In Part 1, I finally got around to sharing my first few days in Portage during the summer of 1980. This post, the first of the year 2026 and Trackside Treasure's 975th(!) includes more photos and numbers from my time spent trackside in Portage that June. Trains are shown by time, direction, railway, locomotive numbers, consist, caboose/van number and remarks. Continuing after lunch on Wednesday, June 18 I was back trackside upon returning from lunch at Portage's Co-Op restaurant with my aunt and uncle, hopping out of the car just in time for a three-unit eastbound CP potash train.
June 18, 1980 (continued)
1323 E CP 5932-5764-5505 434647 (top photo)
1424 W CN 5586-5237-5020 79661 pulled in and stopped at the CN station:
Another westbound pulled in (below, at left), cutting off their power in the yard to pick up the container car sitting on the team track.
1430 W CN 9496-9516 79328:
While still up on the overpass, this eastbound CP freight passed the CP Express office.
1443 E CP 5581-5558 434427:
A short time later, the westbound stopped CN freight that had picked up the container car started to depart. As it was ending, another CN freight banged by at 40 mph.
1511 W CN 9484-9535-5569-9581 intermodal 79706:
As the CN freight came to its end, a CP freight passed through, fortuitously fotographed through a bulkhead flat car.
1516 E CP 5595-5911-5750 grain loads 434583:
At the CP station at 1540, it was a symphony of SD's! Extra-flag-flying 5534-5505 dropped off their 102-car potash/grain train and were heading into the yard.
1540 W CP 5534-5505 102 grain empties to Minnedosa Sub 434589:
Finished switching and back on their train, an eastbound crew chatted with the westbound crew quickly. Notice the stock car on the head-end.
1612 E CP 5926-3000 manifest 434318:
After the westbound left, this one pulled in, staying until suppertime.
1634 W CP 5774 grain empties:
5774 cut off and pulled up to the station as this eastbound got its orders.
1653 E CP 5923 91 cars 434443:
Speno rail-grinding cars, generator and office car ahead of van CP 434443. Engro fertilizer unloading track and platform in foreground:
Visiting my uncle's parents' home in Gladstone in the evening - the CN station:
On Thursday, June 19 we drove to Winnipeg and took in the [now considered classic] movie Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back.
June 20, 1980
A full day at the station with lunch at the Co-Op Restaurant and its excellent view of the CP Carberry Sub on Portage's west side. At 0830, I got a photo of leased Manitoba grain car USLX 5904 at the UGG elevator just west of the CN station. One of only five Evergreen Hatchery cars leased, its paper tag showed that it had been unloaded in Thunder Bay at Saskatchewan Pool's Elevator 7A six days earlier.
Ten minutes later...
0840 W CP 5936-5740-5511 could be heard whistling at the Trans-Canada Highway crossing near the Co-Op as van 434452 was passing the CP station:
0853 E CN 4325-4324-4306 No 808 (according to the train order-toting CN operator) 97 grain loads 79598:
Not photographed, perhaps due to the drizzle:
0927 W CN 1356-1354-4326 73 cars 79268
1023 E CP 5935 80 grain loads 434586
1108 E VIA No 90 6506-15489-9634-5545-5619. Interestingly, ex-CN coaches 5619 and 5625 used on these Thompson trains were 'buffeteria-coaches'. Running about an hour late:
1122 E CN 9448-9562-9447 hotshot 79538 with business cars 15110-92 just ahead of the caboose:
Skies clearing in the afternoon over Portage Pool B. CNWX 395582-396753-396491 have been loaded. A farmer departs the drive shed in his now-empty GMC grain truck, and CN will soon lift these six month-old cars for their trip to port.
W CN 9402-9482 86 cars ballast 79460 (unphotographed)
1513 W CN 5215-5572 stopped to switch the interchange with CP:
1540 E CP 5755-4714 grain loads 434536 (unphotographed)
1553 W CN 5233-5171 89 lumber empties 79418 passes as the previous CN train's power continues switching:
1609 E CP 5541-5563 138 grain loads 434545:
Fifteen minutes later, another CP freight followed.
1624 E CP 5753 80 cars manifest 434008:
June 21, 1980
We had a visit from my great-uncle Carl and family before stopping by the station in the morning, heading to Miami [Manitoba not Florida, remember I had a train to catch!] to see preserved stations there and in Carman. Two weeks after our visit, the wooden water tower at Miami collapsed!
CP 3019-8806-8546-4440 at station (below)
1045 W CP 8809-5013-8801 128 grain empties 434655 (unphotographed)
On June 22, I left Portage at an eye-opening 0703 on VIA No 4 (car line 452), heading east in upper roomette 11 of ex-CN E-series Eldorado. I arrived home in Kingston on time on the 23rd, having enjoyed a trip down from Toronto at window seat 53 aboard an RDC on VIA No 656 departing Toronto at 2000.
Running extra...
