedite the interchange of trains. The yard, in Port Arthu? will be shut down Train 529, which leaves Ottawa at 07:15 and There are currently three through CPR trains with aU switching operations moved to Neeb- operates to Pembroke on what remains of the scheduled on the line each way daily, as well ing Yard. Only lorn: employees will be trans• Beachburg Subdivision. It returns in the as local turns from North Bay to Temiscam• ferred, with the rest being laid off. The lay• aftemoon. Train 441 originates at Coteau at ing and North Bay to Sudbury. There are also offs are effective December 29. No decision 07:30, and operates to Ottawa. It waits for unit acid trains originating at Kidd Creek has been made on the fate of the yard office 529 to return, then departs Ottawa and goes interchanged from the ONR, and the buflding in the yard. back to Coteau. —John Godfrey deadheading of VIA RDC units between the STATION DESTROYED JOBS MOVING? ONR shops in North Bay and the station in The CN Windsor South station (the former Labour leaders are claiming that CN is Sudbury. For its local operations, the OVR is Michigan Central Railroad Windsor station), planning to move another 150 administrative currently leasing from CPR five RS18s, num• located on the Caso Subdivision, was jobs from its Montreal offices to Toronto. bers 1832, 1834, 1838,1840, and 1842. The destroyed by fire on November 15. The sta• Most of the jobs are in the railway's account• OVR is continuing to use the CPR computer tion was built in 1910 and last saw passenger ing-services department. Nearly 2000 jobs system to support its operations. service in 1979 by Amtiak's Niagara Rainbow. have been lost in Montreal so far this year at The day before the transfer took place, Operators stfll worked in the station imtil both CN and CPR from closures of facilities station name Coniston was relocated from 1994, when the CTC through the Detroit and the transfer of administrative offices. Mile 70.5 to Mile 69.1 on the Cartier Subdi• River Tunnel was changed to be controlled -Montreal Gazette via Bex Bundie vision. Previously, CTC control of train oper• from Toronto, after CP finished enlarging one ation began at this point and continued bore of the tunnel. Maintenance-of-way SHORT LINES westward. The approach signal to the begin forces were using the station until a few CP. BAIE DPS CHALEURS of CTC control was located at Mile 69.1. The months ago. The fire department was having The new operation of CN track from Matape• signal at this location was changed to a two- difficulty battling the fire due to water deliv• dia to Chandler; Quebec, is to be called the aspect signal and now represents the new ery problems. All CN and StL&H trains were Chemin de far Bale des Chaleurs, (reporting begin/end of CTC control on this line, as well held while the blaze was fought. —Ken Garber marks CBC), owned by the Societe des as the begin/end of CPR track. DANFORTH YARD LAND FOR SALE Chemins de fer du Quebec. The closing date The turntable at North Bay has also been The Canada Lands Company plans to dispose for the transfer was December 1. CFQ was in removed from service, but this did not of 30 acres of land at the former CN Danforth the process of hiring 20 employees for the coincide with the change in operation. Yard in east-end Toronto for residential new railway in November. The company will RaiLink, which was formerly called Cen• development. The land was acquired by CLC be leasing their motive power; and a nrrmber tral Westem Railway Holdings, was formed in last year from CN as part of the railway's of units from Canac have been examined. 1983 to acquire and operate regional rail• sale. The property was designated as part of VIAs Chaleur service wiU continue to ways. Its other operating companies include the Scarborough Transportation Corrido? a operate, under an interim agreement that will the wholly-owned Central Westem Railway, right-of-way reserved for the constmction of allow VIA trains to continue running on the which began operations in 1986, and 25 an expressway, but this was recently removed CFQ line for the next six months. Once the percent of the Chemins de fer du Quebec, from the municipality's official plan. interim agreement was reached, just before which began operations in 1994. GO Transit also had plans a few years CFQ took over the line, VIA and the CFQ OVR has its headquarters in North Bay, ago to constmct a maintenance and car- began negotiations on a longer-term contract and has 110 full-time employees, of which washing facility at the location, but the governing VlAs use of the CFQ. almost 80 percent are former CPR employees. cancellation of expansion plans eliminated CN retains ownership of the line beyond Roughly 65 other CPR employees whose jobs this need. Danforth Yard was last used for Chandler to Gaspe, used only by the Chaleur, were affected became eligible for work else• the storage of the GO single-level coaches and no freight trains. The line is listed for where, severance benefits, or early retirement that were eventually sold to Quebec. Before discontinuance of operations on CN's three- packages. In submissions to the NTA several that, CN used it for its Building and Bridges year list, but a coalition of municipalities years ago when abandonment of the line was Department and for staging and distributing hopes to acquire the line from CN and being considered, the CPR recorded a loss of maintenance-of-way bunk cars. engage a contractor perhaps the CFQ, to run more than $3.9-million between Smiths Falls it. and Mattawa in 1992. —Beach Metro News via Rex Bundle

Rail and Transit • September-October 1996 • 17 Transcontinental Railway and transit news from coast to coast

