Procor Covered Hopper Cars

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These big eye-catching cement-coloured covered hopper cars, with a 5820 cu.ft. capacity, were built from the late 70s all the way up through the early 90s. About 1,700 were designed and built by Procor in Oakville for Procor and Dow Chemical, the primary owners. Procor manufactured cars in its Oakville shops until 2002, now built at parent Union Tank Car's plants in Alexandria, LA and Sheldon, TX. Car lengths varied between 62-10, 63-6 and 67-7 (feet-inches) in length. In 1976 the PROCOR wordmark began to be used.

Built in batches of 1 to 200+ among 5810 and 5840 cu.ft. cars, the numbers of the 5820 cu.ft. cars were:

• UNPX 122012-122280 built 1976-79
• UNPX 122647-123402 built 1984-88
• UNPX 123500-123599 built 1988
• UNPX 123630-123651 built 1990

The cars featured pneumatic unloading for dry bulk commodities such as plastic pellets. Though I've long been interested in these cars and noted their numbers, this post emerged from draft form after I purchased a Rapido Trains Inc. model of one. Dave Cook of Kingston Locomotive Works had several at great prices.

UNPX 123316 on CN No 376 at Belleville on November 25, 2016 with black PROCOR:

They do not go back in time as far as I thought they did on CN's Kingston Sub! My observations of these cars (only beginning in 2013) including date, car and CN train on, with any remarks:

• Aug 24/13 UNPX 122741
• Nov 13/16 UNPX 123149 on 376 (top photo)
• Nov 25/16 UNPX 123316 on 376
• Feb 17/17 UNPX 122823, 123026, 123197 on 376
• Oct 14/17 UNPX 123034, 123362 + two others
• Mar 11/18 UNPX 123229, 123100 on 376
• Mar 28/18 UNPX 122911 on 377
• May 15/18 UNPX 122645*, 123104, 123017 on 377
• Jul 13/18 UNPX 122758 on 377
• Apr 16/19 UNPX 122832, 122942
• May 17/19 UNPX 122922 on 376
• Aug 27/19 UNPX 123055, 123235, 123888** on tail end of 376
• Aug 27/19 UNPX 122890 on 377
• Sep 15/19 UNPX 123067 on 376
• Nov 2/19 UNPX 123373 + one other on 376
• Jan 2/20 UNPX 123120 on 376
• Feb 4/20 UNPX 122838 on 369
• Jun 18/20 UNPX 122980, 123166 + three others on 376
• Feb 22/22 UNPX 123048, 123073, 123325 on 369
• Apr 3/22 UNPX 123647 on 369
• Aug 24/22 UNPX 123095 + two others on 377
• Sep 28/23  UNPX 123139 on 377 (below)

*5840 cu.ft. car

**5810 cu.ft. car

This photo of UNPX 123139 (above) shows the round roof hatches.

I unboxed my Rapido car today (above). Buying a Rapido product is always a Big Event for me, largely because of the cost vs. what I'm willing to spend on a model combined what I have already, and what I don't really need. But Dave Cook's bargain pricing turned the tide.

Shown with my previous Bev-Bel Athearn three-bay foobie on which I painted out the Union Carbide logo. So over-represented, as will be the Rapido 'Blue' 5820. The length of the Rapido car is evident. Rooftop view showing hatches:

My six year-old grandson, for whom I painted the CN vehicle, gave the new arrival the thumbs-up!

This car is BIG. I have a sharp curve between the interchange and the Outer Station. Though the car is several years past my modelled era, it will be seen in my CN yard as a car that keeps hanging around, waiting to be switched out to one of two plants in Kingston Township that received covered hoppers - DuPont and more likely, Northern Telecom.

Lots o' links:

• Rapido's unboxing video. Watch if you dare. Of course every modeller will want the Union Carbide or goofy blue one. Just like every modeller needs a SCLAIR!
• Pullman-Standard also produced 5820 cu.ft. cars.

Running extra...

The struggle is real. What we had to resort to before Rapido came on the scene 20 years ago. An online auction site photo of the first of the fleet, home-bashed '5820' from two Pullman-Standard covered hopper models. I don't think this would be rail-worthy, but at least it has four compartments! I like the custom built rough caption!

The arrival of VIA's Siemens Venture Set 18 came with a few anomalies this past Wednesday. Locomotive 2218 on one end and cab car 2317 on the other put those book-ended numbers out of sync again. Also, car 2817 is lettered 'Business Class'. And then there's that banana paint scheme. Thanks to Stephen Gardiner for sharing his photo of CN 5764-UP 6446 leading at CN Humber (above). The misaligned VIA logo is fortuitously foregone by foliage.

