Black Friday in Belleville, November 2016

Black Friday as a 'holiday tradition' is migrating north to Canada. To cash in on sales, Canadian retailers are adopting the post-US Thanksgiving holiday retail extravaganza. Regardless, practising some retail therapy in the family, I found myself at the mall on Black Friday. More specifically, Kingston Transit's new Cataraqui Centre transfer point. Not-really-Express-bus KT 1259 was at the transfer point (top photo) while brand new NOVA Kingston Express 1684 arrives from Gardiners Road (below). Speaking of road, it was time for it to be hit. So we hit the road for Belleville.

Belleville yard is a wasteland. Formerly the site of the welded-rail plant and then Great Lakes Region MoW car storage, it is now an empty expanse across which I spotted ACTX 210040, an orange-saddled car of Hydrogen Fluoride for Port Hope's Cameco plant, along with three bulkhead flat cars of pallet wood for Cobourg. Note the Continuous Welded Rail (CWR) train in background:

Also in the yard were CN locomotives 5414 and 2116. The next day, 5414 would lead the CWR train east to Kingston.

CN 2116 seemed to have some odd markings behind its cab. It's actually a CN welding truck behind the backhoe at left. At least four hi-rail trucks and three pieces of track machinery were jockeying back and forth on the yard tracks behind those stored Trailer-Train well cars.

Over at the car shop, I found this Herzog equipment. It's actually an RUM - Rail Unloading Machine used to thread rail from a CWR train. Here's a Herzog Youtube video which shows it in use.

Some detail shots, just in case an ardent Trackside Treasure reader has a yearning to scratchbuild one:

At 1110, VIA No 62/52 streaked eastward. CN No 376, a perennial favourite of mine at Belleville, arrived at 1130 behind CN 8925-5794. Easing to a stop at Elmwood Drive crossing for a recrew, it departed east through the mist and fog about 15 minutes later.

 About to depart, with incoming crew ready to do pull-by inspection:

 Starting to pull with ditch-lights now on:

The first car on the train, centre-beam bulkhead flat BCOL 730792 was toting Anderson Planers lumber. Able to note 99% of 376's consist, here is the breakdown of cars:

• 45 boxcars, mostly TBOX or FBOX
• 30 covered hoppers, mostly plain-jane ACFX grey on the tail-end
• 82 tank cars carrying a variety of commodities: styrene monomer, sulphuric acid, limestone slurry, carbon dioxide, xylene and propane
• 8 centre-beam bulkhead flats carrying Aspen Planers, Canfor, West Fraser, Riverside, Hampton Portland Oregon and Tolko lumber 

 My HO-scale decal work is not perfect, but neither is the lettering job on this GATX tank car.

 IC 385370, 101963 and 389152 were about thirty cars in:

 NADX 120056 is a sixty-foot single-door box among tank cars:

 Mid-train DP unit was 2277:

Back on November 13, sister car UNPX 123149 was also clean and pristine, also on No 376 at Kingston and here my Belleville report ends photographically. (I will be asking Santa for a second camera battery!) I subsequently caught No 373 westbound at 1200 with five tanks, 17 grain cars and 64 empty auto racks behind CN 3077. No 369 was arriving at 1400 behind CN 2330-8877, carrying Resolut and Barrette lumber, four pitch tankcars including CGTX 18472.

Running extra...

Thanks to Trackside Treasure's responsive readership for your kind comments and supportive emails you sent re: the previous post. The blogosphere continues to unfold as it should. Much appreciated.

This may not have been Albert Hammond's highest-charted song, but the vocal harmonies are tight (especially the sevenths around 2:45) and a version of this song with appropriate train images was shown on Captain Kangaroo many years ago. I'm A Train I'm A Chick-A Train Yeah!

Following up on the Cameco tank car, Mike Lockwood kindly shared two photos of Belleville power CN 4115-4125 switching Cameco the next day. ACTX 210040 is swapped for ACTX 210047; the power accessing plant trackage on the lead behind Port Hope's VIA station. Thanks, Mike!

If you're on Facebook, I'm posting a FB Christmas Thought of the day, daily between now and Dec. 24. I started a day early in case I get into some of my son's homemade eggnog and need to take a day off (12 large eggs, 1 pound sugar, pints of whole milk, heavy cream, half and half, cup of cognac, cup of bourbon, nutmeg and kosher salt). Season til festive.