ONTARIO LORIGNAL RAILWAY with special hatches for grain transfer from RailTex's second operation in Ontario, the K. K. Webster feed plant in Richford, Ver- MA Ontario EOrignal Railway Inc., began oper• mont. These cars will be unloaded in Maine, ations on November 2 on the former CN then used to take oats and barley back to Vankleek Subdivision in eastem Ontario. The Vermont for processing, all using the com• railway, which runs between Hawkesbury bined IRR network. • On August 8, a passen• and Glen Robertson, interchanges its traffic ger special took IRR officials from Northem with CN at Glen Robertson. Power currently Maine Jet. up to the Moosehead region, with CANADA on the railway includes Goderich-Exeter company executives searching out possible Gray Scrimgeour Railway GP9 180, and former Grand Trunk locations for an excursion train. • B&A sent #570-188 Douglas Street Westem GP18 4700, which just underwent units 85 and 98 to National Railway Equip• Victoria, B.C. V8V2PI repairs at the GTW Battle Creek Shops. The ment in Silvis, Illinois, for rebuilding. • E-Mail: [email protected] largest customer on the railway is Ivaco, a Canadian American Railroad CP40 40 has steel mill in EOrignal, on a spur west of travelled to Toronto, along with B&A power, BRITISH COLUMBIA RAILWAY Hawkesbury. Operations are Monday to on a number of occasions. • Quebec South• CHETWYND SUBDIVISION DERAILMENT Friday, with a train leaving Hawkesbury em Railway timetable No. 1 came into effect The southbound McKenzie Switcher derailed around 08:30, arriving at Glen Robertson at 00:01 on November 3. -George Chiasson near Mile 562 of the Chetwynd Subdivision around noon. The train then makes the TTSL FINANCIAL TROUBLE at 07:30 on October 16. It's believed the return trip to Hawkesbury, where power is A creditor of Les Trains Touristique du Saint- train encountered a broken rail. The train currently stored overnight. Laurent, the company that operates Le Tortil- had five units, all of which derailed and were A New England Central unit has been lard du SaiiU-Laurenl, the passenger train damaged to some degree. BCR Dash 8-40CM reassigned to the GEXR to replace number from Quebec to Pointe-au-Pic, has applied for 4602 has damage to its underframe, fuel 180, currently on the OLE, and number 179, a court order to seize the company's assets. tanks, and trucks, but is repairable. BCR RCL which is scheduled to go to the OLR soon. The TTSL firm is separate from the Societe M420B 681 was upright, with even more The CN line will be acquired for $1.1-million des Chemins de fer du Quebec, over whose underframe damage; it is repairable if when the deal closes December 2. railway the tourist train operates. -Tom Box desired. The former ATSF B36-7 7497 went —John Godfrey, Roman Hawryhk over on its side and its engine kept running, IRON ROAD UPDATE AMTRAK fuel was spilled, and it caught fire; it sus• tained considerable fire damage, but the crew The new Northem Vermont Railway is run• SPECIAL TRAIN was able to put out the fire using available ning a day train and a night train between Amtrak operated a special eight-car train extinguishers. Possibly its frame was twisted, Newport and Famham, Quebec. A separate from New York to Montreal and return to so it may be a write-off. BCR RCL M420B local is operating between Newport and Wells draw attention to its Adirondack service. The 682 was upright, but buried one end well River, Vermont. CPR power was being used train ran from New York on September 20 at into the ballast. It is suspected that its frame until rebuilt power from sister company 07:50, arriving at Central Station at 21:50. It is damaged, and so the unit may be written Bangor and Aroostook is available. • B&A's returned the next day, departing Montreal at off. BCR RCL M420B 687 had about ten cars Derby Shops are rebuilding 50-foot boxcars 09:15 and arriving in New York at 18:40. piled into it from behind. Its frame is twisted, New York state and Amtrak officials were on the carbody bent and torn, so it probably will board the train, which included track inspec• ONTARIO L'ORIGNAL RAILWAY be scrapped on the spot. Luckily, there were tion car 10001, to relaunch the service, GEXR GP9 180 and GTW GP18 4700 pushing a no injuries among the crew. which now operates with refurbished heritage train from Hawkesbury to Ivaco at L'Orignal. fleet rolling stock. -A/ Tuner -Pot Hind via Dean Ogk . -Photo by Michel Belhumeur, November IS. 1996 Transcontinental Railway and transit news from coast to coast

