|
Caption: I was out earlier today on account of being able to finish work early for the week with some lieu time, and happened across the 0700 job out and about down the hole in Hamilton. I thought they were heading back to Stuart but they never showed up at Birch Ave where I was waiting, so I went back out hunting and found them at Stelco of all places. This was another nighttime move under SOR that I never witnessed. Here's hoping that, like Parkdale Warehousing, this is now daylight under CN too. I chose this shot because of the smile for the camera.
|
He’s smiling because he knows the shot was going on Railpictures?
)
Nice work.
Nice work James! Someone else on here is smiling over this shot
(hint: SS).
Nice catch Jamie. The construction trailers in the parking lot are interesting, it seems the new management at Stelco is pouring a lot of money into infrastructure improvements at Hilton Works. Hopefully this translates to long term value for the company and it’s employees, along with the railroads of course…
Thank you Arnold, Kevin and Peter.i was thrilled to see them on the Stelco property that’s for sure.
Peter, looked like a lot of people coming and going from the trailers. I think Bedrock taking over is one of the est things to happen to stelco.
It’s nuts – Jamie – when I would see SOR in Stelco in 2008-2010 period… it was almost always with CN power! With the steel train around they had a CN engine or two on hand from CN to mingle with the usual Raillink geeps..
And daylight moves – last daylight moves I had in here with SOR were around 2014.. maybe early 2015.
These trailers really fudge up some angles though, but it’s progress!
If the blast furnaces get going we’ll know this is for real. I don’t think I’ve heard any news there yet..
Thanks for the details, Steve. All before my railfanning time but obviously things I wish I’d seen and would love to see more of.
And yeah, was hard at times to get the proper angles. I’m sure you can picture me up there going back and forth working between the chain link fence and other random industrial infrastructure as they switched, trying to find the balance between train and backdrop and lighting haha.
I did get a shot with better lighting and sun all down the side of the train but this one had the crew smile (figured I owed it to him haha) and a much better backdrop. Again, angles, angles, angles.
And I know who is smiling over this shot. His name is “Snake” with an extra “S”.
I doubt we’ll ever see hot steelmaking at Hilton Works again, as the single operating blast furnace was small and outdated when it was last shut down; re-starting it would take a huge investment of capital. Moving additional crude steel from Lake Erie Works for finishing could, however, be a very realistic possibility, and would still increase rail traffic out of the Hilton Works. Hopefully Bedrock will play their cards right and will find a way to survive in the current difficult steel market.
Great view Jamie.
Thanks for the analysis of Stelco. Crossing fingers things continue to improve.