Invista Outbound Cars & Derailment

In 2016, Kingston's Invista (formerly DuPont) plant began shipping an outbound product produced at the nylon plant. The plant's traditional inbound feedstock loads - hexamethylene diamine by tank car and adipic acid by covered hopper car - used to arrive from DuPont's sister plant in Maitland, ON. Now they come all the way from Texas. Watch for an upcoming post on the cars used for feedstocks - while that's in the works, this post profiles the outbound-product cars. 

From a 2020 Recycling Today article: "Invista, a company that is part of Kansas-based Koch Industries, is supplying nylon 6,6 pellets made from manufacturing scrap to Spain-based Nylstar so it can produce its Meryl line of recycled-content yarns. Invista, which produces fibers for airbags and carpeting at a factory in Kingston, Ontario, says it converts manufacturing scrap generated at that plant into recycled-content pellets. Those pellets are supplied to Nylstar so it can make its Meryl line of yarn while adhering to the Global Recycled Standard (GRS) certification standard by using the recycled-content nylon 6.6 polymer, [to offer] brand partners a new way to transition to closed-loop solutions."

Only 1-2 cars for this new product are inbound or outbound from the plant on a given CN No 518, the train that works the Cataraqui Spur. The outbound cars are outnumbered by the similar-looking adipic acid cars, which usually number 5 to 10. The key difference of the outbound cars is their unloading hatches. They're also the trickiest to see while driving by on nearby Front Road, which is the north property line of the plant. Usually placed on the easternmost track, they're often obscured by loaded adipic acid cars stored nearer to Front Road. Pressing on...each fleet handling the outbound product will include photos, and first observations of each car: date, car number and notes.

I don't yet know how these outbound loads make their way to Spain, or if they're shipped to another location in North America. The fleets are, in order of my first observation at the Invista plant: 

• SRLX Southern Rail Leasing
• PLCX General Electric Rail Services, formerly Pullman Car Leasing until 1986
• UTCX Union Tank Car Company
• INVX Invista
• ACFX General Electric Rail Services, formerly American Car & Foundry until 1997

SRLX

SRLX 45139 is tucked in behind 4779-GTW 4625 (above) as CN No 518 heads west from the Cataraqui Spur on the south main track of the Kingston Sub on March 18, 2022. SRLX 45173, 45130 and 45126 were surprisingly and strangely set-out on the team track at the top of the Cataraqui Spur on April 23, 2016. Why? This may have been off-spot, for familiarization or just the beginning of production. At first, I thought this was a switching error or a one-off. I took the opportunity to photograph the cars that would soon become commonplace.

Close-up of SRLX 45126 (above) and 45130 (below)

Stencilling on the car: "THIS CAR HAS FOUR COMPARTMENTS EQUIPPED WITH 5015A FLUIDIZED BUTTERFLY OUTLETS". The fluidized butterfly outlets are made by SMBC Rail Services. Detail view of the double-groove pneumatic gate unloading mechanism, produced by Miner Enterprises:

SRLX Observations:

-Feb 3/16 45186

-Apr 20/16 45139

-Apr 23/16 45173, 45130, 45126

-Jul 2/16 45115

-Jul 13/16 45148

-Aug 3/16 45052

-Aug 19/16 45244

-Sep 10/16 45139, 45062

-Nov 15/16 45053

-Nov 23/16 45132 derailed track KM31

-Dec 27/16 45133

-Jan 6/17 45157

-Jan 17/17 45062, 45148

-Jan 26/17 45190 end-lettered SLRX (see photo)

-Feb 8/17 45116

-Sep 22/17 45099, 45130

Interestingly, all three outbound car series were together in one train (above and two photos below) - CN No 518 on May 22, 2017.

PLCX

The PLCX cars are the only 'flat-sided' covered hoppers, in service until 2018.

PLCX observations:

-Jul 20/16 46157 or 517?

-Nov 15/16 46513

-Feb 17/17 46509

-Feb 27/17 46248 ?42648

-Mar 4/17 43940

-May xx/17 46518

-May 22/17 46517

-May10/18 46505

-Aug 23/18 43940

-Sep 3/18 46510

UTCX 

Rare visitors, no photos. Just two UTCX observations:

-Sep 10/16 53219

-Jan 6/17 53248

INVX

INVX cars have been relettered from DUPX, Center-Flow built by ACF. They have Salco caps and stenciling "INT COATING CHAMPION 636 APPLIED BY SRSV 1013". Champion 636 is a polyurethane liner produced by PPG. INVX 38613 at Invista on October 28, 2023 (above).