ELECTRIC OPERATION UNDER REVIEW 2415, and Dash 9-44CWL 2502. The crew WINTER OPERATIONS BCR is considering pulling the plug on Tum• was shaken, but not seriously injured. The CPR freight train lengths will be governed by bler Ridge electrification because the cost of line reopened at 16:00 on November 17. daily weather conditions, rather than by electricity is approaching $2-million annually. -Mark McVittie. Jim Brock arbitrary lengths decided for the season, as BCR has apparently run diesels over the line had been done in other years. If ambient without encountering ventilation problems in CANADIAN PACIFIC temperatures are predicted to fall below -25 the tunnels, thanks to prevailing air currents LINE SALES degrees Celsius, winter train length restric• that act like fans and clear exhaust fumes. CPR is selling its 513-mile line between tions will be implemented. CPR also has seven double-stack ice-breaking cars. These STEAM TRIP Chicago and Kansas City, including a branch- cars break ice that may build up in tunnels Former CPR 2-8-0 3716 made a trip from line into southem Wisconsin, and 630 miles and snowsheds. The cars are numbered in North Vancouver to Squamish and return on of lines in northern Iowa and southem Minn• series CP 410005 to 410012. Six of the cars Sunday, November 3, leaving North esota, to the Washington Organization (oper• are assigned for use between Coquitlam and Vancouver around 08:30 and heading for ators of Montana Rail Link and Southem Alyth and one is assigned for use between home just before midnight. Railway of British Columbia). A new com• pany will be formed to operate the lines. The Thunder Bay and White River. Ice-breaking CANADIAN NATIONAL CPR will acquire a minority interest in the operations between Alyth and Coquitlam are new company, with the Washington Organiz• carried out on westbound Train 471 Friday to HUDSON BAY LINE SALE ation holding the remaining shares. The sale Tuesday, and Train 491 Wednesday and CN has signed a letter of intent for the sale of includes some freight cars, locomotives, and Thursday. Eastbound, the cars operate on its 810-mile northern Manitoba network to track equipment. CPR will provide the new Train 418 Sunday, Monday, and statutory OmniTRAX, a Colorado-based operator of company with connections in Chicago and holidays, and Train 472 Tuesday to Saturday. short-line railroads. The sale is expected to the Twin Cities. CPR retains its main line Between Thunder Bay and White River; the close in May of next year. According to CN, from Chicago to North Dakota, connecting to car operates on Train 936 Wednesday and the OmniTRAX bid was the strongest of the lines in Canada. Most of the 700 CPR Sunday, and Train 935 Monday and Friday. several from both operational and financial employees currently working on the affected standpoints. The sale is of all lines north of GRAIN TRAINS lines will have the opportunity to work for The Pas: the Wekusko, Thicket, and Effective October 1, CPR made changes to its the new company. The sale is expected to be Herchmer main line subdivisions to Churchill; train numbers for grain and other unit trains. completed early in 1997. the Thompson Subdivision between The new list of trains follows: Thompson Jet. and Thompson; and the Flin RAILWAY LAND DEVELOPMENTS Winter trains at Quebec City Flon and Sherridon subdivisions to Flin Flon CPR and Camrose Development Croup have 300 - From Thunder Bay and Lynn Lake. The sale has been made