CN's Kingston Industrial Spur, Part 2

The west end of CN's Industrial Spur in Kingston included track KM54. For more, see Part 1. This track led to a partly-covered door-level platform at Weldwood lumber. The Weldwood building was built in 1970 and is now owned by Home Hardware, with the unloading/storage area covered. In 1980, PGE 5344 and BCOL 5258 were being unloaded.

In 1981, BCOL 40025, in the newer darker-green scheme, built 10-71 was at Weldwood:

Other boxcars spotted at Weldwood: CN 592508, 568638, 567039, CP 290443 and BCOL 4943 and 40879. Passing by aboard VIA in June, 1982 two CN double-door boxcars were spotted at Weldwood. The building is now a Home Hardware store, and the former rail-served platform is still used for under-cover lumber storage. After the Industrial Spur crossed Gardiners Road, it curved away from CN's Kingston Sub double track and led to the Northern Telecom phone cable plant. In this aerial view, the spur can be seen just below the parking lot, as it dog-legs back into the plant property:

At Northern, there was a car storage/runaround track KM51, and unloading tracks KM52 and KM53. Covered hoppers of polypropylene and polyethylene pellets for wire insulation arrived from Hercules in Montreal and C-I-L in Edmonton and Sarnia. In September 2000, 4118 and 4115 were pushing cars into the plant property. The plant closed in 2003. In 2014, the 500,000 sq ft plant was purchased by Kingston's Taggart Construction, for demolition. Originally listed for $4.1 million, a court-ordered sale for $2.5 million was the final result.

In June 2000, NCLX (ex-DOCX) 44608 was off-spot for the plant, in front of the DuPont warehouse shown in Part 1:

In 1981, DOCX 44627 Sclair and ACFX 56634 Hercules were also off-spot, at the Cataraqui Spur team track KM02:

Let's stay on the Cataraqui Spur to see some other interesting cars spotted there. A CN covered hopper was being lifted from the team track by the local in 1981:

In July 1980, 40-foot CN boxcars 424187-421888-427196-421150 are on the team track, being loaded with hay for Manitoba farmers:

Interestingly, these two views Queen's University Archives shows the location of the team track (T) and a barn/silo Lasher's Feed Mill (L) between Bath Road and the mainline. Aerial view from 1965:

A complimentary view looking south on Gardiners Road, 1969, with a CN boxcar visible at the team track:

The team track was also a handy place for CN to store work equipment. Burro crane 50408, gondola 148878 and caboose 79295 were sitting still for the weekend in November, 1980:

In the spring of 1976, this large transformer was spotted on the team track. Likely for unloading and transfer across Gardiners Road to the Gardiners Transformer Station (L.C. Gagnon photo):

Brooks Scanlon of Redmond, Oregon double-door boxcar USLX 17009 was spotted in 1980. The KEC Lumber rep arrived with tape measure to measure the shipment of lumber. Note the load-restraining devices behind the opened plug door:

When the Cataraqui Spur was realigned and team track KM02 relocated east of Gardiners Road, KEC Lumber unloaded its lumber shipments there, as from flatcar CP 315687 in 1985 (below). Interestingly, A 1986 Belleville CN Car Control Manual lists "Customers with team track loading or unloading in that zone" in a customer list, including Cashway Lumber Ltd. on track KM03.

Tank cars of asphalt from Ashwarren asphalt in Millhaven were spotted on the new team track in March, 2004. Imagine hearing two Geeps pushing several of these loaded cars up the hill on the Cat Spur into the team track. The asphalt was heated, unloaded and trucked west to Millhaven, where a two-track unloading facility has since been built.

CN also found the new team track useful for tucking away work equipment after a day's work. Newly-arrived track gang equipment is here on several flat cars in December, 1994:

CN crane 50483 and accompanying gondolas were spotted here while working along the Kingston Sub picking up scrap rail in June, 2003:

Running extra...

Noticed all those annoying modern advertising slogans with loads of periods in them? Like Wal-Mart: Save Money. Live Better. Sears: Good Life. Great Price. Imagine if this scourge had struck years earlier? Pennsylvania Railroad: Standard. Railroad Of the World. CB&Q: Way. Of the Zephyrs. And CN: Serves All. Canada.

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Blog partner Steve Boyko has been a one-man Winnipeg wrecking crew, putting out a plethora of posts including photos and video of the local rail scene there. His blog, Confessions of a Train Geek is consistently the most-updated on the Trackside Treasure blog roll.

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Evening TV in the past week has included an affable Barack Obama on Late Night with David Letterman, as well as the bizarre Kanye West-Taylor Swift un-acceptance speech. Tonight it was jolly Michael Moore's turn on Larry King Live, plugging his new movie on capitalism. In all this, the new series Glee has emerged irreverent and not taking itself at all seriously.