CN's Kingston Wayfreights, Part 2 - Local Cars

This second post in the CN's Kingston Wayfreights series consolidates information found in CN train journals found discarded trackside (this is true trackside treasure!) along CN's Kingston Sub: at Belleville, Kingston and Brockville from 1977-1981 (three photos - below). The first post discussed the mainline roadswitcher trains that spawned these wayfreights. The typical look of roadswitcher-powered, caboose-toting wayfreights at the Counter Street crossing (above) in 1985.

I've extracted car routing data for Kingston-area industries, including:

• Reporting Marks
• Loaded or Empty
• Car Type
• Length
• Weight
• Origin
• Destination
• Track Designation
• Remarks
• Contents

along with handwritten notes by the conductor and selected train characteristics, including:

• Locomotives
• Loads
• Empties
• Tonnage
• Length
• Caboose

all when available. I've used this data to populate spreadsheets that I've scanned as JPEG's, since Blogger doesn't support pdf files, presented in date order. As always, click for a larger, more legible view:

Interestingly, the Boston & Maine boxcars were heading to the Trent Valley Paper board mill, located on the shores of the Trent River at Glen Miller, off Mi 4.89 of CN's Marmora Sub. After the rest of the subdivision to the north was abandoned, the first five miles were retained to serve the mill which still exists. The trackage was removed in 1988. No longer rail-served, the plant expanded to the west side of Highway 33. Track MC01 was on the east side of Highway 33. Craig Walker posted a photo of BM 77979 taken in October, 1980 to rrpicturearchives:

Let's go back a few years to see how Alcan used to receive ingots in 1943 from Alcan in Arvida, QC:

Here are a few sample photos of some wayfreights I photographed during this late-70's, early-80's era, followed by some cold, hard data that they represent. Note that in 1983 CN assigned CN No 526, a Belleville-Gananoque daily weekday wayfreight. A second, Kingston-based wayfreight was CN No 588 Kingston-Gananoque. Photos first...at 1324 on November 4, 1978 CN 4518  has a couple of CN hoppers in tow ahead of caboose 79449 passing the Amherst View water tank with railfan friend Drew sitting on the fence getting a much better view:

CN 4560-4567 with a DuPont Alathon car (heading for Northern Telecom?), two CN hoppers (heading for Stelco in Gananoque?) and another CN hopper eastbound on June 12, 1979:

Also at Mi 182, CN 4563 with westbound wayfreight on June 14, 1979:

In August, 1980 CN 4576 is eastbound past me with a fifty-foot paper car and a forty-foor couble-door boxcar also at Mi. 182 (L.C. Gagnon photo):

CGBX tank car (Millhaven?) between CN 4212 and caboose. It seems many 'Western' Geeps were in the East, waiting for their turn in the chopnosing program (D.J. Gagnon photo):

CN 4487 with two CN gondolas, two fifty-foot Southern Railway boxcars, two tanks (Millhaven?) and caboose 79428 westbound at 1628 on October 29, 1985.

Fellow Amherstview railfan Andre Gerow posted a 1989 video that includes a soon-to-be-chopped CN 4209 pulling a gon, a blue CNA auto parts box and bulkhead flat load of lumber likely heading to Gananoque:

The CNA boxcars are similar to these. CNA 794387 (above) from the Doug Stark photo collection, and CNA 794332 (below), a 4893 cu ft 50-foot boxcar built by Pullman-Standard in 1970 as GTW series 309000-309261 (Doug Stark photo, mid-90's at London, ON. Thanks, Doug!)

Here is some wayfreight data taken from my observations starting in 1979:

In the late 1980's and early 1990's, the local wayfreight switching DuPont would include a CN gondola or CN boxcar, likely from Gananoque as freight service ended there in 1995 and the last track was lifted in 1997:

Trackside Treasure reader Jakob Mueller kindly shared these views of a Kingston wayfreight, taken by visiting railfan DM Rector on October 8, 1981. 

CN 4534 leads a four-car wayfreight at Mi 184 Kingston Sub. The four cars are two gons, empty bulkhead BCIT 17001 and a single-door CNA boxcar.

Look closely! The train has changed as it approaches the Highway 133 overpass at Mi 188. It has lifted SAL 28174 boxcar from the south side at Millhaven. I noted this same car on January 2, 1982 and it also appears in one of the CN journals above on July 16, 1981. A repeat customer!

And here's a neat photo taken by the late Keith Hansen. Keith had kindly shared this photo he took showing Kingston switcher CN 1316 tied up at the Outer Station, summer 1970:

Thanks to David J. Gagnon, Jakob Mueller and Keith Hansen for assistance producing this post. Another notable Ontario railfan and modeller, Jason Shron - President of Rapido Trains Inc. - will be modelling CN's Kingston Sub primarily from a passenger point of view. Quite awhile ago, I planned to transcribe this information to assist Jason with prototypical CN freight train operations on his layout. 

Running extra...

It was a pleasure to be able to get a glimpse into Keith Hansen's railfanning and railway photography, not only via email communication with Keith, as recently as November 2016, but also through his fine books, Last Trains from Lindsay and The Northern Alberta Railways - North from Edmonton. Keith kindly shared photos for my Gananoque Spur and CP-Served Industries posts. Interestingly, today I drove through Lindsay and published this post including Keith's photograph. Keith has left behind a rich legacy of documenting some of Canada's most interesting railway operations.