with launched a new commercial development on 301 - Empties . . To Thunder Bay the assumption that the VIA services operated CPR land in South Edmonton. The South 302 - Grain From Winnipeg on the lines will continue. The Broe Com• Edmonton Common will be a mix of retail 303 - Empties To Winnipeg panies of Denve? Colorado formed Omni• stores, restaurants, recreation, and entertain• 304 - Grain . . . From Brandon TRAX, Inc., as a management company for ment outlets. The development will be built 305 - the 11 short-line railroads they own or oper• over the next five years, with the first phase 306 - ate. on a 40-hectare site adjacent to the CPR at 307 - Empties .... To Moose Jaw 23rd Avenue and Calgary Trail. • The CPR 308 - . . From Sutherland KAMLOOPS RAILWAY GARDEN and the City of Penticton are promoting a 12- 309 - The City of Kamloops is accepting proposals hectare development site at the former CPR for the purchase and redevelopment of the Winter trains at Montreal yard in Penticton, B.C. Penticton yard closed 310 - From Thunder Bay former CN station building and approximately in 1989, when CP discontinued operations on 311 - Empties lb Thunder Bay 76 000 square feet of adjoining land. The the Princeton Subdivision. The land was 312 - proposal calls for the restoration of the sta• rezoned last year from heavy industrial desig• 313 - Empties lb Winnipeg tion, the construction of a public plaza inclu• nation to a mixed-use development zone. 314 - Grain . . . From Brandon ding a "Railway Garden," and the develop• 315 - Empties To Brandon ment of a mixed residential/commercial site. SHOP AND STAFF CONSOLIDATIONS 316 - One goal is to increase pedestrian usage by The CPR plans to consolidate' four of its 317 - connecting the site with Riverside Park and freight car and locomotive repair facilities in 318 - Riverside Coliseum. Canada into two locations - Calgary and 319 - Empties .... To Saskatoon Thunder Bay. By February 1997, heavy repair ASHCROFT DERAILMENT work will be transferred from Weston Shops Winter trains at Trois-Rivieres An eastbound unit coal train suffered a derai• 320 - Grain From Thunder Bay in Winnipeg to Ogden Shops in Calgary, lment near Ashcroft on November 16 at 321 - Empties . . lb Thunder Bay while running car repair operations will be approximately 06:00, when the train ran into 322 - Grain . . . From Winnipeg largely transferred from Sudbury to Thunder a small landslide. Six empty coal cars, and 323 - Empties lb Winnipeg Bay. This shop consolidation will save $10- both locomotives were derailed, with one 324 - million annually. • In Minneapolis, the Shor- locomotive's nose ending up in the Thompson 325 - eham heavy locomotive repair facility was River. The locomotive in the river leaked 326 - closed at the end of August, and about two- some diesel fuel, forcing the community of 327 - Empties .... To Moose Jaw thirds of the work and employees relocated to Ashcroft to turn off drinking water intakes 328 - Grain . . From Sutherland St. Paul. • The former Soo Line operations from the river. Clean-up crews are confident 329 - Empties .... To Sutherland control centre, which had been located in that the damage was minimal, and the leak Milwaukee, was closed, and the work has International grain service was quickly stopped. Locomotives involved been relocated to Calgary and Minneapolis. 330 - Canadian grain to U.S. were both General Electrics, Dash 8-40CM . . Moose Jaw/BrandonAVinnipeg to St. Paul

