November Sale

Need something new for your bookshelf, DVD collection, railroadiana collection, or train room wall? Full steam ahead for the semi-annual Trackside Treasure sale! First email received indicating interest in each item to mile179kingston@yahoo.ca means the item is yours. Each item will be shipped well-protected via Canada Post, upon receipt of payment. Shipping cost will be actual postage...bundle and save! Payment by cheque, money order or well-concealed cash. Thanks for browsing, and I hope you find something you like! - Eric

ITEMS SOLD SO FAR: 1, 8, 12, 17. THANKS!

An absolutely beautiful set of prints showing the Rocky Mountaineer operating through the majestic mountain and canyon scenery of British Columbia and Alberta. Matted plastic-sealed prints,  this set of two vertical and two horizontal format ready for framing, or enjoy them as they are. Item 1, sold as a set for $50 ...NOW $40.

Image size is 7"x10", total size with Arctic white mat is 11"x14". This set makes a great Christmas gift!

"Classic Retro art prints illustrated by world-renowned artist Jode Thompson bring the Canadian Rockies to life - with a twist of nostalgia." (Reflection from plastic is in my photos only.)

Two CN steam classic 8x10 black & white fantrip prints: CN 6218 at Belleville and CN 6153 at Turcot roundhouse. Item 2 and 3, $5 each.

Framed colour print of CN 76650 transfer caboose at Belleville 1978 Item 4 $10; Classic Trains Summer 2013 special expanded Interurban issue Item 5 $5, January 1977 Rail Classics has colour photo of CPR 8010 and Budd car at E&N Victoria engine house and B&W photo of L&PS box motor L1 Item 6 $2.

Canadian railway books...Steam Into Wilderness, story of the Ontario Northland Railway by Albert Tucker 1978, hardcover 214 pages, dust jacket, illustrated Item 7 $10; The Last Stop by Ron Brown 2002, fascinating Ontario station histories, softcover 192 pages, illustrated Item 8, $6.

Inside Railroading published by AAR 1957, tells the story Inside of Caboose, Railroad 'Navy', Dining Car Kitchen and  another dozen locations, printed in three colours, illustrated, colour cover Item 9 $6; CN Express Heated Service book of 50 orange adhesive stickers, original, Item 10 $7; Saint John in the Golden Age of Postcards, softcover 128 pages includes bridges, stations, rail lines 11 $6; Bytown Railway Society 1999 Trackside Guide, colour covers, softcover 1+ inch thick! Item 12 $5.

Three Souvenir Folder colour print folios, postcard-sized, early 20th century: Rutland VT, Land of Evangeline NS and Fredericton NB. Please specify, Item 13, $5 each. All three for $13!

Close up of mailable covers (below), colour views on both sides, only one side of each shown (above):

Framed print copy of CP passenger train at Morant's Curve 21 inches wide, 17 inches high, Item 14 $15.

CN original, mint-condition metal car seals, Item 15 $3 each:

Only a few sets left! From the Operator's Desk, CP Rail Ignace, Ontario 1981. Includes train orders, clearances, train lineups, train journals, messages. Contents of a sample set shown below. Item 16 $14 each:

VIA FP9ARM 6304 replica piggybank in plastic, 9 inches in length. Made in Canada VIA Exclusive Licensee Canadian Sports & Marketing (lacks stopper) Item 17 $8.

Canadian Pacific Hudson 2816's inaugural run on Disc 2, 2-year rebuild on Disc 1, each DVD 60 minutes, Item 18 $10 set of two.

Railway System Maps, most full colour (except C&NW and Chessie three-colour): Item 19 $9 C&NW 1985, Item 20 $9 Southern Railway System 1975, Item 21 $9 Norfolk Southern 1989, Item 22 $9 Southern Pacific undated, Item 23 $5 Chessie System Michigan Carferries 1976, Item 24 $10 CN 1980. All 6 for $48! (See Top Photo)

Running extra...some recent links you might like to click, visit, explore and enjoy:

Tangent Scale Models has introduced a new tank car model. Though I detest the use of the word 'cute' for anything train-related, this 6,000 gallon, 3-compartment is darn cute. 

Chris van der Heide's comprehensive Canadian Freight Car Gallery appears in Trackside Treasure's sidebar. Chris also blogs about his future Algoma Central HO scale layout. Until it's built, the blog will feature various  rolling stock and other projects.

Amtrak has a nice Photo of the Week page on its Official Blog. Be sure to check out the short video of their new sleepers, diners and even baggage-dorms.

Reefer madness at Sugar Junction - a motor car trip in Colorado happens upon a veritable museum of former Milwaukee, San Luis Central, Amtrak and PFE reefers.