Railfans are concerned, suggesting a do-over and unleashing some VIAtriol, as shown in this curated cynical compendium of comments:

• That entire livery is a mistake. 
• It makes me irrationally irritated every picture I see of it.
• It looks like Brio wooden block toy train. 
• Same people who designed those seats came up with that ?
• The split VIA logo needs relocation on Charger.
• It looks 80% complicated. 
• If VIA's idea was to consume the leftover yellow paint from Brightline sets then I’d say well done.
• Would’ve looked better with the windows surrounded by blue instead of black.
• This looks absolutely terrible…. Who approved this? 
• At first I wondered if this was a deep fake.
• I love the idea but the execution is terrible. So pretty on-brand for VIA?
• Horrible looking! It looks as if someone just went over it with a yellow hi-liter!
• Need to rethink scheme on the Charger end.
• It's messed up.
• Get rid of the Maple Leaf. [This close to Canada Day?]

Kingston-Toronto Return Trip, June 2024 Pt 2

In Part 1 of our June 1 trip, we reached Toronto on VIA No 61. About three hours later, we were returning east on VIA No 46. Fortunately, our equipment was not substituted by an LRC or HEP consist, nor bustituted nor cancelled due to lack of Toronto-Ottawa crews. As a result, we were riding one of VIA's new Siemens Venture trainsets! This is Set 6 with locomotive 2206 - cars ending in '5' - cab car 2305.

When we checked in at the Departures concourse of Union Station, we were directed by a helpful VIA staff member to Alcove F. From here, we were invited to pre-board. That was great, because one of our greatest concerns in the Big City was being separated from our grandsons in the madding crowds. Ripley's Aquarium was a bit of a zoo.  Pre-boarding made escalator ascent easy and trouble-free.

Shaky "I'm walkin' here!" boarding shots:

Aboard our car - our seats marked in red:

Accessible space at left, all seats facing centre of the car. Wye not:

Forward-facing seats behind us. Our car 2905 operating as car 3 in which we occupied seats 8A-8B, 9A-9B:

Various views of VIA down the aisle. I'm not going to do a detailed review on seat comfort, ride quality and all the usual criteria first-time Venture riders usually venture to include. I highly recommend this post by Tim Hayman if you'd like to know more. If we had one complaint, it would be window-spacing which seemed rather random.

We're ready to GO. Those table drink holders are rather shallow, but unlike rocking and rolling in LRC or HEP cars, we Economy riders didn't have a chance to test the sloshworthiness of the tiny Business Class coffee cups.

Quad seating across the aisle (above) and one of the ceiling-level displays indicating our route schematic, (relative, not exact location - it doesn't move along in real time!), time, train and car number, green or red person washroom indicator, and speed. The latter is the most interesting. I think we reached 153 km/h at our fastest:

Window placement? Often misaligned - this is not that. Our quad seating had one good window and one...bulkhead. My grandson was able to see where we were going (sitting backwards, looking forwards) by trying this approach:

Venture Set 14 led by cab car 2213 was heading west at Oshawa, likely No 47. We also scooped an eastbound intermodal on CP west of Port Hope.

Likely CN No 322 switching Oshawa with 8911 and 26xx. Morningstar Road crossing* just west of Trenton (below). Was trentonrailfan there Instagramming? Hard to tell at this speed!

I conjured up cold but convivial congregating in the company of Bob Fallowfield, Jason Shron, Jordan McCallum and Barry Silverthorn here on the Platforum. Was it really four years ago?

The Gibbard District is taking shape, developed by Doornekamp Construction Ltd. Canada's Most Scenic Trainwatching Spot is right here:

With a couple of tuckered-out grandsons awake and ready to disembark, we arrived in Kingston. North track arrival meant we didn't have to navigate the escalators and tunnel:

On to Ottawa, 46!

The grey stripe is slowly turning the colour of...road grime.

*A memory from Morningstar Road. I think the phone box is no longer on that pole.

*CPR's dispatcher phone box stood trackside 

for years

Contents conveying messages up and down 

for years

Now it is silent

eerily empty

unhinged unforgotten

world-weary wooden

Weathered worn

here, it still stands - a shell

where, what it once was - vital

there, if needed - when needed

In cinders and smoke

and each new year, if only just.

Surrounded by now-new sumac,

poplars winking in the day's late light

we, lucky enough to spend time here

qui vive

alert to its presence

qui vive

we, standing together, transcribing trains

roaring past

it still stands trackside

for years 

Running extra...

Hey, it can't hurt. Why whine and complain about the demise of passenger travel? Got 30 seconds to register your displeasure and wish for better service, and of course in the process guarantee Unifor jobs?Unifor has an e-way to contact your MP and federal Minister of Transport:

Now you know about VIA's new trains. OC Transpo 4707 (Transit Toronto photo posted to social media) will look after the rest:

Now, old trains. When I was a 17 year-old travelling solo aboard VIA Rail to visit my cousins in Lachute, QC long before map apps, my Montreal-raised Dad drew me this handy 'hand-drawn facsimile' to enable me to find my way after disembarking at Montreal's former CN Central Station. This simple map got me over to the former CP Windsor Station, where the 'North Shore' Dayliner would depart for Ottawa, travelling over CP's Lachute Subdivision.