Rail and Transit • September-October 1996 • 19 Transcontinental Railway and transit news from coast to coast

33 I — Empties from U.S. day. Service east of Jasper will continue tri• . . St Paul to Winnipeg/Brandon via Emerson weekly. Rocky Moimtaineer Railtouis, which 332 - ADM Grain bought the rights to its two-day Vancouver- ADM Watson, Sask., to Voltaire N.D. Calgary/Jasper service from VIA six years 333 - ADM Empties ago, is complaining that they should not have ADM Voltaire N.D. to Watson, Sask. competition from a government-subsidised 334 — Empties moving to U.S. service Crown corporation. At the time of the sale to 335 — Empties moving to Canadian service RMR, VIA agreed to not compete directly Scott Haskill 336 - Spare with the private operator for a set period of Ashford Hall, 2520 Bloor Street West #15 337 - U.S. grain to U.S. Pacific Northwest time, which has since expired. via Kingsgate Toronto, Ontario M6S IR8 338 — Empties, Pacific Northwest to U.S. service TRAFFIC UP E-Mail: 72154.133 I ©compuserve.com via Lethbridge/Moose Jaw/Portal VLAs summer passenger traffic and revenues 339 - Spare were up significantly on the Canadian and TORONTO the Skeena. During this past summe? trains Winter trains at Thunder Bay SPADINA STREETCAR UPDATE on the Jasper—Vancouver leg of the Canadian 340 — Grain From Moose Jaw Trackwork for the Spadina streetcar line is ran at near 100 percent capacity. The new 341 — Empties lb Moose Jaw/Estevan almost complete, and the underground ter• — aU-daylight schedule for the Skeena increased 342 Grain From Brandon minal at Spadina Station is nearly finished. — tourism travel on the Jasper—Prince Ceorge 343 Empties Tb Brandon Overhead installation is seriously behind route. For the first few months of 1997, VIA 344 - Grain schedule, howeve? and while the official From Hardisty, including Minnedosa/Bredenbury wUl be adding a Skyline car to the opening is still June 15, 1997 (after earlier 345 — Empties Winnipeg—Churchill Hudson Bay, and will being pushed back from May 4, 1997), it is lb Hardisty, including Minnedosa/Bredenbury promote the train as a way to view the north• possible that the introduction of streetcar 346 — Grain Y,. From Winnipeg em lights. Both ridership and revenues were service on Spadina will be further delayed to 347 — Empties To Winnipeg up slightly on the E&N this summer. July 27, 1997. 348 - Grain A late start on the overhead work has led From Lethbridge/Medicine Hat/Swift Current AMTRAK 349 — Empties to the slippage from the schedule, and work Tb Swift Current/Medicine Hat/Lethbridge GENESIS UNIT IN VANCOUVER has further been slowed by unfamilrarity with Amtrak engine 802, a AMD-103 (Cenesis), new overhead components being used, and Winter trains at Vancouver (Coquitlam) powered the Mount Baker International of priority being given by the TTC to the signifi• 350 - Empties To Alyth October 22 in both directions. The usual cant programme of overhead renewal on 351 — Grain From Alyth Talgo equipment was hauled by the CE. Ifs existing streetcar routes. Overhead work on 352 — Empties .. . . Tb Lethbridge/Alberta South probably the first time one of those units has Spadina commenced at the King Street inter• 353 — Grain From Lethbridge operated to Vancouver. Amtiak's Intercity section at the beginning of Novembe? and 354 — Empties Tb Swift Current business unit is replacing all of its F40PHs 355 — Grain From Swift Current the new overhead has been slowly taking 356 — Empties To Moose Jaw with the latest order of CE Cenesis units, but shape, installed over the existing east-west 357 — Grain From Moose Jaw the Mount Baker International is operated by straight overhead used by 504-Kmg and 508- 358 — Empties Tb Brandon the Amtrak West business tuiit, and will Lake Shore cars, and the east-to-south and 359 — Grain From Brandon likely continue to use F40PHs. north-to-west curves used by 510-Harbour- 360 — Empties -Deon Og/e front cars as they enter and leave service. Tb Red Deer/Edmonton/Hardisty Overhead work is taking place at night, 361 - Grain TOURIST RAILWAYS and the existing east-to-south overhead curve . From South Edmonton/Hardisty/Red Deer has been removed, which requires a TTC 362 — Empties AND MUSEUMS tmck to be on hand early each moming to To Wilkie/Sutherland via Hardisty MOVIE TRAIN push the two 510-Harbourfront cars around — 363 Grain BNSF moved ten vintage passenger cars to the comer as they enter service. On some From Bredenbury/Wynyard/Sutherland/Wilkie the Southem Railway of B.C. on November days a third car has also been pushed around — 364 Empties To Winnipeg 12, where they were to be used in the mak• the comer and then stored on Spadina 365 — Grain From Winnipeg ing a movie. The cars are privately owned, Avenue, just north of the Queens Quay- 366 — Spare and usually kept with the NRHS Vancouver Spadina loop, in case it is required to change 367 — Empties From Winnipeg Yard Chapter equipment at New Westminster. off a defective or damaged car on 510- 368 — Grain To Thunder Bay Involved in the move were combine 301, Harbourfront. By later in the King-Spadina 369 — Grain Tb Neptune Terminals diner 481, buffet-observation 741, coaches work, the north-to-west curve was also 681 (with stick-on decals reading "Michigan VIA RAIL CANADA removed, along with several metres of tan• Central Railroad System'/), 801, 802, and gent overhead south of King, and the cars are INCREASED JASPER SERVICE 803, diner New York, parlour River Claire, also pushed out of service at the end of the VIA plans to double its capacity between and observation Mount Cascade. -Dean Ogle day. Vancouver and Jasper next summer by oper• KVR EXTENSION Initial estimates were that up to nine ating six times weekly in each direction, The Kettle Valley Steam Railway line at weeks could be required for overhead instal• instead of the three trips a week that have lation at each intersection on the new route. been run since Januaiy 1990. (VIA also Summerland, B.C., more than doubled the Tangent overhead installation is not expected operated trains six days a week from June 4 length of its ride over the Labour Day week• to be as difficult. Further changes are being until October 2, 1991.) From June 14 to end with the opening of service to the rodeo developed to speed up the work, in time for October 17,1997, service between Vancouver grounds at Prairie Valley. Ridership near the a mid-1997 opening. and Jasper will operate daily, except Wednes• end of the train's second season of operation is 16 000 ahead of last year -Dove Wilkie Track was installed in the tmdergrormd