Thanks for taking in the Trackside Treasure November sale!

Ode to a Stack Train

I once heard that a good story begins in the middle, and with that in mind...

No whistle to hear, singing rails make train appear,

No air horns at this crossing, let tracks do the talking,

CN Number 149, westward daily 'round this time,

Two units plugging, stack cars lugging,

Profile-hugging, effortless tugging,

Well, well, well cars on the centre track we go,

Keeping the centre of gravity low,

Back-hauling to China we now disappear,

For another load of goods we used to make here,

Initials: MSC CMA CGM TTX,

Short stacks of cans, one car after the next

ETU flashing, midday peace crashing,

Now restored. Westward you go,

Westward you go.

And now the beginning of the story...

On October 15, I found myself in Shannonville once again. A westbound CP hi-rail truck let it be known there would be little traffic on the Road of the Golden Rodent, so I concentrated on CN and VIA. Since my last visit, the earthen berm just south of the CN triple-track has grown up in waist-high weeds, so I stayed closer to trackside. A headlight far to the east on the undulating hog-back profile of the Kingston Sub, east of Belleville looked like a long freight. CN No 149 soon popped over the Shannonville Road crossing, where whistling is prohibited.

My usual thought process kicked in: stack train = boring. But with a digital camera, I can merrily shoot pictures all day with no consequences, which is what I did. In case I never print these photos, I'll share them here. Since I don't want to subject Trackside Treasure readers to "Here's a bunch of random, uncaptioned stack train photos I took", I decided to put a modicum of energy into it and caption the photos as prose - not my first attempt at doing so, but not something you'll see a lot of.

So, now I've finished the story. Thankfully, CN is not overloaded with stack trains as some of the US railroads are, running one manifest per day each way on certain service lanes. Here it's just the opposite - we have many more manifests than intermodal trains.

Running Extra:

Bryan Martyniuk of Thunder Bay has a .pdf list of timetables for CN and CP, ACR pamphlet schedules and a small variety of railway publications, primarily CN marketing - free to a good home! You can email Bryan at bryanm@tbaytel.net to see what he has on offer.

There is slightly more ex-CP Budd stainless steel equipment in Kingston than there is in Thunder Bay. Three cars more on Sunday the 20th when 8608-8505-Evangeline Park deadheaded west on the tailend of train No 659. Dome lights on! Just like previous years' domes on the Kingston Sub! Non-tripod platform view (above) and non-time exposure flash photo (below). That's not a third marker, it's the 'ping-pong paddle' in the coupler.

Thanks to Chris for the heads-up! Chris' early-evening photo at Ottawa also shows 659's classy conclusion:

CP's Magical Multimark

Have you ever tried to draw CP's multimark, or apply it to a model?  Is it just a curved line and a triangle within? Nope, though it certainly looks good facing various directions! Chairman N.R. 'Buck' Crump and President Ian D. 'Big Julie' Sinclair (below) conducted the debut of this curvilinear creation of Lippincott and Margulies while D.B. Wallace, CP's general manager of public relations and advertising reported directly to them on its application. A portion of a square = stability, a segment of a circle = global activies, a triangle = motion and movement. Gradually applied to train order forms, matchbooks, soap, airplanes, timetables, ships, notepads and all manner of items that could displaya logo:

No corporate logo is merely doodled or drawn. It has dimensions, proportions and colours that it can and cannot appear in. There is some geometric science to it, so grab your protractor and ruler, and enjoy this how-to from a CP equipment paint diagram book (though the multiimark was at 40 degrees, locomotive nose stripes were at 45 degrees):

There are rules - lots of rules, paint diagrams and style sheets. The font predates the fonts currently available in most software, but is close to Helvetica Bold Oblique or Swis721 Black BT Italic. Applied to 1,100 locomotives, 800 passenger cars, 87,000 freight cars, 20 aircraft, 24 ships (liners, cargo ships and bulk carriers), and 5,000 highway trucks, in a variety of colours... red for CP Rail, orange for CP Air, sea green for CP Ships, blue for CP Transport, CP Express and Smith Transport, grey for CP Hotels and yellow ochre for CP Telecommunications.

CP's multimark was unveiled on June 17, 1968. Out went the script signature, beaver, goose and checkered funnel of Canadian Pacific's land, air and sea services. Applied gradually, perhaps more gradually than CN's get-a-paintin' attitude shown in this 1967 Maclean's magazine cartoon...many non-enthusiasts don't get it the first time. Thanks to Glenn Gillis!

