Summertime at Smiths Falls, August 1983

A yearning to see CP put me on the road to Smiths Falls on August 3, 1983. My parents were travelling to Manitoba aboard VIA Rail, the only year I wasn't. Work was getting in the way. But at least there was no need to ask to borrow the car! Upon arrival at 1225, CP 5771-6012-5983 was setting out a Railbox boxcar in the yard. The train's van was CP 434445.

Emerging from the east, stripey CP 5672 led MLW's 4713-4503-8734, departing at 1320 with van 434419 on the tail-end. Feast your eyes on those multimarks in the yard. (You won't hear them referred to as 'Pac-Man' here on Trackside Treasure. Oops, I just did!)

Pulling in from 'Brockvegas' was  VIA 6775 with Club de la Garnision-5545-3225 at 1411.This train departed for Ottawa via that unique CP-CN connection at 1411, while emitting characteristic MLW smoke. It would be another three years before 6775 and 6758 would receive their snazzy blue VIA nose logos.

Coming in off the Chalk River Sub at 1610 was this eastbound pulled by CP 5918-5948. That station sign always let you know exactly where your photos were taken!

Last but least, the roadswitcher to Brockville with CP 8045 was switching at the east end of the yard.

With the afternoon drawing to a close, it was time to head back down Highway 15 to Kingston.

Running extra...

Two chance encounters with CN No 518, the Belleville-Kingston turn  revealed a 'hostler's choice' of motive power. Backing the eight-car train down to Invista was CN 4902, ex-GMTX 2254, nicely cleaned up with some new paint and thankfully non-brushpainted cab numbers. On the head-end was GTW 6425 on Monday, trailing on Wedneday. The train was crossing Centennial Boulevard behind Frontenac Mall, site of an earlier switcher stopped back in January, 1986 with high-nose CN 4487 and a crew gone into the mall for something to eat!

Kingston Railfair - October 22 - will mark the first time I'll have attended a train show in 2.5 years. The March, 2020 Kingston Rail-O-Rama was one of the very first casualties of the pandemic. Who knows what or who I'll find? That's a big 10-4 (those are also the hours of the show).

My New Yashica Camera, 1984

On April 23, 1984 my brother Dave and I walked into our local photography shop, Camera Kingston. I walked out with a brand-new Yashica FX-3 SLR. A necessary $184.59 purchase due to the demise of my trusty Hawkeye in preparation for my western trip aboard VIA Rail a month later. For a few days in April and May, I tried out the new camera on various Kingston-area rail subjects that presented themselves. I recorded f-stops and shutter speeds in my notepad, beside my train observations while I was on the lensy learning curve.

My first frames trackside: CN 3662 switched Queens (top photo). Venerable CN eight-foot door boxcar 434073 (above), likely in aluminum ingot service to nearby Alcan. Any serious modeller of Kingston needs to include lots of limestone, weeds, and chopped-up ties, all staples in this area in the early 1980's! These photos show the comparatively pristine right-of-way maintained by CN section forces at the time. A far cry from today's trackside train-brushing shrubbery shmozzle!

On a gloomy April 28, I was at the gate marking the limit of the former CN Collins Bay station property, just off Station Street. All-MLW eastbound (above) at 1330: 6773-6785-616-5719-Empire Club-5534-5504-2505-5499 was followed by an all-GM nine-car westbound led by 6542-6637 a mere seven minutes later! 

A trip west of Kingston on May 2, 1984 was under overcast skies. Newly-painted insulated boxcar CN 290416 was in a westbound train at 1608 led by CN 9558-9509-9625-2505 with caboose 79228 (below). (Shop forces had righted the wrong of painting the wet noodle on the left side at the dawn of the Allan Fleming logo era, thus obscuring dimensional data when the plug door was open.)

Ten minutes later, CN 2332-4349-4117 were eastbound at the same crossing, near Mi 191 Kingston Sub, just west of Bath with a carload of wheels on the head-end and caboose 79235 on the tail-end.

May 5 found me north of the mainline at the Amherstview Golf Club at Mi 183 Kingston Sub. My Yashica stopped this VIA westbound 'dead in its tracks' at 1/500 of a second at 1204: 6787-612-3229-108-3241-Saint James's Club:

Just after lunchtime at 1315, this westbound freight was coming alongside Bath Road just west of Frontenac Secondary School, around Mi 178.5. CN 9607-9560-2539 provided a typical locomotive consist of the time with a mix of GMD and MLW products:

The fourth unit, ex-GP38-2 5553 converted to hump unit 203:

At the same mileage as the VIA above, but on the south side of the tracks at 1851, this westbound CN freight looks like maid-of-all-work 317 led by CN 5330-9316. The latter was a high-geared 'Fast Forty' GP40 renumbered from 4016 in 1981, and was often leased by VIA Rail for passenger service with its 58:19 gear ratio.