20 • Rail and Transit • September-October 1996 Transcontinental Railway and transit news from coast to coast

• loop at Spadina Station in October and 9370-9394 Orion V CNCs from 1991 and Novembet The transfer facility, located at 1992, the new buses are being delivered MOTIY WER the mezzanine level, below the bus loop and straight to Wilson Carage, where they will be above the streetcar platfoims, is nearing based. Wilson is the only TTC garage completion, and is clearly visible to passen• equipped to fuel and service the GNC buses. gers as they pass through the station. New Deliveries should be complete by Christmas. signs were installed in much of the station in The new buses are equipped with Kits, as early Decembe? and feature the updated style was the recently-completed order of 135 John Carter of lettering and pictograms as used at Downs- diesel-fuelled Orion Vs. The order for 50 low- 2400 Queen Street East #204 view Station. Elevator installation at Spadina floor CNC-fueUed Orion Vfs is expected to Scarborough, Ontario MIN IA2 Statiort, while not part of the Spadina street• arrive in the spring of 1997, and these buses car project, has proceeded in unison, and is wiQ also be based at Wilson Carage. The E-Mail: [email protected] also almost completed. demonstrator Orion VI, numbered TTC 2000, Surface track work was completed by the was returned to Orion on October 22, on the CANADIAN NATIONAL end of the summe? with the Queen to Col• completion of its lease. A number of prob• NEW DELIVERIES lege section, including College and Drmdas lems were foimd with the vehicle, and it was New locomotive deKveries to CN through the intersections, done this year. Platform con• out of service for a considerable portion of its end of October include the foUowing SD751s, struction and overhead pole placement fol• 15 months at the TTC. Experience from bus completed at CM: lowed quickly after the track work. To dis• 2000 wKl be used to redesign production • 5670 - September 24 courage automobile traffic on the tracks once Orion VI examples. 5672 - September 26 the Une opens, this year's track featiues a 5673 - September 25 rougher and more-random cobblestone tex- MISSiSSAUGA 5678, 5679, 5681, 5683 - October 9 5688 - October 30 tiue in the suirotmding concrete than that NEW BUS TERMINAL 5689 - November I laid in 1994 (north of College) and 1995 In Octobe? the City of Mississauga deferred (between King and Queen). a final decision on proceeding with a $7- The foUowing units were completed at AMF, Rebuilding of the Queens Quay-Spadina milKon transit terminal at the Square One after having been assembled at CM: loop, which will include new westbound shopping centre, a focal point of the Missis• • 5561 - September 20 track on Queens Quay and northbotmd track sauga Transit bus network. The deferral, 5664 - September 27 on Spadina, but not the additional, second which was expected to be temporary, was 5666 - September 30 "inner" loop that was originally proposed, because of concerns over the design and cost 5658 - October 8 will likely take place between March 30 and of the faciKty. Further negotiations were to 5671 - October 10 May 3, 1997. This will require bus substitu• take place between the city and the develop• 5674 - October 16 tion on 510-Harbourfront for much of this ment company that was planning to donate 5677 - October 18 period. The new track on Charlotte Street the iy2-hectare site and $100 000 towards 5680 - October 25 Qust east of Spadina, between Adelaide and the construction of the terminal. 5682, 5687 - October 31 King), which wfll form a King branch of the The new terminal is planned to replace In early November 5684, 5685, 5690, 5693 new streetcar route, has received tentative the existing one, which is an open-air collec• to 5697, and 5699 were sent to AMF for approval from the City of Toronto, but may tion of a dozen bus platforms, in the south completion and painting. be constructed later in 1997, after the line parking lot of the large mall. The new ter• opens, so that resources can be concentrated LEASED UNITS minal is planned for the north side of the on the overhead installation and on the At press time, all of the LMS Dash 8-40Cs maU on Rathbum Road, near several new Queens Quay-Spadina loop track construc• (715-739) coming to CN for their annual store and entertainment developments, and tion. The imused westbound track on six-month lease period should have arrived. next to the route set aside some time ago for Adelaide (a one-way eastboimd street) As of November 16, LMS 715, 717, 719, a busway which is now on hold. The transit between Spadina and Charlotte will be 721, 722, 725, 726, 730, 733, 736, 737, and terminal project calls for a canopied walkway removed when the eastboimd Adelaide and 739 were aU in service on CN. The units were linking the terminal to the mall, and the con• southboimd Charlotte tracks are built. to be arriving in batches throughout Novem• version of the present terminal back to a be? the last eight of which were to arrive on parking lot. NEW SUBWAY CARS November 25. • At the end of Novembe? The Ontario govemment has agreed to At of the end of Novembe? 18 T-1 subway Wisconsin Central SD45s 6608, 6610, 6613, subsidise about 65 percent of the construc• cars had been delivered to the TTC, and 16 of 6614, 6615, 6617, 6618, 6620, 6621, 6625, tion cost, but even with this subsidy, the city the cars had run in service. A problem with 6627; and 6629 were stiU seeing service on would still be required to contribute the regenerative brakes resulted in the cars CN as weU. The SD45s will head home when $820 000. The city was considering whether being pulled from service for a short time, the iron ore season begins on Wisconsin to simplify the terminal, including such but this was corrected. The intent is to have Central. three T-1 trains operating as soon as possible, design changes as opting for an aU-metal roof Additional leased rmits include: with more trains added as the fleet grows. instead of one with 50 percent glass cover• • Helm Leasing HATX GP40s 407 and 409. Sufficient M-1 or H-1 cars will be kept oper• age, which would save $100 000 in design • Helm Leasing HLCX SD40s 5048 and 5053, ative so that any problem with the T-ls wiU and constmction costs, and several thousand and SDP45 70II. not result in a fleet shortage. dollars in annual maintenance costs. The new terminal was originally intended to be both • Helm ex-Morrison Knudsen SD40s MKCX —De/iVe7 m/brmotion from Roy Corley functional and aestheticaUy pleasing, so as to 9402, 9408, 9409, 9414, 9416, 9417, 9419. NEW BUSES blend in with the urban design aspirations in • General Motors EMDX SD40s 6420 and Delivery of the TTC's 50 new Orion V CNC- Mississauga's city core. 6426. CN is also supposed to receive EMDX powered buses is under way. Numbered 9400 SD40s 6403, 6407, 6410, 6419 and 6427 —Toronto Star via Hester Smith to 9449, in the next series above the after undergoing repairs at AMF.

Rail and Transit • September-October 1996 • 21 Transcontinental Railway and transit news from coast to coast