I've been having some new year blue-sky sessions adding skies to photos taken on my Kingston's Hanley Spur layout. With a semi-cirrus eye to the precipitous issue, using the AI editor truly was cloud-based software! I'm working on an upcoming post, unless the whole thing just blows over.
I did a quick back-of-the-cocktail-napkin analysis of the Word of the Year 2025 here on Trackside Treasure. Understandably, some words appear more than others:
Venture = 425 times
Shunt = 424 times
VIA = 242 times
The most often-used phrase:
CN-Imposed Crossing Speed Reductions = 121 times
Words not used:
Mid = 0
Sus = 0
6,7 = minus 67
First past the post...
You. The reader. Thanks for another great year together here on Trackside Treasure. The upcoming year will be a special one as we share my 50th year trackside searching for that treasure, together.
10 comments:
Portage certainly was a busy place in June 1980, Eric.
It’s interesting how in Part 1, CP was powering their trains with just about any imaginable combination of locomotives, such as pairing a SD40-2 with a F7B. I have to wonder if it was a conscious effort to put the minimum amount of power on the train to get it over the line, or if it was just reflective of whatever power they had on hand and ready to go.
The Portage Pool B elevator is unusual in that the truck shed and the railcar loading spout are on the same side of the elevator. There isn’t a lot of space there. So, maybe it was all out of necessity. But, I’m wondering if the elevator was also switched by CP. If it was, then CP cars could have been loaded on the other side of the elevator.
That single car load of cattle behind 5926 is probably destined for Winnipeg and is marshalled on the headend for expedited handling once the manifest reaches Winnipeg. I think that is a stock car headed east immediately behind 5753 too, isn’t it?
Thanks for your thoughts, Brian!
CP has always had a reputation for 'sweating the assets' or employing 'Scottish thrift' per their origin. If the requirement was for so-many horsepower-per-ton, that's what the train would get. Or less. So your two thoughts about the minimum and whatever they had are, I think, both correct.
Check out the post on Portage Pool B. It's one of only two elevators I've seen served by both railways on opposite sides; the other was Gladstone. Interestingly, I'd seen CN switch Pool B once, CP never. Truck traffic was frequent.
Yes, cattle cars on both.
The theme of this era I was encountering - not only did I not have a complete contextual grasp on what I was viewing, but we didn't know how good we had it, before the era of efficient-but-boring dawned.
Always great to hear from you!
Eric
That hot shot with 9448 and 9447 was probably a Montreal train, likely 214 out of Edmonton, 9440s going home to Taschereau and business cars going to headquarters. And judging by the presence of lumber empties in its consist, 9484 is leading Toronto-Edmonton 219.
All the best in 2026 Eric!
Good eye, Elijah!
At the time, I had no idea about train numbers or much access to find out what they were. It was before CTSG, not listed in employees' timetables, though certainly I could have been a lot more conversational with the operators, especially at CN.
Thanks for your additional information and your good wishes!
Eric
Happy New Year, Eric and to all my Canadian friends. Fascinating reading for this American and noted the "Duluth Winnipeg and Pacific" markings on the one car. A bit o.t., but one train I missed, hey I'm not that old, is the Soo/CP "Mountaineer". Thanks for all your hard work and great presentation. This American, I think, knows more than most about Canadian rails, but you took my education to a much higher level. Thanks.
Happy New Year to you, Joseph! The DW&P was a truly cross-border operation, long before CN and CP extended their reach into the US via the IC and KCS.
Americans don't think much, on the whole, about their neighbour to the north, perhaps until cold air or forest fire smoke reaches the atmosphere! But we're up here! My French colonial roots reach back nearly five centuries, though I grew up reading TRAINS, the inaugural year of RAILFAN and every issue of TIME in our school library - there are not too many US place names (on rails anyway) that I can't guess on Jeopardy.
The more we learn about each other, the more we realize we have yet to learn. Between Friends! Enter Amis!
Eric
Happy New Year Eric. There was no shortage of traffic through Portage back when you were there. It makes me nostalgic for the days when CP was just CP and the multimark hadn't yet been painted over. Thanks for sharing these photos and commentary.
Same to you, Michael! Portage was a hoppin' place, multi mark was still the multi mark and not the 'Pac-man', SDs were as plentiful as prairie dogs, and my 16 year-old head was on a swivel!
Thanks for your comment,
Eric
Happy New Year Eric and congratulations on your trackside activities since 67, er I mean '76. As I read your blog, the necessary background sound is provided by the rumbling of motive power on the Kingston Sub audible from a few km away. "Everyone loves the sound of a train in the distance, everyone thinks its true" Paul Simon sang. Cheers! Mike.
Happy New Year to you, Mike! Watch for wallowing in nostalgia over the next celebratory year! Much vintage music will be a-echoin'. I do remember '67 and it's surprising it took me 12 years to start recording train observations in earnest.
Thanks for your comment,
Eric
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