.

On May 7, an evening at the Kingston VIA station found FPA4 6781 basking in the low, evening light as it stopped at the station at 1915 with an eastbound: 9664-5546-3219-126. Notice the influx of ex-CP baggage cars and coaches on Corridor trains.

Still two of my favourite photos of VIA, westbound VIA No 1/55 smokes it up departing Kingston for Toronto around 1940, with most of its cars destined to Vancouver. VIA 6775-6863-617-3229-108-5649-760-123-3228-Thompson Manor-Edgeley. The Skyline, most sleepers, diner and Park car were now being serviced at Spadina, so did not make the trip through Kingston to Montreal.

Immediately after, at the other end of the platform, VIA 6914-3312-3313-3307-3317 paused eastbound.

On May 9 at 1317, westbound VIA 6788-6869-616-5729-Union Club-5534-5584-2513 were just east of Mi 183 Kingston Sub, fencepost and all:

 

My very first frames: a Brazeau Transport semi-trailer parked along Dalton Avenue (above) and an Ontario Hydro line truck at the Lasalle Park Plaza just off Days Road (below).

I made good use of the Yashica for several years. I later added a 200 mm zoom lens. A pain to change but great for distant subjects. I lost one lens cap while in the vestibule of the Canadian. It's probably still trackside in the wilds of Saskatchewan. Then, a succession of point-and-shoot and digital cameras. My present Canon SX620HS fits in my shirt pocket and has a zoom capability equivalent to 25-625 mm - and I'll never have to change, or run out of, film!

Running extra...

To honour Truth & Reconciliation, Ontario Northland repainted GP38-2 1808 in this eye-catching orange paint scheme (CTV News photo). This shows more effort than the mere lip service many politicians have offered in such efforts. Clean drinking water would be a great start!

Ex-CN hogger Mark Perry is back in the UK for another trip searching out all things railway-related. He and travelling companion Glenn Courtney post photos nightly - preserved steam, riding trains in Scotland, and a lot of fish & chips and beer photos. Glenn photographed a place I'd like to visit - one of several churches in Inverness. This one has been made into a bookstore. Who says you can't read in church?

The Wreck the Day Before the Turbo Wreck

December 10, 1968 was a momentous date in the history of press photography, Kingston history and Canadian railway technology. On that day. the press run of the CN Turbotrain struck a truck full of meat at Division Street level crossing near Mile 174 of the CN Kingston Subdivision.

Much less well-known was a train-vehicle collision the day before - Monday, December 9! Talk about a twofer! The first derailment had the potential to just as deadly dangerous, though there were many fewer press photographers around! 

A 49 year-old dumptruck driver, Alfred Manuel of RR2 Kingston was driving across the Montreal-Toronto CN mainline when a westbound Rapido train struck his truck. The time was 1430, and his truck was totalled, sustaining more than $9,000 damage. Though protected with gates, lights and bells, the Division Street level crossing had long been known to be dangerous, with trains moving at high speed, especially accelerating out of the severe curve at the CN Outer Station just to the east. Another complication was a single-track CP Kingston Subdivision crossing of Division Street just to the north of the CN, protected by a wig-wag signal!

An overhead view of the derailment site, with the CN alignment marked in a parallel blue line, CP in red, yellow arrow showing direction of travel and yellow starburst the approximate collision site. Note that the Division Street overpass was built out-and-around to the west of the existing straight alignment of Division Street.

What the engineer saw! A January, 1969 photo showing initial construction of the overpass, with the CN line disappearing to the east on a curve under the CP Kingston Subdivision flyover. The Rapido would have been coming out of the background on the north track (the left-most track in this photo). With visibility poor, accounts don't mention why the truck was on the crossing, even with electronic protection!

Black and white photos in this post are from the Queen's University Archives' Whig-Standard Fonds. The following photos, taken by a Whig photographer, they show the aftermath of the December 9 crash.  An account, along with only one photo (top photo), appeared as a twofer in the December 10 newspaper, along with the Turbo crash. The beauty of these archival images, which are held in the form of negatives, is that there are many more than what you might find perusing old newspapers. The job of the editor was to select the minimum number of photos that would tell a story, closely-cropping them, and leaving lots of room for other stories and of course, advertising!

