David Morris sent along some photos of the New Brunswick Southern Railway UNICEF train that ran on September 30. The NBSR runs a train every fall between McAdam and St. Stephen in New Brunswick, Canada to benefit UNICEF.
The train had Maine Northern 9801 on the head end, followed by NBSR 5448, NBSR 5471, NBSR 5537 and "office" van NBSR 422990.
He first caught the UNICEF train passing through Harvey, NB en route to McAdam in the early morning light.
Things were much brighter on arrival in McAdam! Note the nice UNICEF banner.
This is the interior of car 5448, one of the three ex-VIA Rail coaches on the train.
After all the passengers boarded, they left for the slow trip to St. Stephen. David shot them at Moores Mills en route to St. Stephen.
Trouble was waiting at Watt Junction! These fierce train robbers were lying in wait for the train.
The train was accosted by the train robbers, some mounted on horseback.
Finally, they arrived in St. Stephen. David took this shot on the Milltown spur outside St. Stephen.
The engine ran around the train and pulled it back to McAdam. I believe David shot this from the highway 1 overpass just outside St. Stephen.
Once back in McAdam, the train was marshaled behind the freight power of NBSR 2318, 008, 2319 and HLCX 906.
I was in St. Stephen, New Brunswick this past week and took numerous photographs of the former Canadian Pacific Railway station there. Trains still visit St. Stephen a couple of times a week, but there are no rails to the station any more.
Construction on the current station began on June 1, 1929 and it was completed in late November 1929. The last CP passenger train departed for McAdam on August 16, 1958 (gas-electric CP 9008). After that SMT provided bus service from the station until 1967.
In 1971 the town bought the station and used it for the St. Croix public library. In 1999 the library moved to a new building very close by, and the station became the tourist information centre.
I thought it would be fun to compare current photos against those of days gone by. I found a selection of photos showing the station from the same viewpoint. I did not take a photo of the station from that viewpoint myself, because it would have been directly into the sun.
Here is the station in 2000, after it was a tourist information centre. This is basically how it looks today. This photo is by J.A. Clowes.
Here it is in 1988, again taken by J.A. Clowes. At this time it was still the town library. The station was not terribly clean. Note the derelict rails in the foreground.
Now we go back to 1958. The photographer is unknown. Note the awning on the rear of the station, no longer present.
The last steam train to visit St. Stephen was headed by CPR 986, a D10 class 4-6-0. It went to St. Andrews and St. Stephen before returning to McAdam as train 51. Its fires were dumped and it joined the dead line at McAdam.
Here is a postcard depicting the previous station in St. Stephen. This postcard is from around 1900. This station was built in 1877 following the disastrous town fire of 1876 that destroyed the majority of the business district. It served as the headquarters of the New Brunswick and Canada Railroad.
I think that is the freight house on the left.
In 2016 the St. Stephen station will be refurbished and upgraded. The tourist information centre is leaving and two new businesses will be moving in (CBC article).
Here's another Jody Robinson photo showing a washout under the main line in McAdam's yard. Note the culvert in the bottom left, clearly not large enough to handle the flow of water from the heavy downpour.
Long-time readers may remember I took a few photos of a washout in Grand Bay, NB back in September 2008.
I'm told that a lot of the water in McAdam has drained away, but there is a lot of damage left. I understand there are "at least six major washouts between McAdam and Saint John". Don't expect to see any main line trains for a while - just ballast trains.
It's a shame, given the amount of work that has been done to refurbish the track in the past two years after the funding announcement. Who knows how much worse it might have been?
Look at this video from St. Stephen showing the amount of water there.
Here's a video from Gary Lee showing the damage to the main street in McAdam. Near the end of the video he shows the main line in the McAdam yard hanging in the air.
Continuing my "All things NB Southern" streak, Danny McCracken reports that the annual NB Southern UNICEF train will run on Friday September 24 between McAdam and St. Stephen. The train will depart McAdam at 11 AM, arrive at the Ganong's siding in St. Stephen at 2 PM, and return to McAdam by 5 PM. St. Croix Courier Article
Tickets are $50 each (return) and you can (should) bring your own food and beverages. For tickets call 466-6854 or 466-4557. "Watch out for the Waweig River Gang as they may be planning to hold up the train." There is a dinner afterward at the station for an additional $15.
The photo above is Brian Barchard's, showing the 2006 UNICEF train.
Speaking of McAdam, the McAdam Historical Restoration Commission is holding a fundraiser every Sunday afternoon in September at the station's lunch counter. They are serving railroad pie and coffee from 1 PM to 4 PM, at a cost of $5.50/person for a slab of homemade pie and a refreshment. All proceeds go towards the station restoration - no reservations required. For more information call 784-1400.
