The Ontario Southland Railway Woodstock Job - Part 1

One item on my "bucket list" was checked off early in August when I finally saw the Ontario Southland Railway and part of its unique fleet of hard working diesel locomotives.

A Brief History of the Ontario Southland Railway

The Ontario Southland Railway was founded by Jeff Willsie, who is now the president of the company. The OSR started in April 1994, working the Petro-Canada lubricants refinery in Mississauga and hauling to Clarkson, Ontario. On January 1, 1998 it started operating the city-owned Guelph Junction Railway, and later it took over the CP Tillsonburg spur and the CP St. Thomas subdivision. Recently it started working the CN Cayuga subdivision as well.

The OSR has a diverse collection of older locomotives, including three ex CN FP9 locomotives, several MLW units (RS-18, S-13, M420W, RS-23) and some EMD GP7s and GP9s.

The Ontario Southland has been well photographed by the railfan community, and I wanted to get my own photos of this unique and friendly shortline.

Reconnaissance

On August 16 I drove up from southern Ontario to Waterloo to visit my son and his girlfriend. Nick has been going to the University of Waterloo and has finished his class work. They were just about to move to New Brunswick and we arranged to meet just before they hit the road for the Maritimes.

En route I ducked into Salford, Ontario for a very quick visit to the Ontario Southland Railway shop there.

All was quiet when I came by. There was a "dead line" of locomotives on the shop track on the west side of the facility: CITX 6016, UP 9444, OSRX 175 (GP9), OSRX 500 (S-6), OSRX 183 (RS-18) and OSRX 51 (NW2u) with ex CP snowplow 401005. A little research shows that freshly repainted UP 9444 arrived in August 2016 for some work. I'm not sure why it's still there a year later!

Not many MLW S-6 locomotives around!

I was using my "long lens" (70-200mm) to get roster shots of each locomotive. It was a hot day so there's a bit of heat shimmer in the photos.

OSRX 51, painted for the Toronto Hamilton and Buffalo

On the other side of the shops were OSRX 1594 (ex CP GP9) and one of the Ontario Southland's three "F" units, OSRX 1401 (ex CN, ex VIA, ex Raillink FP9u).

Family Time

After grabbing those photos, I kept on to Waterloo and met up with my son Nick and his girlfriend. We wandered through Waterloo and had dinner at a lovely little Korean restaurant. No kimchi for me, though! I enjoyed the meal greatly.

That egg... what the heck? Still tasty.

Nick playing a VR game

Afterward, we had ice cream, then Nick and I went to Ctrl-V, a virtual reality arcade. SO. MUCH. FUN. After some solo gaming, we teamed up to shoot zombies. It's hard to describe the experience.

You have this big thing on your head that projects a 3D view - tethered to the ceiling so you don't strangle yourself - and you hold two wands that act as your hands.

You can grasp things and pick them up, fire guns, turn door handles, and lots of other actions. When you walk, your "avatar" walks in the virtual world. It's quite an experience.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun. It's pretty expensive at $25/hour so it's easy to run a big tab up, but we spent $75 for one shared hour and another hour for each of us. Much fun was had.

Visiting the Shop

I had hoped that Nick and I could chase the Ontario Southland Woodstock job on Thursday morning, but he had to do one last shift at work before leaving. I couldn't let the opportunity go, so I went solo to Salford in the morning to chase the train.

I noted that there were a few changes to the power behind the shops from my visit the previous afternoon. The OSRX 1401 / 1594 pair was gone, and in its place were OSRX 1620 / 1400. Also, OSRX 378 and 383 were visible behind them.

I parked off the road near the shop entrance and walked onto the property, camera clearly visible. There were a couple of crew standing in the open shop door and they greeted me. We chatted for a bit and they were very friendly and clearly used to railfans walking up to see their railway.

They pointed out "CJ" the shop cat, so I had to take a couple of photos. Apparently she has been in a few articles.

The Salford shop cat

The crew told me their plans for the morning. They were going to take 1620 and 1400 and run light to Ingersoll with 1620 leading, switch the small yard in Ingersoll, then go work the GM CAMI assembly plant (currently making the Chevrolet Equinox and the GMC Terrain). After that, they were heading to Woodstock to interchange with CP.

