An Afternoon on the Millhaven Spur, 1997

December 21, 1997 found me at the Celanese plant on CN's Millhaven Spur, climbing into the cab of former LV/CR SW-8m 78, an A.A. Merrilees industrial locomotive operated by Cando Contracting. I was invited and accompanied by Corey, a Celanese plant operator at the time. Once in the engine, we headed north from the plant with Cando crewmen Al and Nigel and several cars. The route, not to scale and omitting the full length of our route beyond the runaround track on the spur, is shown below with other all-time Millhaven Spur trackage:
Engine 78 paused in the curve (above) before starting to kick the cars it brought north into CN's lift/setout tracks KN03, KN04, KN05 (at right, below), and the storage-in-transit yard (at left, below). Both Al and Nigel wisely reminded us not to disembark on the north side of the covered hopper cars shown, as it was directly adjacent to CN's double-track Kingston Sub.

The covered hoppers were a mix of AMCX empties for lifting, and UNPX/CELX loads, either for lifting or storage until sold. The CHiP resin pellets in the loaded cars were processed by being melted, poured into molds, inflated with pressurized hot air to form 2-litre pop bottles, at plastics plants. In 1997, CHiP pop bottle resin was selling for 52 cents per pound, making a fully-loaded 199,000 pound capacity car's cargo worth $100,000!

Inbound ethylene glycol tank cars from Alberta were stored on the shortest north yard track:
As the sun dropped from the late-December sky, the crew continued past the tank cars to record the car numbers of all cars in the north yard. This task was usually done on Sundays. Corey is standing alongside the new yard, built only two years before:

The car numbers could either be gathered by the crew from inside the cab, or for the adventurous, by walking the roofwalks. CN's main line can be seen at left:

Then it was time for us guest engineers to take the throttle - fortunately for the safety of all concerned, this was limited to the long north-south tangent. From idle to notches 1, 2 and finally 8, I then stopped well short of the Taylor-Kidd Boulevard crossing using the engine brake. In the deepening darkness, we stopped at the resin tracks: loading at right, TA-unloading at left. A third track out of sight to left received "green-belt" AMCX covered hoppers. The Celanese Trackmobile, Corey's usual job, is just visible by its red lights:

Then it was down to the glycol tracks to place a couple of cars and record the numbers of those already placed for unloading. It's a safe bet that engine 78 was tucked in for the night at the shop soon after our tour ended. Disembarking marked the end of a great two-hour exposure to the nitty-gritty of car movements on the Millhaven Spur.

Running extra:

Just finished listening to Does this Clutter make my Butt Look Fat? by Peter Walsh. Interesting facts: Boeing has increased the assumed weight of each passenger by 20%, portion sizes have tripled in the last 25 years, and average waistline has increased by over 4 inches in less than 10 years. Want fries with that?

Celine Dion had twins. Do you call that a double-C.D. set? Her Titanic song left me with a sinking feeling. Did you hear about the ship load of yo-yo's that sank in Vancouver harbour? It sank fourteen times.

A derailment on CN near Cornwall this past week caused delays in CN and VIA traffic, and Ottawa-Montreal-Toronto VIA detours. On to Ottawa! Whether you want to go or not. An upcoming post will detail CP detours over CN's Kingston Sub, plus the derailment of empty flat cars for a military movement from Kingston to Wainwright in 1987.