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Caption: A railway I haven't shot in about 13 years - so I have many holes in my St. Catharine's map to fill. I finally made it out to see Trillium in action on what turned out to be a beautiful spring day. Many of our contributors have shot this line: in the shadow of THE Mooney (all his wonderful CN shots on former NS&T!) and Dr. Pinklaces (Martin Irving's recurring works) plus many others. I don't know why it took me so long - believe me I tried too, even tried to shoot the Townline spur one day in 2005... failed. Without further ado..
What can go wrong with a MLW S13, sunshine, and St. Catharine's ex NS&ST track? Nothing! Really, it only gets better from here! And special thanks to the crew - professionals through and through, you can really see the 'style' some crews use to get the job done and these guys were thorough yet incredibly efficient. In this shot, 108 is rounding to the Townline spur at Steve Ratkovsky & Son's where to my left the Ratkovsky's were making a pile of chopped wood in some old fashioned way. (too bad they don't use rail service!). Such neat track in the north end of St. Catharines.
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Nice shot Steve, but 108′s an S13. I think OSR’s the only operator of RS23s in southern Ontario.
Mr Host, it’s St Catharines
even CN has it spelt wrong on one of the signs somewhere. Also, the line it’s turning onto is the Grantham spur. Nonetheless, this is a great shot!
Also, you got lucky with 108. All they’ve been running lately is 1859, I haven’t seen 108 in months.
Oh geez, Steve is getting heckled on his first trip into Niagara in modern times. Lol. I did manage to see 108 back in March, however, the lighting did not work out. It has been years since I saw a TR unit turn onto the Lakeshore Spur though. That’s quite the catch. I have yet to see them go down the Welland Avenue Industrial Lead to Kemira either.
Thanks guys. My parents live in Beamsville.. I lived in Grimsby before that.. and Hamilton for all of highschool and some of grade school before then. I find Jordan Harbour a great barrier that keeps us ‘wine drinkers’ from the riff-raff of St. Catharines… and believe me there’s lots of riff raff over there.
I’m so close, yet so far away, and my spelling of it reflects such.
Docta: my source is the Trillium website:
http://www.trilliumrailway.com/pchrmap.php
I think they have gone away from the CN Nomenclature of the “mooney” days.
Look for more to come over the next week
Daniel you are in for a real treat, bud.
Interesting. I’ve never seen it labeled as the NS&T line before although it’s the Grantham. The Townline Spur branched off the Grantham at about mile point 4.70, that’s by the Merriton yard.
Dan, the Lakeshore has become more common in the past couple years, but the timing of it is hard. I don’t know if it comes on a certain day or not or what, but I have seen way more metal loads on it as it returns from servicing.
If you look at google earth, you can get a satellite view from 1934.. the N&ST mainline is visible but the Lakeshore spur is not. I wonder if this was a creation of the freight (CN) days… and not passenger.
i am also informed the ratkovsky’s do get the occasional car…