The weather was pretty gray and it was forecast to rain. Not ideal photo weather but what can you do?

Essex Terminal Railway #102 and FP9u 6508 in the shops

A quick glance inside the shops showed Essex Terminal Railway 102 with hood doors open, and the OSR's third "F" unit, 6508, behind it. I understand 6508 is out of service at the moment, which is a shame as it is the prettiest of the three units in my opinion.

After a few minutes, OSRX 1620 and 1400 came up to the side of the shop.

OSRX 1620 in Salford, Ontario

They paused by the shop for a couple of minutes, then headed north toward Ingersoll.

Heading to Ingersoll

The going away shot was nice.

Mmmmm... F unit.

I hopped in my car and headed to Ingersoll... but where, exactly?

Lost in Ingersoll

I've never been in Ingersoll. I did some scouting on Google Maps the night before, so I knew the general layout of the town, but I didn't know where the train would be.

Once I arrived in the town, the first order of business was to find them.

This proved frustrating.

Both CN and Ontario Southland have track through Ingersoll. I drew a little map.

So the units came up from bottom right to join the Ontario Southland St. Thomas subdivision. When I arrived, I wasn't sure if they had gone to the GM CAMI facility yet or not. I decided to go there first, but there was no action there, just a lot of autoracks.

I drove back northeast along the track and spotted them just east of the junction of the Port Burwell and the St. Thomas subdivisions. I parked nearby and walked over in the growing rain, but they took off to the east!

Back to the car... then I drove into downtown Ingersoll. I went all the way east out of Ingersoll to ensure they weren't there.  Too far!

I drove back into town and went down to their tracks downtown, but they weren't there. I did stumble across the VIA station and the ex-CN station on the CN Dundas subdivision.

Ingersoll's Train Stations

Old and new train stations in Ingersoll

The VIA Rail station is the utilitarian one on the left, obviously.. I appreciate that an attempt was made to make it a little more attractive than a square box of a building.

That sad station to the right was built by the Great Western Railway (GWR) - in 1886, I believe. The Great Western became part of the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR), which itself became part of the Canadian National Railways (CNR).

Postcard of the GTR Ingersoll station - circa 1915

Notice that the baggage / freight section was added on after this postcard's date.

There's an "urbex" (urban exploration) video showing the exterior of the ex CN station. It looks like it is in the same shape as the Fredericton, NB station was when it was finally refurbished. There were calls in 2014 to do something about the station but I haven't found any reports since on any progress to refurbish or demolish the station.

Oddly the station is not protected under the Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act like many old Canadian train stations are. I wonder why it wasn't protected?

The CPR station was demolished in 1976. There's more information on Ingersoll's train stations here.

Picking Up the Chase

After grabbing a few photos of the stations, I went back to CAMI and found the locomotives pulling autoracks out of the facility. To be more accurate, I saw autoracks moving but never saw the locomotives there.

I figured they were going to shuffle cars for a bit, but they just took off right away heading east toward Woodstock!

I felt pretty dumb... stumbling around the town and never really seeing them.

Well, no time to feel sorry for oneself... the chase was on. Fortunately highway 9 parallels the track between Ingersoll and Woodstock so there was no possibility of losing the train!

OSRX 1620 in the rain

I raced along highway 9 and grabbed a couple of roadside shots in the growing rain. I was down to f/8 and 1/80s shutter speed due to the low light from the cloudy sky.

OSRX 1400 and 1620

Back in the car and give 'er!

Next

In part 2 I posted photos and video of the chase to Woodstock, as well as switching operations in Woodstock itself... plus photos of the ex CP and CN train stations in Woodstock. Read on!

PS - I will probably post the video of my morning with the Ontario Southland on my YouTube channel before I post here again. Why not subscribe to my channel to get it first?

The CN Family Day Train

This post is dedicated to David Othen.

The CN Family Day train

On September 10 CN hosted a Family Day in Symington Yard in Winnipeg. CN brought in a ferris wheel and hosted shop tours and other activities for employees and their families. As part of the activities, CN ran a short excursion train along the CN Terminals Cutoff track several times during the day. This track is sometimes known as the St. Boniface spur because it goes through the St. Boniface neighbourhood of Winnipeg, but it's not really a spur at all since it connects to Symington Yard at one end and the CN Redditt subdivision at the other.