Most of these views look 'timetable-west'. The photographer was taking advantage of the sunshine from the south side, as well as access from the level crossing.

The stopped Rapido, possibly Montreal-Toronto No 65, is clearly visible, marker lights and all. At times, the on-board crew appears at the rear door. The interesting variations in the photos include the various operating crew, section crew and officials that variously appear in each of the photos.

The dumptruck looks like an International Loadstar:

At left background is the Topnotch Feeds mill located just west of Division Street, along Counter Street.

The driver is questioned by police. An ambulance driver is close by:

Shortly thereafter, construction began on an overpass over CN at Division Street. This is the only view that looks southeast toward what would be the location of the Division Street overpass:

February, 1969 views of the overpass construction:

In just a few years, two passing tracks would be added just west of Division Street, to be known as Queens. The curve east of here, to Montreal Street, would be realigned. The Outer Station would be closed, and CN passenger operations in Kingston moved to the new CN (later VIA) passenger station on Counter Street.

Running extra...

The Queen's funeral was as awe-inspiring for the sheer spectacle as it was the precision and preparedness of those taking part in the military parade. The most remarkable image is the broadcaset screen capture above, showing the colossal colour of the Queen's Company, Grenadier Guards entering Windsor Castle ahead of the Royal Hearse as the Queen's funeral procession makes its way uphill on the spectator-lined Long Walk. 

I'm trying out Postcrossing It's a long-established postcard exchange website, where Postcrossers send and receive cards all over the world - 68,000,000+ so far. Fun facts: my first received card travelled from India, taking 29 days and covering 8,215 miles. The sender is a professor at the University of Madras, and has used Postcrossing in his Journalism and Communication teaching and research. This just might be addicting!

Streamlinermemories hosts a large number of scanned railway passenger documents. Here is the link to the CN page. It's one more online source - an alternative to going down to the dusty ol' archives!

Industry Profile: DuPont's Whitby Facility

The DuPont of Canada polyethylene film facility in Whitby was built in 1958 at 201 South Blair Street. Served by CN, the facility always caught my eye from aboard VIA Rail - after passing through CN's Oshawa yard with its panoply of paint schemes adorning hi-cube boxcars and open auto racks, then the LASCO steel plant and a wetland, there was always the hope of seeing a Sclair covered hopper or two there. Today, passengers would likely have their attention grabbed by the GO Transit/Metrolinx East Rail Maintenance Facility on the north side of the CN Kingston Sub, its 500,000 sq.ft. dwarfing the discretely diminutive ex-DuPont facility!

Switch points face west, diverging from the Whitby south service track. Several spurs' worth of covered hoppers were visible, as in this June, 2016 view from aboard VIA (top photo). Note fresh excavation and ballast on the newest spur at right. I am no performance films expert, nor chemist. The exact nature of the manufacturing processes and product lines and uses are well beyond the scope of this blog. But the fact that it was rail-served makes it of special interest. The plant sat in 160 acres in the Port Whitby district, expanding 11 times in its first 28 years. 

Due to increased use of plastics in daily life, the plant continued to add new product lines (product name and type, initial year of production, end uses):

• Sclair Film linear low-density polyethylene film, named for its Sarnia production site along the St. Clair River (for coffee, cheese, medical instrument and paper packaging)
• Vexar plastic netting (1960 - for produce packaging and fencing)
• Herox nylon monofilament (1967 - for brush bristles and thread)
• Dartek nylon film (1972 - for meat and cheese packaging, industrial applications)

Up to 25% of the facility's production was exported. New product lines at the facility were often the result of work done at the Kingston Research & Business Development Centre, built in 1955. Sclair, developed by Du Pont's research facility here, was the base product for several other products. Sclair was shipped to the Whitby facility where it was extruded into a film and then formed into flexible plastic tubing. Some employees also came from Kingston to staff expansions.

