|
Caption: An early afternoon CSX tri-weekly #321 rolls into Canada by way of the now abandoned Steel Arch Bridge spanning the Niagara River. Power is CSX 6352 and 6246; the leader looking spiffy in that old Seaboard paint scheme. It has been a few years, but I believe the photographer on the sidewalk is one Dave Howard, as he appeared before the wife eventually fattened him up. :o) For members of this list who might be curious, as in "Snake", the middle car (Colony Park Wagon) on the right is what I was driving. The Blue machine was down for repairs.
|
It’s the car that you drive that’s most interesting, Arnold.
Hello? my ears were burning…
I like the train in the picture, how far into Canada did they run that train in ’88? Did it go all the way as far as Windsor? You ever drive a small car?
Yes, to Windsor I believe. No, never had a small car, unless you would consider a 1971 Cougar hotrod as small.
You stood on the parkway without getting plowed down by a crazy taxi driver or tourist?
Yeah, Docta: I forgot you drive on a parkway and park on a driveway. LOL Actually it was d-e-a-d at that time of the year around there back then. I’ll have another photo from downtown NF up shortly and there is hardly a car to be seen….the only one close is the guy I was driving around with !!!
At the time of this photo this train would have been daily both eastbound and westbound as it traveled the entire length of the CASO between Windsor and Niagara Falls. It wasn’t until 1993 that this train was tri-weekly, which was re-scheduled to depart from Chatham Yard on Mondays, then return the following Tuesday, then depart eb again on Wednesdays making it a 3x a week per direction train. This resulted in only one train traveling in one direction over much of the CASO east of Fargo per day. The final CSX train to traverse the entire length of the CASO from Windsor to Niagara Falls was probably sometime around 1993, but the final CSX train to travel over CASO rails would have been in February of 1996. Although CSX did continue to use the CASO after that time as they dropped off grain extras for Thompsons in Rodney along sections of the CASO in the Windsor area for CN to deliver post-1996 (and also ran their own periodic extras to Blenheim until the end of 2005), and of course kept running transfers into Van de Water Yard in Windsor until 2012.
Crazy eh Miles – the Blenheim extras would be brought to Windsor (CP) by CSX – CP would haul to Chatham, and CSX crews took the grain train, complete with run-through power (usually a pair of CSX six axle units) to Blenheim to load – spend a couple days loading, then return to Windsor via the reverse route.
Only happened a few times a year. What’s traffic like in Blenheim now?
Drove past here today and couldn’t help but to think about this exact photo
Every time I drive almost anywhere in Niagara Falls these days my thoughts go back to how it used to be when I would tear off down there after work looking for rail traffic. About 90% of said traffic is gone; all those numbers of trains reduced to but a trickle crossing at Fort Erie these days. The big Arch Bridge stands as a monument …good excuse for leaving it there. The estimated cost at the time of $26M just to remove it was too much……..
Honestly I was too young at the point of the final days of the line to shoot anything there, so I don’t have any memories attached but I do really them being there cause it would have been so cool to shoot there
A sliver of continuity – CSXT 6246 has been the regular Ohio Street Yard (Buffalo, NY) local power for a while now!
On a sad note, the photographer to the left hand side in this photo, Dave Howard, passed away 8PM Thursday May 24,2018, aged 67.
RIP, Dave.