It's hard to ascribe the iconic status of CN's wet-noodle logo to the multimark. The multimark arrived later and disappeared sooner. (Wait a minute - unlike CN's logo the multimark also appeared on airplanes - that was cool, but then again CN and CP logos both appeared on ships' funnels). I will not refer to the multimark as 'Pac-Man'.  That's an insult to the multimark, actually also to Pac-Man, and by extension also to the beautiful and lithe Ms. Pac-Man.

Strangely and inexplicably, the multimark publicity models included a red tank car and black locomotive. All other publicity models' colours were later painted the same on the prototype... black for hopper cars, green for newsprint cars, aluminum for temperature controlled cars, yellow for insulated/heated cars and vans. The display train that toured Canada (behind C-424's 4239-4242, green newsprint box 81030, mechanical reefer 286138, red 40-foot box 56767, cylindrical hopper 382632, yellow insulated box 165140, 50-foot combination-door box 202199, red mill gondola 342846, flat car and caboose 438850) famously photographed for postcards and lunch boxes in iconic CP locales such as the Laurentians, Lake Superior and the Spiral Tunnels) appeared in Canadian Pacific's 1968 Annual Report, with an MLW blurred locomotive with multimark similar to Michael Berry's photo (top - CP 4563 at the Canadian Railway Museum in St Constant QC).

There are a couple of exceptions to the usual application of the multimark as seen on a Microscale Decals HO sheet (above), on rolling stock.  CP's forty-foot double-door 'exceeds Plate F' appliance boxcars are one (check out Chris van der Heide's model in progress)...

and CP's riveted, centre-cupola cabooses, such as CP 434102 at Winnipeg (Paul B.Smith photo) are another:

The former had a soaring vertical space to fill, and the latter had a window placement issue. (No-one wants to see a munched-out multimark!) CP's fifty-foot insulated, excess-height 167500-series boxcars had a multimark that didn't go all the way to the top.

I believe CP bastardized their own original CP Rail paint scheme by removing the oh-so-expensive-to-apply multimark, beginning with SD40 5513 in 1987. When the even-more-expensive-to-apply and shorter-lived 'Golden Rodent' scheme was unveiled after much secrecy i.e. some units being released without it applied, beginning with AC4400CW 9581 in 1997, the locomotive number font was retained but a new one was introduced for the 'Canadian Pacific' and 'C:P' on the nose. CP 5617 'glistening rodent' trails two SD's in the also short-lived Dual Flags scheme at Trenton, Ontario in August 1999:

VIA's reversible logo chased the multimark off the letterband of CP's stainless steel equipment, just as the multimark had scared away the beaver a decade earlier, leaving the cars pockmarked and bullet-holed where the beaver-on-shield once proudly posed.

CP's car painters had multimark stencils available for each car type.  CP's smallest multimark was likely the one applied to the letter-band of their passenger cars.  Flat cars? Forget about it, no room!

Running extra...

Wonder what a multimark would have looked like on a plow wing. Here's a surplus 1926-built plow that CP is offering for sale in Kief, ND. It makes me feel very, very comfortable with my HO scale decalling efforts:

You have just celebrated a milestone, having read Trackside Treasure's 250th post. No special celebrations planned, just a prolonged release of air as I slump down, suspiring in my easy chair to contemplate the havoc I've wreaked in cyberspace so far. Vampirestat, bloglovin (whatever they are, but I wish they could turn their evil into good - my blog visit numbers are now completely meaningless), spammers "This is a really good post. You have raised some good ideas. I have some ideas I'd like to share on Singapore Apartment Furniture, click here" and Google images (actually useful) have found me.

Suddenly sentimental, I saw a romantic news story tonight on a young Japanese couple who held their wedding ceremony in the very same subway car in which they first met. Do you think I could find it on Youtube? Nope. Instead, I offer a photo, also from Japan, that's representative of how I cram even more content into each Trackside Treasure post:

Arigatou for joining me on the ride so far!

Ride on happy Japanese couple in your subway of blissful happiness, wherever you are!

-Eric

CN's Environmental Mode Logo

CN added a new logo to some of its covered hoppers promoting the growing interest in the environmental movement. "Rail - the environmental mode / Le train - la mode ecologique" a green and red-lettered slogan over a road-to-rail design was applied to selected covered hoppers at CN's Transcona Shops in Winnipeg from June to December 1991. In this era, CN seemed a bit 'at sea' for covered hopper paint schemes: large and small, black and red CN logos were being applied to various car series, all with an overall grey.

I usually recorded numbers of these unique cars as I observed them on CN's Kingston Sub. Sightings have certainly dwindled in recent years (destination and other information when known, shown in brackets):

1992: 377440 (DuPont), 377320, 370786, 377223, 377550, 371346, 370269, 371296, 370407.