INVX observations:

-Feb 8/17 38615

-Mar 9/17 38619

-Dec 3/17 38616, 38605, 38603, 38611, 38615 at team track, top of Cat Spur gone by Dec 10

-Jan 29/18 38612

-Oct 5/18 38609

-May 17/20 38608

ACFX

The most recent addition to the cars in use, just this year. 

ACFX observations:

-May 30/22 37429

-Jul 8/22 37301

-Aug 12/22 37561

-Aug 28/22 37310

-Sep 11/22 37157

-Sep 15/22 37176

-Oct 4/22 37400 (derailed at plant Nov 22 top photo and below)

-Nov 4/22 37165

-Nov 11/22 37223

ACFX DERAILMENT

If this derailment site looks familiar, it's because it was the scene of the derailment of SRLX 45132 on November 23, 2016 - six years earlier. There was as a another derailment at these derails in February, 2015. A report from our son about a car off the rails at Invista was the genesis of this noon visit on November 23. C.A. Peters Crane sent its 300-ton Grove 6300L, and the crane made its exodus west to Belleville by 1600 that afternoon. 

A concurrent tie program, installing bundles of ties that have been in the Invista parking lot for months, was underway. Oil Well Services Railroad Construction & Maintenance (OWS) maintains Invista's plant trackage, so several OWS workers and three trucks were onsite. Ties on the westernmost storage track were being changed out. Cars on the two westernmost storage tracks were pushed toward the plant buildings.

After the 2016 derailment, the crane-access road constructed by two excavators was left in place, coming in handy! The crane was just setting up as we left the scene for grocery-shopping. The boom was already over the ACFX car upon our departure west on Front Road.

Just days before, Belleville-Kingston turn CN No 518 had changed its days of working the plant from Monday-Wednesday-Friday day-shift to a nocturnal Tuesday - Thursday - Sunday switch. It is now known as CN No 519 (the number works for eastward and westward movements. At Invista, new trainees are told to place the 'whites'  up to the derail, since it's downhill from here to the busy Front Road. In this way, the cars build up less momentum if they start rolling toward the derail.

A close-up, showing how the car rolled over the derail, which did its job!

One last view:

Running extra...

Once again this year, VIA has been applying poppy logos to select cars as a gesture of remembrance. In the Corridor, here are the LRC Business Class cars so adorned, and first dates observed: 3476 (October 26); 3464 (October 31); 3472 (October 31); 3451 (November 5); 3453 (November 10). The poppies are still on, as is this one photographed on Renaissance class car 7208 on the Ocean at Halifax by Tim Hayman, on November 23. Thanks, Tim!

VIA Riding Mountain Park has been acquired by the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society to undergo a $250,000 HVAC and electrical upgrade for potential use on their excursion train. The acquisition was made possible by donation by a private donor, after having been stored for over 10 years. Still possessing its chairs and metal ashtray/drink holders (FWRHS photo):

I'm succintly summarizing my scribbled scintillant shopping list of scintillating Christmas specials, alliteratively assembling a luscious and lustrous list and checking it once - just another service Trackside Treasure provides. More than just trains! Enticingly eliciting a noteworthy nocturnal network, an ebullient evergreen electronic eldorado of evening flatulent festive fircone festooning, tantalizingly tinselled tree-time televised treats vis-a-vis viable victualling and viewing and convivial, coniferous camaraderie! 

• Nov. 27 Houghs/Disney (ABC)
• Nov. 29 Michael Buble (NBC)
• Nov. 30 Rockettes and Kelly Clarkson (NBC)
• Dec. 1 Dolly Parton (NBC)
• Dec. 8 CMA Christmas (ABC)
• Dec. 11 Tree-Lighting (CBS)
• Dec. 13 Mormon Tabernacle Choir (PBS)
• Dec. 20 Mariah Carey (CBS)
• Dec. 23 The Grove (CBS)

As we all approach the season of Advent, 

I hope you'll daily discover gifts of hope, love, joy and peace!

--Eric