CN's Kingston Industrial Spur, Part 1

CN's Industrial Spur served industries in west-end Kingston. For more, see Part 2. Branching off the north track of CN's Kingston Sub at Mi 178.5, the spur served a DuPont Canada warehouse, Weldwood lumber distributor (track KM54), and Northern Telecom's telephone cable plant (tracks KM50-53), as shown in this 1985 CN car control diagram. The DuPont warehouse, on 560-foot track KM55, shipped fibre produced at the lakeside DuPont plant served by CN's Cataraqui Spur. The fibre was trucked to the warehouse and shipped out by rail. During 1979-80, a colourful collection of brand-new American boxcars arrived at the warehouse for loading. Vermont Railway VTR 12039, blt 12-78, at Queens coupled to an orange SSI boxcar:

Milwaukee Road MILW 12319, repainted 2-79:

ROCK 300793, blt 11-78, spotted with SLSF 42072:

Railboxes RBOX 30795, blt 11-78, and RBOX 31071, blt 12-78:

Warwick Railway WRWK 5200, blt 1-80, leased to Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac:

Vermont Railway VTR 13213, blt 6-79:

Southern Railway SR 531836, blt 4-79:

Many of these photos show the proximity of the DuPont spur to the Industrial Spur, which was adjacent to and slightly below the roadbed of the Kingston Sub. Other boxcars spotted at DuPont: PC 167254, CN 579158, 562617, SR 525058, 531733, 526776. A few years ago, 5 or 6 CN 40- and 50-foot boxcars were spotted at the warehouse, representing the end of rail shipping.

Here's an additional photo via Tim Reid. Another Warwick Railway boxcar, WRAK 5245, nicely photographed at the DuPont warehouse, undated:

DECEMBER 2018 UPDATE***The track is still in place, visible while passing the warehouse aboard VIA Rail! Transport trucks now shuttle around the south side of the warehouse. February 2019 photo. Stop blocks still in place at far end of spur:

Running extra...

This is one of a series of posts covering Kingston's rail-served industries. I'll be profiling the tracks, plus switching operations and cars handled on each track, over the years I was able to photograph them. Previous posts covered the Cataraqui Spur and CP's interchange at Queens. Industrial Spur, Part 2 will cover Weldwood, Northern Telecom and more on the Cat Spur team track.

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Listening with interest to Captain Joshua Slocum's "Sailing Alone Around the World". He just cleared Tierra del Fuego, where he sprinkled carpet tacks on the deck to deter unwanted guests (Fuegians) while he slept below. How tacky. His use of arcane sailing vocabulary would send even an experienced sailor searching for a glossary of nautical terms.

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Captions of Industry: A photo in the August issue of Trains magazine incorrectly identifies a five-pack of liquid cargo containers on CN No 149 as a carload of aluminum ingots. Liquid containers cannot have other containers stacked on them. No 149 normally lifts the ingot traffic on the headend, setout earlier by No 369 at Belleville. "Get me rewrite! DPM where are you?"