The train started just inside Symington Yard, in front of the shops, and headed down the ruler-straight spur over Marion Street and Archibald Street. It stopped on the bridge over the Seine River then back to Symington for the next group of passengers.

CN "Sandford Fleming" car

The train's route

I looked at the line on Google Maps and it was obvious that the light was going to be a... challenge. Basically the light would be behind the train at the start, and as the afternoon wore on it would shift to the front, but in all cases it would be high in the sky.

The train was scheduled to run from 11 AM to 4 PM and I was only able to be there for the first few runs, so... high noon sun. Oh well, work with what you have!

I elected to go to Dawson Road to shoot it shortly after it came out of the yard and crossed over Lagimodiere Boulevard. I parked by the side of the road, and a railfan on the other side of the tracks waved at me and told me the light was much better on his side. I had time so I drove around to Speers Road and parked behind him.

It turned out to be Jim Burnside, a local railfan whose photos appear often on RailsMBSK. We had never met so it was nice to finally put a face to the name.

We chatted for a bit and I agreed the light was better on this side. As it happened we were standing on what used to be route 59, so there is broken and overgrown pavement visible in a few of these shots.

CN 102 in Winnipeg

The train was scheduled to start at 11 and we heard a few toots from the yard but nothing came. I assume they were loading at 11 so it took a bit of time for them to get underway. During this time, another local railfan, Tim Burridge, showed up. We had met before but it had been a few years!

The train finally got underway and was upon us at 11:24. The sequence of shots around this text is the first run.

CN 3105 on the Family Day train

I swapped lenses to get the long shot on 3105 with the sun in its face. I was a little slow deciding to do this, so I had to crop in pretty far.

CN 3105, going away

I said my goodbyes to Jim and Tim and tried to beat them to Archibald Street. Unfortunately I had not planned my route, so I took a right turn leaving Speers Road and got stuck in a subdivision with no exit. Sheepishly, I drove back around and down Dawson Road to see the train coming back up the spur.

I took a moment to photograph the line of GWWD maintenance cars sitting outside their yard - a couple of flatcars, a ballast hopper and five Hart cars.

GWWD maintenance cars

Run 2

I returned to Dawson Road and waited by the side of the road for the second train. I knew the light would be terrible but I wanted to be ready to beat them to Archibald Street.

Yep, the light was terrible

11:51 for the second train.

The going-away shot was OK, though.

CN 3105 going away

I hopped in my car and drove down Dawson Road to try to beat them to Archibald. The lights and traffic were in my favour and I arrived beside the crossing a good 30 seconds before they crossed at 11:56.

Backlit CN 3090

The going-away shot looked pretty fine.

CN 3105 going away.. again

In retrospect I should have stepped across the intersection once they had passed, to get at least a bit of sun on the side, but A) I wasn't sure how far they were going and how much time I had to cross over, and B) it honestly never occurred to me.

Sun and shadow

They did not spend any time on the bridge; they pulled onto the bridge, stopped, then started back up the spur. I decided to shoot video with my iPhone, since I had all the stills I needed from the last minute!

I liked the little guy in the cab of CN 3090!

The conductor waving from the vestibule is Mark Perry, noted photographer and one of the many CN volunteers giving up their Saturdays for the train and the festivities. Many thanks to Mark for the intel on the train and thanks to all of the volunteers for their time and effort.

Round 3

I thought I could maybe squeeze one more train in before I had to leave. I went to Marion Street, midway along the route, and waited near the crossing there for the train to come along.

Unfortunately CN had to pay the bills so they ran a freight train on the "X track" which blocked the Family Day train from leaving. When I saw that, I decided it was time to leave. I headed out on Dawson but as I passed the location where I first shot the train, I saw the Family Day train was en route.

I pulled off the road and jumped out to take video of the train passing by. Jim was right - the light was much better on the other side.

That was it for me.

About the Train

The train was:

• CN 3090
• "SANDFORD FLEMING" / IC 800653
• "TAWAW" / CN 1059
• CN 102
• CN 3105

CN 3090 and CN 3105 are shiny new GE ET44AC locomotives, the latest in CN's fleet.