1993: 371059, 370999, 370786.

1994: 371254, 370944, 370890, 377731 (DuPont), 377136 (DuPont).

1995: 377590, 370819, 371255, CNIS 368373, 377089, 368629, 377875.

1996: 377896, 370819, 370481.

1997: 371618, 377590, 371190, 377484, 371296, CNIS 368283 (Windsor, ON empty), 377875, 377377, 371018, 377613 (East Edmonton, empty), 382628, 370481 (Goderich, ON empty), 370638.

1998: 370935, 370819, 370387, 370950, 377440, 371190.

1999: 371626, CNIS 368373, 377808.

2000: 371677, LSMX 8644 (Louisville Scrap Material - The Andersons, stencilled over ex-CN).

2001: 371677

2002: 377449.

2003: CNLX 7431

These covered hoppers operated in various services including potash, salt, cement and even adipic acid to Kingston's DuPont plant (top and below, in February 1992). Perhaps lesser known was another series of CN cars that received the Environmental Mode logo...

and here's a vestige of one still roaming the rails in October, 2016: CN 377531, I think!

From 1964-66, New York Central's Despatch Shops (DSI) in Rochester, NY built single-door cushioned underframe 6000 cu.ft. boxcars with an Interior Length of 60'9" and internal height of 10' 9" in the NYC 53179-53654 series. Renumbered by Conrail in the CR 218000-219000 and 279000 series, CN acquired 150 cars from Conrail in 1988.  The cars occasionally operated in eastern Canada, with several cars including CN 599073 spotted in Ottawa's Walkley yard in July 1991.

Doug Stark kindly shared this unique photo from his collection showing CN 599136 in transition, with double plug doors, Conrail logo patched and lettering barely visible, undated in an unknown location:

I had seen CN 599119 in Belleville on January 8, 2000 waybilled to Montreal East QC, but didn't get a photograph. Apparently the logo was still in place in 2005 in Wisconsin. Unfortunately, the movement to Montreal East must have been a one-off, because I wasn't able to track or observe further such movements to eastern Canada in the new millennium.

I was able to trace this car's movements using CN's public trace system. The movement pattern for these boxcars, in 2000-2001:

-loaded with copper anodes at Hudson's Bay Mining and Smelting at Flin Flon MB

-CN handled Flin Flon-The Pas-Winnipeg MB-Fort Frances ON

-interchanged to Wisconsin Central at Stevens Point or Mellen WI

-unloaded at the refinery in White Pine MI in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

My earlier observations of these unique boxcars:
Dec 17/93 CN 599097
Mar 17/94 CN 599079

Dave Minshall kindly shared several photos of the cars in service in Manitoba. Two views of CN 599055 in April 2002, Winnipeg:

CN 599078, March 1998, Winnipeg Fort Rouge:

CN 599012, October 1994, The Pas:

More photos of these cars show that CN converted at least some of these cars from double-door plug cars to 12-foot Superior sliding doors.  CN 599079, taken in April 1990 shows the Conrail wordmark and logo painted out, with CN reporting marks applied prior to repainting.  Notice that the words in green and red on the covered hoppers were reproduced in white on the boxcars. Why were these boxcars selected to wear the Environmental Mode logo? Perhaps because of their large, non-exterior post sides that allowed the same stencil as the covered hoppers to be used.

Marc Simpson blogged about a Flin Flon derailment that occurred in 2000. In his photos in this post are CN 599133 and an Environmental Mode boxcar! Marc notes that these cars were used in copper anode service from the smelter in Flin Flon.

Running extra...this time all Trackside Treasure housekeeping items...

This is the first of an irregular series that I'm calling CCFC: Classic Canadian Freight Cars. Watch for uniquely Canadian rolling stock rostered by CN, CP and other Canadian car owners. Thoughts of using the series name CCF (political overtones) or CFC (environmental overtones) were shunted from my train of thought onto a sidetrack.

Watch for a Sceneramic Scequel. I've been accumulating some more (more!) information on the Sceneramics since the posts on the cars in CN and VIA service, plus their tiny lettering VIAnigma. These cars spawned stories as numerous and large as their dome window panels! More history, more rumours, more photos to come.

Javascript void(0) programming issues have necessitated a move of my welcome message and blog header photo details to the top of the right sidebar. I'm actually liking the move, because the 'front page headline' blog post title is more visible upon loading the page. Publishing day has moved mid-week due to allow for more traditional Saturday morning activities involving strong coffee and a thick newspaper!