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Three generations of CPR branding in the first three cars of that consist!
Is that a newsprint boxcar?
This is awesome. I guess that Cement plant in St. Marys was lucrative. Anyone know if they kept going to the end of track by the station and for how long?
There is some track in place in the cement plant that may or may not be considered part of the old St. Marys sub – used to have railhead off GEXR/CN but seems unused for quite some time
This is awesome Arnold. And taken exactly one month after I was born!
Oh, amuse me, Jason; but also remind me I am old!!
)
Glad you like.
Ahh Noe’s just a youngin’
When I started on CP in 1973, the St. Mary’s road switcher was a premium job that started at 10 AM Mon. to Fri. and was usually done in 4 hours. Very senior men owned it in summer, that way they could go to their cottages every weekend. In winter it went to more junior men because most lived in London & there was the issue of driving to Woodstock in the winter & railroading up in the snow belt.By 1979, the job was gone & the day 0830 road switcher out of Woodstock handled the yard and the St. Mary’s Sub.
To Stephen Host’s question, we used to go right into St. Mary’s. There was some business at th elevator just beyond the yard, but the main reason was to run around the train for the trip back. Just before the cement plant thee was a spur up a steep hill that went to the CN transfer. Sometimes we also placed cars of farm machinery at he stop block there for ‘team’ unloading. There was also the Domtar paper plant and that is likely where the CP boxcar was going. That spur was accessed on the return trip, hence the need to run around the train. When they shortened the track back to a point just past the cement plant, we would roll the cars past us there. It was a bit of a hill & they would start when the handbrake was released.
Should also add, I worked a lot of snowplows up there & we had to plow the spur up to Domtar as then run ‘downtown’ to run around the plow for the trip back. One time we had a sick 4200 & it wouldn’t push the snow in the runaround track so we had to back up from St. Mary’s to Woodstock. Snow had drifted back in and when I went to get off the van at Zorra to open the switch, the van steps were bent back enough that I had to get off the other end.
Wild stories thank you