Kingston-Toronto Return Trip, June 2024 Pt 1

For the first time in five years (June 2019) I found myself on a VIA train. Why? Because we heard the phrase "kids travel for 20 dollars" in the Corridor! Our thoughts turned to our grandsons, ages 6 and 4. None of this just-go-one-stop-and-get-off stuff, no. We were going to the Big Town, the Queen City, Hogtown, the Centre Of The Universe to get our money's worth out of our 20 bucks! VIA No 61 arrives: 6438-3462-3465-3369-3311Ren-3318-3367. VIA No 60/50 was in the station as well.

Boarding was incredibly slow. About 30 people at one door. This included people with big suitcases to manoeuvre up the Venture stairs, and a young couple with a toddler and a stroller. Car attendant, "Sir, you'll have to collapse the stroller". Passenger, "OK". This was six feet from the stairs, and it finally happened with some delay at the stairs. Meanwhile, Canada's busiest mainline, thousands of tons of freight, hundreds of passengers, is waiting for a guy to collapse a stroller he should have already collapsed? 

LORAM rail grinding train in Belleville yard. Unobstructed view due to lack of revenue traffic in yard.

   

Oh, there were a few revenue cars, like these two AEQX, ex-B&M covered hoppers that get loaded with roofing granules just north of Belleville yard...

...and three cars loaded with outbound product from Kingston's Invista: SRLX 45099-INVX 38611-ACFX 37249 that would have arrived on Belleville-Kingston turn CN No 518 (below). With CN's emphasis on operating ratio and pruning of everything that doesn't contribute, there are not a lot of opportunities to show our grandsons passing rail activity. We resorted to, "Who will be the first to see cows?" and "Who will be the first to see horses?"

The lack of yard power in Belleville meant that a wayfreight was out of Belleville somewhere on CN's Kingston Subdivision. We suddenly passed it switching the compact Cobourg yard. Their pallet lumber and plastic pellet cars were just west of the tanker being marshalled by CN 4796-4136 for the trip to Port Hope's Cameco, its destination. Grandson noticing switching at Cobourg:

Notwithstanding the three pre-beered Jays fans that boarded at Belleville sitting just ahead of us, numerous Jays were boarding GO Transit at Oshawa.

Two mothers and toddlers in front of GO 637, both apparently pointing and saying, "Look, it's a train!"

When I rode to Toronto pre-retirement, I could monitor the progress on the construction of GO's sprawling  Lakeshore East Whitby Rail Maintenance Centre. It all seems to be in service, with two old soldiers the first to come into view:

The Centre of the Universe, anchored by the CN Tower and a BMW dealership, comes into view from our four-seater, Car 3 quad seats 9A-9B, 10A-10B:

Our day in Toronto was planned to be short. After all, the destination WAS the journey. Ripley's Aquarium was suitably nearby and within walking distance. Disembarking under the newer, brighter train shed:

VIA 2311 (Venture Set 12) was also under the train shed:

First stop - fast food for the famished four. The third level down in the York Concourse, home of McDonald's was successfully found. Happy meals happily consumed, crossing the Skywalk to Ripley's we could see Union-Pearson Express and GO trains. Blue Jays fans were flocking to the ballgame.

In Part 2, we'll return to Kingston and sample the new Siemens Venture equipment.

A graphic record of our trip up and back. What passes for on-time (No 61 arriving in yellow - above) and what passes for late (No 46 arriving in red - below). VIA sent me a survey to complete several days later. I commented on the slow boarding at Kingston and the lack of useful announcements on the platform concerning which car to board. But overall, the trip was convenient, comfortable and reasonably on time. A late arrival would have capsized our barely-three-hours time in T.O.

Running extra...

Not only did this CN Zero is Possible safety train this past week (one of three operating toward Winnipeg, with borrowed private cars decaled Zero is Possible) in the U.S. have wafer logo'd CN 3309, it had a new one - Canadian Northerish logo'd 3331 as well! Original mccoy79 video here. Screenshots:

With heads-up information en route from Jesse, Lion and Malcolm, I caught CN P007 at Collins Bay. My Youtube video here and screenshots below. P008 is Jasper-Winnipeg NSRX cars, video here and P009 (above) from Baton Rouge to Winnipeg, the latter comprising mostly CN's own business-car black & white fleet.

Two run-bys in Northern Ontario. The train from Jasper was laden with even more Private Varnish goodness. Even though the first four cars of P007 were adorned with wet-noodles, not so Caritas, showing a 'charitable' approach. All across the system, operating employees got to ride on the rear platform!