RECENT RETIREMENTS It is cuirently still in CN colours, with the • GP40-2L (all to be rebuilt at AMF for MBTA exception of a few doors which had come ROLLI OCK commuter service in Boston): from C630M 2015. 9568, 9577 - September 23 CB&CNS C630M 2028 is undergoing 9571 - September 27 repairs and is expected to be returned to 9545, 9620 - October 8 service in early December. • CB&CNS C630M N-^=^C3H0F 2035, Sir Walter Scott, is on the dead track 9607 - October 24 \=-—" 9510 - October 25 but is expected to be repaired and placed • GP40 9314 - October 21 (to be rebuilt for back in service this winter. • CN C630M the Roberval-Saguenay) 2038 was stripped for parts and cut up dur• • SD40 5171, which had been retired on ing the week of November 18th. • CN PASSENGER CARS August 9, 1996, was returned to service on C630M 2033 is bound for the Canadian BOMBARDIER ORDERS October 11. Coast Guard CoUege in Point Edward, N.S., Bombardier has received a $14.2-million (U.S.) order from NJ Transit for 15 Comet • M636 2313 - October 29 where its prime mover will be used as a push-pull single-level commuter coaches. It is • M420: training aid. • CB&CNS C630M 2015, the the third, and last, lot of an option for 55 3561 - Octobers former Robert Bums, wiU be scrapped soon, after all usable parts have been stripped. coaches from a contract signed in January 3527 - October 29 GTW GP9s 4134, 4135 and 4139, plus 1995. There were initially 40 coaches retired GTW GPlSs 4703 and 4704 were sold IRELAND delivered, and these last 15 cars wfll start to be delivered in April 1997. to the Adrian and BUssfield Railroad in CANADAN-BUILT LOCOS Bombardier has also received an order for Michigan. Service experience with the Class 201 eight double-deck coaches for the San (JT42HCW) locomotive built in 1994 and Joachim Regional Rail Commission in Califor• GEC ALSTHOM 1995 by General Motors for lamrod Eireann nia. The order is valued at $16-million (Irish Rail, 32 locomotives) and Northem (U.S.). The cars will operate on a new com• AMF TRANSPORT Ireland Railways (two locomotives) has muter line between Stockton and San Jose, RECENT WORK shown that modifications are required to the CaUfomia. —Gfobe Former CN RSlSs 1761 and 1786 have been traction motor supports to improve traction and tAail, CUTA Forum sold to Cuba. They have been repainted motor bearing Kfe. Track forces at high PACIFIC SPIRIT silve? grey and blue, renumbered 29002 and speeds have also been found to be higher CN business car 100 has been repainted into 29001 respectively and lettered -AGINOX. • than those specified in the design and a the green, black, and gold colours of the HLCXSD40-2CLCS 6061 and 6062 have been program of modifications is in hand with CM 1950s. Previously namedBo/wventore (one of outshopped by AMF and are to be leased to to rectify these problems. many CN business cars to use this name), the Union Pacific. Things have not got any better and Octo• car has been named Pacific Spirit since its ber 1996 saw 18 of the 34 Class 201 locomo• release from the West Coast Railway Heritage STCUM tives grounded with major faults. The most Park, where its overhaul was carried out. CAB UNITS STORED serious of the problems has been the dis• The car left the museum in Squamish on Three of the seven FP7s which are used on covery of structural cracks in five of the July 26, after over six months there, during the Rigaud—Montreal commuter line are locomotives. Questions were also asked in the which time WCRA volunteers stripped the stored unserviceable with various aflments, Dial, the Irish Parliament, about the reliabil• car's interior and assisted CN's contractors apparently including at least one cracked ity of the locomotives and whether or not with the design, acquisition of materials, and engine block. The tinits which are stored are they have been a waste of taxpayer's money. painting of the can Pacific Spirit was switched 1300, 1301, and 1303, all built in 1952 for out of the museum by former PCE RSC3 561, the CPR, and transferred to the STCUM in CANADIAN PACIFIC and was taken to North Vancouver on a 1982. NEW AND OLD NOTES special freight train behind 2-8-0 3716. CPR's new CE AC4400CW units, numbered -WCRA News CAPE BRETON AND 9500 to 9582, are to be limited to 4000 CENTRAL NOVA SCOTIA horsepowe? down from 4400 hoisepowe? FREIGHT CARS when operated in a consist with Soo SD60s CPR SECOND-HAND BOXCARS ALCO/MLW UPDATE numbered Soo 6000 to 6020. This limitation Canadian Pacific bought in September and AIco power is still a dominant presence on is achieved through a switch called the Power October a large number of used 50-foot the Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Limit Switch. • CP CP9 8220 has been seen boxcars from the Itel group in the U.S. Up to Railway and will probably be for some time in the CPR's newest variant of the red paint 1500 cars are believed to be involved in the to come. After the acquisition of former CN scheme: painted candy-apple red and lettered transaction, and cars have been spotted in 2028, 2038, and 2317 for parts earlier this "CP Rail," without the word "System" and the CP 211500 to 212699 number series. The yea? the active roster is changing somewhat. without the dual flags. • Stored CP30 5001 cars have CP reporting marks, and not the The former CN M636 2317, which had was to be converted to a control cab, but CPAA marks used on many recent boxcars for been purchased for parts from a scrap dealer plans have changed and the unit is back in U.S. service. The cars were previously painted in Moncton at scrap value, made its first run storage at Calgary, along with CP30 5000. and lettered for a wide range of U.S. raflroa- on the CB&GNS as the second unit of Train Either or both may be preserved, as the only ds, many of which were Itel-owned short 305 on October 2. The unit was in decidedly •two Canadian-built GPSOs. lines. The cars were built by a variety of rough shape when it was purchased by the manufacturers in the 1970s, including Golden CB&CNS; the horns, bell, lights, etc., were aU Motive Power sources: Mike Cleary, Roman Tye, National Railways of Mexico, Southem missing; and holes had been cut in the fuel Hawryiuk, Ron Jackson, John F Legg, Bill Miller, Pat Iron and Equipment Co., and U.S. Railway tank. But, after an evaluation of the unit's Semple, Glen Smith, Gordon Webster, FCRS Equipment Co. -FCRS Tempo Jr. history the decision was made to rebuild it. Tempo Jr.