CN 102 was shiny but not at all new, being an E9 unit built in January 1950 as Chicago, Burlington and Quincy #9940A. It was acquired by Illinois Central in 1996 and may still be an IC unit for all I know. You may have noticed that some locomotives labelled as CN are actually IC units, with a little "IC" under the side numbers. I don't see that here but that might not mean much... I'm just a railfan reporting what I see or don't see.

CN 102 was just along for the ride... it wasn't running. In 2014 it was "leading" on the Family Day train, which was better for railfans!

2014 Family Day Train with CN 102

SANDFORD FLEMING is an observation car, lettered for the Illinois Central. It's too bad that it was in the middle of the consist so passengers couldn't see anything out of the end picture window besides the end of TAWAW. I last saw SANDFORD FLEMING in January 2016.

TAWAW is an ex CN car, ex "CAPE CHIGNECTO". It has been extensively rebuilt and is quite nice inside, based on the photos I've seen.

Other Coverage

Many other area railfans were out to shoot the train, and I'll link to a couple:

• "Red River Rails" aka Jack
• "Trainboy Productions" aka Isaac
• "The Cando Railfan" aka Taylor
• My video of the 2014 Family Day Train

See Other "business train" blog entries

Toasters, Red Barns and Other Nicknames

Railfans spend a lot of time waiting for trains. I'm convinced this is when we come up with nicknames for particular types of locomotives. Here are a few common ones.

The Toaster

Probably the most well-known railfan nickname is the "toaster", a name now applied to most if not all GE locomotives. I believe it was first applied to the Amtrak AEM-7 and P42DC locomotives due to their toaster-like shape, and the fact that GE also makes household appliances like toasters.

Amtrak 58, Philadelphia, 2005

More recently GE locomotives have acquired this nickname for the burn marks on the sides of some locos.

I think it's browned enough

There's a great photo by Stephen Tripptree of a CSX unit belching flame on Railpictures.

I've also heard "techno-toaster" for the P42DC or for a Dash-9. Speaking of Dash-9, I believe that's another railfan term.

Red Barn

The GMD SD40-2F is commonly known as a "red barn" because it is a cowl unit and wears the Action Red of CP Rail.

CP 9021 in Winnipeg, MB

Ten of these "red barns" have found their way to the Central Maine and Quebec Railway, including CP 9021 above. Frank Jolin has some great shots of them on his Flickr profile, including this one.

Big Mac

EMD's SD70MAC, SD80MAC and SD90MAC locomotives are called "Big Macs" for obvious reasons. The "M" is for a safety cab and the "AC" means they use AC traction motors rather than DC.

CP 9109 at La Salle, MB

CP 9109 is/was an SD9043MAC.

Covered Wagon

Pretty much every EMD "E" or "F" locomotive (think E8, F7, etc.) is called a covered wagon. These are called that because they are cowl units, where the shell sits on the frame.

Covered wagon E9A CN 102

Thundercow

I've heard the SD40-2W units called "thundercows" but I don't know why.

"Thundercow" CN 5279 on the CN Family Day train in September 2014

Spongebob Squarecab

This was a new one to me. I can't remember if I saw it on Instagram or Facebook, but it refers to CSX cab rebuilds like this one from Flickr:

It does look a bit like Spongebob SquarePants.

Blue Devils

There are a set of blue locomotives, IC 2455-2466, that were leased to Conrail and Illinois Central. This explains the blue! They are sublettered for IC under the locomotive number but have the big CN noodle. Railfans call them "blue devils" (why devils? I don't know), not to be confused with "blueberries" (the dark blue BC Rail units) and "blue bells" (blue GTW units).

"Blue Devil" IC 2460

Individual locomotives have nicknames too. I won't list them in this post but the most famous VIA Rail locomotive nickname was...

The Turd

You can read some more nicknames here. Weigh in with your own nicknames in the comments!

CP Holiday Train and CN Christmas Train

As usual, Canadian Pacific is running their Holiday Train across Canada and the USA to raise money and gather food for local food banks. It's a great cause and I encourage you to get out and see the train and make a donation. I've seen it in 2011 and 2013. The photo at right is in my 2015 Train Calendar.

