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Caption: CN 595 CN, 4132 solo, southbound by Mile 138 Newmarket Sub on a beautiful summer morning. They're heading for Stepan Chemical in Longford Mills, south of Washago on the old Newmarket Spur. Stepan is reported to be closing their Longford Mills facility before the end of 2016 which will make sightings of 595 south of Martins quite rare in the future, since they'll only be venturing further south than the Panolam plant there on the few occasions a year they go to Washago to lift or set out M of W work related stuff like ballast and/or tie gondolas or maybe the odd CWR set.
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Closing before the end of the year, eh? That’s sad news.
Only time will tell that the 595 will be discontinued and eventually the Newmarket sub abandoned…Just guestimating here.
595′s major customers (Kimberly Clark, KWH Pipe and Panolam) are all in town or within 5 miles of town, and are serviced 5 days a week. 450 and 451 are daily freights bridging Ontario Northland (and also some OVR if I’m not mistaken) traffic between Mac Yard and North Bay. Although 8 years ago there were rumblings about CN wanting to discontinue service on the Newmarket from Mile 26.8 through to Mile 223.5 that never happened, and indeed in the past few years they’ve been sinking a considerable amount of money into it. I heard from a CN foreman when they were re-decking the bridge over the Muskoka River in Huntsville that they may have had an eye-opening in the summer of 2010 when forest fires shut down traffic from the Rouyn-Noranda area through Montreal and re-rout it over ONR rails and down the Newmarket that they might have thought it was nice to have that option. Also all the traffic between North Bay and Mac now carried by 451/450 would have to be routed through Montreal, which doesn’t really make much sense. Moreover there’s a major push among locals to have some sort of passenger service, even Budd cars, reinstated in the near future. I wish them luck and if our boy on Parliament Hill Tony Clement makes it as leader of the Conservatives and then gets Turd-oh kicked out after people tire of him hopefully next federal election they’ll have a real leg-up there. Yes, time will tell – but I’m not holding my breath!
I hope they do restore some sort of passenger service after that weasel McGuintey cancelled it. My GF and I were going to take the Northlander to her families cottage right when it was cancelled. So thank you for this Wayne, gives me a warm feeling that there won’t be another abandonment. And always a pleasure looking at your photos and documenting the Newmarket sub. Keep up the good work sir.