22 • Rail and Transit • September-October 1996 Transcontinental Railway and transit news from coast to coast

Sean Robitaille 371 Wakefield Place market, Ontario L3Y 6P3

HAMILTON ... September 21—October 13 Greg Smith UCRS PARRY SOUND TRIP September 21 October 19-20 07:51 - CN Train 399 with 9310-CTW 5731-6203-5926 Pat Scrimgeour 11:52 - CN Train 897 with 9554-5419 Several UCRS members made an excursion September 29 from Toronto to Parry Sound and back on 11:04 - CN Train 144 with 5224-5339-HATX 409 VIA Trains 1 and 2, and caught some action October 6 in the Parry Sormd area drrring the day they were there. Here's what they saw: 14:31 - CN Train 391 with 6028-GTW 5706-CN 9454-4131 14:39 - GN Train 145 with 5616-CTW 5933-5831-5825 October 19 15:11 - CN Train 144 with 5292-5352-5622 Medora 15:22 - CN Train 384 with 9665-CArX 3702-CN 5607 • Meet with CN southbound with 5636-5671 15:51 - CN Train 363 with 3518-3588-3573 Parry Sound October 13 • VIA Train 1 departed at 17:06, after two 11:53 - CN Train 390 with 6012-CTW 5925-5937-CN 9460 stops, with 6437-6440-8616-8117-8122- 12:13 - CN Train 384 with 5615-DWP 5909-GN 6414 8507-8505-Amlierst Manor-Heame Manor- LairdManor-BurtonManor-CarletonManor- GUELPH SUB. DETOURS . : November 16-17 Brian Ellis Pranklin Manor-Drummond Manor- To permit a 24-hour work block to repair the sinkhole at Copetown on the Dtmdas Subdivision, Frontenac-Stuart Manor-Chdteau Roberval- GN used its secondary main, the Guelph Subdivision, for a limited number of detorrring freight Tliompson Manor-Strathcona Park trains between Toronto and London. In addition, VIA Trains 75, 76, 78, and 79 on November 16 were detoured via the Cuelph Sub. The foUowing trains were seen or heard passing through MacTier Kitchener during the work block. • CP southbound at 18:10 with 777-Soo 756

14:15 - CN Train 391 with 5367-6008-9615 Mile 145, Bala Sub. 15:55 - CN Tiain 145 with 5320-5251-9509 ' CN Train 219 at 19:27 with 5284-5129- 17:40 - VIA Train 75 with 6420-8622-4001-4110-4114-4100-4119-4120 5391 18:14 - CN Train 362 takes siding with 9313-5175 Rosseau Road 18:43 - VIA Train 76 with 6411 • CN and CP trains, seen in the dark 19:20 - VIA Train 89 with 6407 October 20 19:20 - CN Train 362 departs Kitchener Depot Harbour 20:45 - VIA Train 79 with 6407 • Remnants of the Canada Atlantic (Ottawa, 21:57 - VTATrain88/78with6424-Amtk39948-39956-39949-34030-38062-VIA6401-3329- Amprior and Parry Sormd) roundhouse and 3362-3368-3454 harbour facihties 22:25 - CN Train 275 with 5312-5345 Mile 160, Bah Sub. (north ofWaubamik) 00:37 - CN Train 383 with 5701-LMS 739-CN 6012 • CN Train 112 with 5654-9631 01:45 - CN Train 385 with 6005-WC 6629-CN 6022 • 02:15 - CN Train 395 with 9415-CTW 6220-WC 6608-LMS 728 Ardbeg 03:44 - CN Train 399 with 9453-LMS 717-733-722-CTW 5935-5802-GR 6664-CN 5190- 12:42 - CN Train 217 with 5263-9592-5008 12:55 - CN Train 118 with 5256-5293 9463-CTW 5930 14:35 - CN southbound with 5665-9480 14:15 - CN Train 396 with 5292-CTW 5920 14:35 - CN Train 101 with 2520-2447

DORVAULACHINE . . . , November 16-20 Roman Hawryiuk Parry'Sound November 16 • CP southbound with 5734-6003-749, at • CN Train 335 with 2107-9400-GTW 6416 (in CNNA paint) , the CPR station • CN Train 395 with 9415-CTW 6220-WC 6608-IMS 728- • VIA Train 2 arrived at 17:10 with 6441- • CN Train 307 with 5379-2118 6453 and 17 cars • CN Train 368 with 6006-95xx-4112 (Rain 368 was handling two GO Ransit bi-ievei cars, on Folding their way to AMF, just ahead of the tail end of the train.) • Met CN Train 219 with 5652-5650 November 20 Washago • CN Train 367 with 5614-5350-DWP 5907-CN 5609-9544 • As Train 2 stopped at 18:46, on the New• • CDAC eastbound with CDAC 40-MKCX 4303-BAR 303-CP 1845 (Tlxis train came as a tight market Sub. siding were 3580-9675 engine from Saint-Luc, lifted its train just west of Lachine, then proceeded eastward.) ' CN Train 308 with 9569-9302-9511

Rail and Transit • September-October 1996 • 23