The complete schedule is here. These are the stops near Winnipeg:

December 3, 6:45 PM - Whitemouth - Railway Ave. across from Whitemouth Hotel
December 3, 9:00 PM - Winnipeg - Molson Street between Panet Road and Munroe Avenue
December 4, 4:45 PM - Portage la Prairie - Opposite Centennial Arena, 390-1st St. NW
December 4, 7:45 PM - Brandon - Assiniboine Ave, west of the 8th street overpass
December 5, 9:15 AM - Virden - North side of tracks on 5th ave South between Lyons Street & Ashburton Street

CN - I've heard that CN will be running a Christmas train for their employees and family from Winnipeg out to Diamond just west of Winnipeg. The train is supposed to depart from Symington Yard at 17:00 and 19:00 on November 21, 22 and 23. The train will feature CN 102 on one end (and a CN freight engine on the other) with some rented VIA coaches for the passengers. All proceeds will go to the Christmas Cheer Board.

The photo at right was from September 9, 2014 when CN ran a Family Day train in Winnipeg on the St. Boniface spur. You'll see that engine on the cover of my 2015 Train Calendar.

There's a couple of good opportunities to get night photos of some interesting trains!

Two Trains

This is just a short post recounting the two trains I saw on Friday morning.

I saw train CN 111 rolling west along the CN Rivers subdivision just after 9 AM. It had CN 2274 in the lead.


One challenge with shooting into the sun like this is to avoid blowing the sky out with the high contrast between the dark train and the bright sky. Typically I would focus on the side of the train, which is much darker than the sky. I used the exposure compensation on the camera to step it down 2/3 of a stop.

CN 2529 was the second unit and has something odd on the side of the engine over the "5". Is it a rear-view mirror?


After the head end passed, I drove west to catch it again. I was surprised to see a train coming the other way. It turned out to be CN 102 and I had just a few seconds to pull over and shoot it.

Note the lack of any class lettering under the "5611" on the side of the SD70I.

I did get ahead of train 111 and shot it approaching Diamond.


I decided to do a pan shot of 2274 this time. I set the shutter speed to 1/80s.


After I watched the train pass for a bit, I saw the mid-train engine, CN 8938.


While I was in the panning mood, I shot this CN container. "We Deliver!"


The train rolled off into the distance, and so did I.

Busy Day

Thursday, July 12 was a busy busy railfanning day. It started at noon when I went out to shoot the Canadian. I went down to my new favourite spot by Carman Junction around mile 8.3 and set up. Soon I realized that there was a CN freight coming east. I was hoping it would not skunk me like a certain previous time, but fortunately it was on the north track. CN 2592 led CN 2609 and a medium-sized intermodal train. I believe it was CN 102.


As the train rolled on past me, I saw a set of headlights in the far distance to the east. Here comes VIA!


The end of the CN train passed and shortly after that, VIA 6413 came around the curve.


Now... here's a funny little picture from the same time. Guess what happened? (answer at bottom of post)


I took a video of the two trains.


After work, I traveled out toward the CN Rivers subdivision again. I saw a container train rolling over route 90, and it turned out to be CN 199. I gave chase, although I figured I would not catch up to it.They met an eastbound train and I caught a glimpse of the head end at Shaftesbury Boulevard as I waited for the light to change.

I continued on westward and 199 got away, but I heard them get a rollby inspection from a train. Curious, I kept going west of Diamond and found CN 112 stopped on the north track. They were waiting for a green light. Here they had just received their light, turned their headlights on, and were preparing to head out.


I took some shots as the head end passed, then jumped in my car and gave chase. It was quite easy to pace them at the start, as they were still pulling hard to get moving. I fired some shots out my side window and ended up with a half-decent pacing shot.


I then pulled up to Hall Road to take video. I thought I had plenty of time but in fact I was a bit rushed and missed a bit of horn noise at the start.


All very exciting, but there was one more train to see! CN 106 was still to come into Winnipeg. Here they are near Diamond.


Here's the video from the same location.


That was quite enough for me, so I headed for home. But wait! There's more... when crossing the CN Letellier subdivision, I saw CN 532 rolling south, so I took a quick exit and shot them as they approached the Perimeter Highway. CN 5532 on 532... love it.


I have no idea why the door was open, except perhaps to provide some cooling for the crew.


Answer to why the VIA photo was so dark: My camera was set to meter on a single point (the center of the lens) and I had pointed it at the headlight. The camera metered for the headlight and so the shot was very underexposed. I like the effect!