|
Caption:
The Narrow Gauge: that owned 58 diesel locomotives....
The Narrow Gauge: where the daily freight trains had a 548 rail route mile mainline run...
The Narrow Gauge: imaged here, the daily eastbound is hours into the twenty four hour run to mile zero.
The Time Travel: Thirty Nine summers ago on August 2, 1982, Terra Transport #910 East near Red Rocks Newfoundland, Kodachrome by S.Danko
The Location: in the background is St. George's Bay, part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
The Assistance: given I was there (The) Once, Ken Pieroway may be able to assist with The Location detail...
The Power: four GMD 1956 to 1960 built NF210's: TT#910 / TT#940 / TT#917 / TT#919 (CN noodle)
The Tow: TT#918 in CN zebra livery ( ground out relay issue) & seventy + rail cars and TT van #6053....
The Noteworthy: the Terra Transport experiment was a successful implementation of an intermodal containers system.
The Rail Route Miles Comparison:
The Terra Transport Port-aux-Basque to St.John's: 548 miles
The ONR Northland – Northlander: Union to Cochrane Ontario 482 miles
The CN Sarnia Ontario to CN Drummondville Quebec: 571 miles.
The Black Duck
The Sdfourty
|
This is quite the image. It must have been a tough decision as to how to shoot here, unless you had been here before. Cross the tracks and shoot it coming around the curve? Wait until it gets up close and take the standard 3/4 angle of the power? Or shoot the way you have with this image. Hope you didn’t second guess this after seeing the result. It IS a remarkable shot; classic; and the terrain is “all-Rock”.
Beautiful Steve and so delighted you posted this shot at the infamous Wreckhouse where wind gusts would literally lift boxcars of the tracks and blown the fires out of the Mikado steam engines! CN hired a trapper by the name of Lauchie MacDougal known as the human wind gauge. He could sniff the winds funneling down from the Table Mountains to determine if it was safe for trains to pass. If not, they were chained to the tracks until they subsided. He continued this practice until his death in 1965 and his wife continued it until 1972. At one point the winds hit 127 MPH when the gauge blew off the station at nearby St. Andrews! Wreckhouse Winds are now a meteorological term!
sdforty, a beautiful picture so typical of railroading on “the Rock”. And a very good informative caption. I have a slide taken here, but it is from the open upper half of a Dutch door on an eb Newfie Bullet, June 1967, after having spent the night on the ferry from North Sydney, when travelling with fellow UCRS members to St. John’s and back to Port-aux-Basque. Certainly agree with the other posted messages. Thank you very much for posting, John
John, I would love to see some of those images from your 1967 trip on the ‘Caribou’! Ken
Steve, I forgot to add that your image is at MP 533. – Ken
This image floored me when I first saw it.
I echo Arnolds astute observation on the difficulty of choosing an angle but.. the rails, the train snaking across the countryside, all of it leading your eyes to the beautiful Newfoundland coastline is the perfect choice.
And the fact you had a train long enough to do this is awesome. Hurrah!
Which according to CN/ Terra Transport Timetable 101, effective Tuesday June 1st, 1982 had a scheduled departure time of 12:00 Noon from Port aux Basques.
Upon arrival at Corner Brook, it would pick up a coach to become 204 Mixed for the 138 mile run to Bishops Fall where it would then resume the remainder of its journey to St. John’s as 204 again.
The Backgrounder: rail action – Narrow Gauge Rail Action…. at Wreckhouse, Milepost 533, thank you Ken !
……..Wreckhouse……..what a great place name…only on The Rock !
The Setup: There was little time to set up for this Kodachrome, in process of the chase from Port aux Basques to Stephenville. By the time this location was found, right beside a county road, the head end had already popped out from behind the far hill. The quick decision was to try a shot with the train on the S curve, in the background. Newfoundland topography is such that a capture of a full or part of a Newfoundland mainline train is almost impossible. The lighting problematic too – sun angle was low and to the left – thankfully the high cloud softened the scene.
The Track: The TT 1982 track condition was much better than I expected – track speed was easily between 30mph and 40mph. And TT #204 was clipping along at track speed.
The Operation: The length of the mainline trains also surprised. What is a challenge to see in the image is the back half of the train is all containers – the green TT containers [ interesting: TT containers were short, maybe 40 feet, and most were built in Brampton Ontario by Steadman Containers]. Based on observations at the terminals: P Aux B, Stephenville, Corner Brook, Clarenville, St. John’s, most 1982 mainline trains were similar in length to what is seen here.
The Nights: Unfortunately mainline trains operated across the central Rock throughout the night (perhaps to allow the daytime branch line trains easy access to / from St. John ‘s? . Afternoon departure from P aux B, and evening departure from St.John’s. Camped two nights at the Terra Nova National Park (2,789 km from Port Union Ontario) – the TT mainline about 4 miles away from the Park through the bush. Could clearly hear the night freights.
The 567: At night, from the campsite those 567′s were really ‘singing’ as the trains crested the frequent grades. The NF210′s prime mover: 12 cyl 567C, at full throttle sound just like three TH&B geeps ( 16 cyl 567C ) – as heard from my home in East York – on the Starlight / Kinnear working the CP Rail Belleville Sub grade up through Leaside and Don Mills. Of course the sound is similar: same design prime movers !.
The Train: This train was the only TT mainline freight captured – purpose of The Rock trip was to chase the threatened – as of 1982 – branchlines: use the Rail Pictures Search option and type in any one of: Bonavista, Brigus Jct., Carbonear, Clarke’s Beach, Clarenville, Lockston, Lethbridge, Princeton. Happy viewing, do click on ‘favourite’ !
The Favourites: as I write this only 13 Favourites from View Count 472 ! Geeezz ! Railpics Fans are a really a tough crowd to please !
The Reality is – photographically – the shot is back lit, not that ‘great’
The But: just look at the quality of that road bed! The condition of that 3 foot 6 inch track structure! And the narrow gauge train LENGTH!
The Thank you for the informative and kind comments and views and the ‘ Favourites ‘ , keep clicking !
The More: and if you or you know of anyone with The Rock Rail Action pix…please do encourage and /or help them to post !
The Sdfourty
Well, don’t feel bad. If it was in the days of steam you might have only gotten 10 stars. Fickle bunch, indeed. But I have to say, every time I see work from you or Ken way ‘out East’ I kick myself for never finding the time to visit the Rock.
17 and counting… it’s already past ‘one of our best’ at 15. It will climb.
And climb… the greats always bubble to the top!!
910 is pretty much right here…
Latitude: 47.7063178281137
Longitude: -59.30907011032105