The NB Southern excursion train near Welsford, NB on May 27, 2007
NB Southern is taking its shiny refurbished passenger cars out for more public excursions. The Telegraph Journal is reporting that NBSR will run trains for the Dragon Boat Festival on Saturday August 29 from Harbour Station to Renforth just south of Rothesay. This is new territory for the NBSR cars!
The trains are planned to leave Harbour Station at 8:30, 10:00, and 11:30, with returns from Renforth at Renforth at 1:30, 3:00 and 4:30. It sounds like there will be deadhead trips back in between. Lots of opportunities for photos and video! Tickets are $10.00 each; call (506) 632-5595.
The annual UNICEF train run will occur on Friday September 25 from McAdam to Saint Stephen and back. No times or costs available yet. To purchase a ticket, please contact William (BILL) Young in St. Stephen NB at 506-466-4557 (home number, so suggest you call in the evening).
This is a slow trip so bring a good book and some snacks!
The last train left Calais, Maine yesterday, May 1 2009. I was fortunate to be able to see it in Saint Stephen in the afternoon.
Some Maine railfans were on the scene in the morning and saw Maine Central engine 321, snowplough MEC 73 and a few empty boxcars on the international bridge between Maine and New Brunswick. I understand the NB Southern "south job" was supposed to head down in the morning. However, I found out from McAdam that NBSR 2319 had been sent to Fredericton Junction in the morning to fetch a car, before heading down to Saint Stephen. They didn't leave McAdam until 11 AM.
My father-in-law, my two sons and I left Fredericton around 14:00 and headed down toward McAdam and Saint Stephen. I placed a quick call to one of the Maine railfans and found they were not leaving any time soon. I drove down to Saint Stephen and arrived at the Milltown border crossing at 15:30. There was a long string of cars, snowplough MEC 73, and NBSR 2319 and MEC 321.
The NB Southern crew were using MEC 321 to shunt a few boxcars.
I was told that NBSR 2319 was not working well, so it was good that MEC 321 was available to run! The conductor told me that they were going to shunt the flakeboard plant then head up the road to McAdam. They had to book off by 18:00 so it was questionable whether they would make it on time.
Here are the railfans!
They marshalled the train and the two engines pushed up to the flakeboard plant, with NBSR 434919 leading. Here's a video I took as they entered the plant.
I had to head back to Fredericton, so I grabbed one last shot of the train before heading up the road.
Gary Lee took some photos and video of the NB Southern local ready to go to St. Stephen for this morning. It has a special car on it, a depressed-center flat car. I wonder what load it will be picking up?
CBC is reporting that the St. Stephen Flakeboard Company is laying workers off due to the economic crisis in the U.S. Much of Flakeboard's revenue comes from the housing industry, and the sub-prime mortgage crisis and now the general economic crisis has hit the housing industry hard.
These layoffs are obviously going to have an impact on the amount of product shipped by rail on NB Southern. Let's hope the layoffs are short term and the good people of St. Stephen can get back to work soon.
Matt Keoughan passed on this news item. NB Southern Railway will operate a passenger train with caboose from McAdam to St. Stephen and return on Friday Sept. 26. Tickets are $45. They can be purchased in advance by calling Herb Caverhill at 506-466-6854. Occupancy in the van is up for auction, which means as many people as you want can ride in it. A great way to split the cost.
Gary Lee shot a couple of videos of the Pan Am Railways (ex-Guilford) unit in St. Stephen. Pan Am has an isolated piece of track from Calais that serves the Woodland, Maine mill. They interchange with NB Southern in Milltown at the border. Occasionally you can see the Guilford unit in McAdam as it gets shipped out for servicing by Pan Am. I saw MEC 320 in McAdam on November 25, 2006.
Gary Lee has been busy! First he caught rare footage of a Guilford unit at St. Stephen. Here's Maine Central (MEC) 307 pulling a train into Maine. There's another one here but the quality is unfortunately not good.
Here's a cab ride of NBSR 9801 going under a highway overpass near St. Stephen.
Check out the freight from Saturday November 17, with 4 locos and 8 freight cars!
Last but not least, here's a short clip of a video taken out the back of the Chaleur by clam502.
This weekend I had the "railfan itch" and decided to try something new - the St. Stephen subdivision. I hadn't railfanned that before, and the train generally only runs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so weekend trips don't work. Monday was a holiday (Victoria Day), and a quick call verified that the local would indeed be running.