Two July, 2017 views from aboard VIA Rail (above and below). I usually made a point of noting the number of cars present on the various tracks. These are all plain-jane grey covered hoppers, though -  these notes don't go as far back as the Sclair car era, unfortunately:

• Aug 19/10 7 total
• Dec 16/10 2-2-1
• Mar 8/11 2-2, 1 off-spot
• Aug xx/11 2-2, 5 off-spot
• Sep 22/11 1-2-2-4
• May 15/12 2-2-2-0
• Jul 17/12 3-2-1-2
• Sep 27/12 1-2-2-2
• Feb 25/13 2-2-2
• Sep 18/14 1-2-2-3
• Nov 1/15 2-1-1-3
• Jun 5/16 3-2-2-4
• Mar 28/17 2-2-1
• Jul 21/17 1-3-2-2
• Oct 30/17 2-3-2-3
• Dec 12/17 2-1-2-3
• Jul 6/18 2-2-2-2-4
• Oct 2/18 1-1-2-3-4

With modern technology, we can explore the site from the comfort of home, without wandering about on private property or booking a VIA ticket! A Googlemaps view shows the CN main at left with Whitby south service track, the lead at centre and the facility's five spurs and silos at right. The covered hopper car unloading tracks from bottom to top in the image below (west to east):

• WS34 - 250' added <2014
• WS32 - 393'
• WS31 - 570'
• WS30 lead - 1220'
• WS33 - 710'

CN 1329 was in charge of No 546 at Whitby in September, 1986 (below) including three covered hoppers for DuPont. The switcher appears to be on the switch to the DuPont facility, with the photo taken looking east near the South Blair Street level crossing. The crossing was replaced with a multi-track underpass begun in 2014-15 and completed in 2016.

Ross Wakefield kindly shared this photo of CN 4208 with several gondolas for LASCO and a few DuPont covered hoppers on its train, taken in 1985:

Ross also generously shared this shot of CN No 546 Eng 7107 at South Blair Road :

CN 1232 has a Sclair covered hopper in tow at Pickering, about seven miles to the west, circa 1980 (below - kindly shared by Mike Lindsay). Perhaps this is a transfer heading to Don Yard.

Some significant dates in this facility's history:

• 1958 - construction of the DuPont of Canada plant begins.
• 1981 - $3 million expansion for polyethylene film production.
• 1983 - $2 million expansion for a new plastic film line.
• 1984 - 43,000 sq.ft. warehouse was added on the plant's 25th anniversary. Employment had grown from an initial 75 to 300, with 14 original employees still on staff.
• 1986 - $4 million expansion included a packaging technical centre, offices and laboratories.
• 1987 - the plant's footprint was 215,000 square feet.
• 1994 - DuPont's Sclair technology and polyethylene business was acquired by Novacor, though the Whitby plant was not part of the deal.
• 2001 - the Whitby operation is rebranded Enhance Packaging Technologies Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of DuPont Canada producing performance films.
• 2002 - Enhance Packaging Technologies acquired US-based bag-in-box manufacturer Liqui-box, thereafter a DuPont Canada company Liqui-Box Canada, Inc.
• 2007 - DuPont Liquid Packaging Systems sold the Whitby facility to South Carolina-based Exopack Performance Films. At the time of sale, Sclairfilm and Dartek were the main product lines and employment stood at 129. Exopack continued to supply Liqui-Box with products from Whitby.
• 2013 - Exopack is rebranded as Coveris High Performance Packaging.
• 2018 - the age of consolidation sees Montreal-based Transcontinental Packaging acquire Coveris, owner of 21 packaging plants, with Whitby its sole Canadian property employing 140.

The photographer just missed the CN spurs, just to the left of this 1964 photo :

Before and after Metrolinx views of South Blair Street at CN:

Lots o' links:

• Throwback! This 2018 photo taken at Whitby, ironically shows a Sclair car on CN No 376, likely destined for Brockville, not Whitby.
• CN 4601 at the South Blair Street crossing in 1988, with the DuPont lead to right.
• There are several albums of 2014-15 photos posted to Metrolinx' Flickr page, the first one showing the closing up of the South Blair Street level crossing.
• A pre-overpass 2010 Thomas Blampied photo showing the switch to the DuPont lead.

Running extra:

A fascinating blog post about this long-forgotten stamp collection reads like a thriller! The author takes us through his family history, wartime service, and back to the true value of this long-lost philatelic find.

                                             

Best wishes to CN engineer and loyal Trackside Treasure reader Steve Lucas as he makes his last trip of a 35-year career with CN and VIA this weekend. Steve put it well when he posted, "Money + not working for it can = happiness."

Stop the presses! Rapido Trains Inc. is releasing a new run of VIA coaches, including the "D&H" scheme. Stop stopping the presses! Rapido has released their final pre-production sample of the CPR D-10. All that's missing is the "Spirit of Sir John A." lettering. Stop talking about nothing about Rapido! But first, read this Q&A where Jason admits that Kingston is his greatest modelling success! (Fortunately, the necessary amputation of part of the completed model is not mentioned!)