Cataraqui Spur Derailment - March 25, 2020

Again today, CN No 518 derailed on CN's Cataraqui Spur heading to the lakefront Invista nylon plant here in Kingston. Every three weeks, CN will be scheduling a local derailment at this location. Now more than ever, local media needs a novel story (besides the absolutely awful COVID-19 outbreak which has pushed all other stories off the front page, back page, sports page, and every other page in between) to grab and hold readers' attention. We need more social media commenters advancing more conspiracy theories as to why it happened, like... I've heard it may be "the aliens speaking through my tinfoil hat and dental fillings" kind of thing. These are not social media influencers.

Since this derailment is now a regular thing, you can read about the peculiarities of this particular soggy, tectonic-shifting location in this previous derailment post hastily published on March 4. The train crew confers (top photo) and the local signal maintainer pulled up to assist. CN Police were en route as I headed home after the weekly grocery run. The leader, CN 4784 sits waiting in the weeds:

Same soggy spot, just south of Bath Road. This time, the easternmost rail has rolled, and the only reason the cars didn't derail at an angle is because their wheels are resting on the web of the rail. As close as I could get, from the Armstrong Road strip mall. Kingston Police sealed off Bath Road from Queen Mary Road in the east to Centennial Boulevard in the west.

The consist:

-CN 4784

-CN 4130

loaded scrap gondolas from KIMCO including (first three cars on the four-lane crossings)

-CMBX197929 (ex-CN) bathtub gondola (Combined Metal Industries Ltd.)

-GACX 53829 black gondola

-CMBX 2263 black (ex-Sultran) bathtub gondola

-CMBX 197843 (ex-CN) bathtub gondola

-CMBX 100099 black (ex-David J Joseph) bathtub gondola

-CMBX 100199 black bathtub gondola

-MGRX 50041 and the usual covered hoppers and tank cars covering nylon feedstock safely negotiated the spot and do not appear derailed. The scrap gons bore the brunt of the mishap this time. Scrap, not sulphur:

The rerailed cars were stashed at CN's team track near Gardiners Road. This time, rerailing and dumping in some ballast aren't going to cut it. CN needs new ties, more spikes and perhaps more rail anchors here. The view from Centennial Drive:

Interestingly, the lead-in to this post makes it sound like some kind of an April Fool's Day post, which it is not. But it sure keeps the railfanning local!

The Kingstonist has some photos from the east side showing the rolled rail:

Another Kingstonist/submitted photo from March 25 showing track reconstruction. Note the 'second set' of rails and Perkan (Montreal) side-boom bulldozer.

March 27 Update: Cars for Invista still on-track south of the crossing, gons removed.

March 31 Update: Cars from the early-March derailment (getting tricky to keep track of all these derailments!) and trailerload of axles still on team trackage at top of Cataraqui Spur. The tamper has likely run around the covered hoppers after working at the derailment site, and was about to be picked up by a CN flatbed transport truck:

Thanks to Andrew, Paul and Michael for heads-ups. Or head-ups. Or heads-ups. Whatever!

And Malcolm and Paul for additional information.