I left Fredericton at just before 8 AM. I understood that the local was called for 8 AM, so chances were that I would not see it at McAdam. I decided to try anyway, and sure enough it was not there. Of the various cars there, a few stood out - a half dozen loaded gypsum cars, and empty MMA bulkhead flats clearly used in the recent dimensional loads for Nackawic. I continued south and cut across on highway 630 to the vicinity of Watt. I took highways 750 and 755 south toward St. Stephen, hoping to catch the local "on the road". I didn't see it, but I did get some ideas on where to shoot on the way back. I did see a single-ended siding at Moore's Mills, with an ancient NBSR boxcar at the end. CP's 1972/04/18 timetable showed it as a 12 car siding.
As I approached St. Stephen, I heard "Extra 9801" getting a clearance to Milltown Junction from the RTC. That told me they were arriving at St. Stephen, so I wasn't too far behind. I soon heard the chirp of the EOT (End of Train device) as I crested Old Ridge and saw the town below me. I opted to follow the tracks through town, rather than go downtown. I found the train at the Flakeboard plant on the west side of town at 09:48. It looked like they were dropping a tank car or two off.
I set up at the south end of the plant to wait for them to come through. At 10:09 they rolled through with van NBSR 434919 leading, the brakeman watching attentively for traffic and sounding the caboose's melodic horn. Battered 9801 was pushing on the tail end. They had 9 cars plus the van at that time.
Caboose leading
I zipped down to highway 170 to catch them at the next crossing. They stopped the train there at 10:16, detached the caboose, and the rest of the consist ran southeast out of my view, possibly to pick up a few cars. After a little shunting they had the van on the north end and the engine on the south end, and pushed back up toward the Flakeboard plant around 10:35.
NB Southern 9801 in St. Stephen
There is an intermodal warehouse that is not shown on the Live aerial photo I linked to earlier. Here they took the four boxcars that were there, and replaced them with one (empty) bulkhead flat car and two extra-height boxcars, all MM&A. I spoke with the brakeman here and he said they would be switching the Flakeboard plant for about half an hour before leaving town.
My son and I went and grabbed a hot dog, and watched the switching while we ate. They entered the Flakeboard plant at 11:02 and it was about 11:25 when they started heading for home. I shot them at the highway 725 crossing first.
Shoving platform at work
We then headed in to get them at the highway 740 crossing and then the Queen Street crossing. I shot them across the ball field behind the Legion but they beat me to the King Street crossing.
Crossing the field
I did shoot them behind the arena there and was amazed how bad the track was there (11:42). It must be a rough ride.
Bumpety bump
They stopped behind Ganong's to call the RTC for clearance to come home. To my surprise I saw they had swapped the engine and van again so 9801 was leading on the way home.
I went up highway 3 as they rolled along under the new highway 1 overpass. I decided to catch them here and get the one-lane covered bridge in the background. Fortunately the traffic stopped out of the video frame so I could get a good picture at 12:05.
Train, covered bridge, what could be better?
I carried on up highway 750 and found this fabulous spot just south of Moore's Mills. I just had time to put the video camera on the tripod and turn it on before the train rolled across the bridge at 12:12.
Crossing the bridge
My next shot was at 12:19 where route 750 crossed the tracks.
Big Green
The next crossing had a very long sight line so I could see them from a few kilometers away. They passed me at 12:23.
Looooong shot
I got them at Honeydale at 12:32, easily beating them there.
I decided to catch them one more time, at Watt. I turned down the road to the siding and had to inch past a very friendly dog. Still, I was there in time to record the freight rocking and rolling through at 12:44.
NB Southern 9801 through Watt
From there, I backtracked a bit to highway 630 and took that back to highway 4, then north to McAdam. I was there by about 13:10 but the freight didn't show until 13:26.
NB Southern 9801 arriving back in McAdam
For the rivet-counters, the final train was: NBSR 9801, hopper UNPX 120398, Procor tank car PROX 40748, extra-height box NOKL 571101, boxcar SLC 40621, extra-height boxes MMA 23520, AOK 112217, MMA 9244, NOKL 570184, MMA 9242, and van 434919 on the end. That's 9 cars plus the caboose.
They dropped the van near the station, then shoved their consist into the north part of the yard before stopping by the crew shack. I spoke with the friendly brakeman and he said they were going to switch the Westroc gypsum plant next. I decided to hit the road, given that it was getting late and the eastbound wasn't due for over an hour. As I left they ran light to Westroc to get the empty cars.
NBSR 9801 running light
I'm quite pleased with how the trip worked out, and the weather was pretty good. It didn't actually rain until the freight arrived in McAdam, and I did have a few patches of sun.
I chased the St. Stephen local on Monday May 21. I'll have a full report later, but for now here is a video of the train rocking and rolling through Watt on its way back to McAdam. (video)
Brian Barchard was kind enough to send along a couple of photos he took of the UNICEF train on September 29. He chased it down to St. Stephen and rode it back, an excellent way of railfanning. Thanks, Brian!
