40 Mile Rail Starts Up

The new 40 Mile Rail locomotive, JLCX 4004

Congratulations to new Alberta shortline railway 40 Mile Rail on receiving their locomotive and 20 grain cars on Wednesday!

About 40 Mile Rail

Forty Mile Rail (FMR) label on crossing post.
Near Wrentham, AB - Jason Sailer photo

I wrote about 40 Mile Rail in my description of the grain elevators of the CP Stirling subdivision back in April. Back then 40 Mile was planning for a June 1 startup.

That slipped, obviously.

Forty Mile Rail was originally called Red Coat Rail and was discussed by local farmers, including Paul Laqua, about a decade ago.

The last train ran on the CP Stirling subdivision sometime in 2002. CP used Brandt rail trucks for a period after that but it appears that nothing has run on the line since perhaps 2006.

There was some work being done on the line in early to mid September. Between 50 and 60 crossings were fixed up and a transfer track was built near the Pioneer grain elevator for CP and 40 Mile to interchange cars.

The Locomotive

Bright blue JLCX 4004 has been leased by 40 Mile to work their line. This locomotive is a GP9 originally built as Southern Pacific 3877. It was acquired by RaiLink as RLK 4004 and worked on the Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway in Nova Scotia. It was leased to the nearby Windsor and Hantsport Railway for a period of time.

The loco became JLCX 4004 sometime in 2013. It looks like it spent the last few years in Montreal. The J&L Consulting Facebook page shows it being prepared for service in July 2016.

JLCX 4004 was on the move in September and went via CP through Sudbury, Ontario through Winnipeg. It arrived in Moose Jaw, SK on September 17 and was photographed by Ken McCutcheon there.

JLCX 4004 in Moose Jaw, SK - photo by Ken McCutcheon

It continued on to Swift Current on the 19th then arrived in Lethbridge, AB early on the 20th. Jason Paul Sailer shot it there from the highway.

JLCX 4004 in Kidd outside Lethbridge - photo by Jason Paul Sailer

Arrival

Early on the 21st, a CP "toaster" locomotive took it and the 20 hopper cars to Stirling, AB, then and crawled along the Stirling subdivision to the new interchange track, where the CP unit cut off and left.

Frontier Signworks shared this Facebook live video of the arrival of 4004 in Foremost, AB around 7:30 PM. The locomotive and the grain cars are pulling past the Buffalo elevator in the town.

Dalton Photography shared a large collection of photos taken of 4004's arrival in Foremost.

The Future

Hopefully this new shortline, only Alberta's second (after the Battle River Railway), has a bright future ahead of it. The Foremost elevator has a new employee and will be loading pulse crops for rail loading.

I'm assuming the railway acquired their own cars to help with car availability, so they aren't kept waiting for CP to supply cars from their pool.

I'm looking forward to photos of the train on the line and maybe I'll get some photos myself the next time I am in the Lethbridge area!

Highball!

See also

• Grain elevators in and near Foremost
• Bow Island Commentator article on the startup
• Trains in Alberta
• Shortline Railways

Just the Fax, Ma'am

This has very little to do with trains.

Atlantic Gypsum's tug Spanish Mist is up for sale. Atlantic Gypsum mines gypsum near Hantsport and exports it via ship at Hantsport. With the downturn in the US housing market, and the long-term outlook for gypsum looking poor, it appears that Atlantic Gypsum will not be shipping very much product. They have a tricky loading situation that does require tugs, and it appears that a company out of Saint John will handle that work from now on.

The train-related portion of this post is that Atlantic Gypsum uses the Windsor & Hantsport Railway to ship gypsum from their mines to Hantsport.

Jeff Keddy told me about this blog post talking about the Spanish Mist. That belongs to the blog TugFax, a blog about tugs in and near Halifax, NS.

The blog owner also has other, related blogs: Armchair Captain; ShipFax; and TruckFax. All of them appear to be quite active.

I liked some of the recent posts on the Armchair Captain blog, because of their military content. I used to live just outside CFB Shearwater in the military quarters, and I was a navy ship geek for a while. From my house on Barracuda Drive, I could often see American naval ships and submarines dock at the jetty in Shearwater. They (used to?) dock there because Halifax banned any ships potentially carrying nuclear weapons from docking in Halifax, and since the USA has a policy of not divulging whether ships are carrying nukes... they went to Shearwater. I am not sure how the few miles of open water really protected Halifax...

I have fond memories of touring US ballistic missile and attack subs with my dad, as well as the occasional guided missile cruiser or destroyer. I remember being woken up one morning by a cruiser blaring the Star Spangled Banner, complete with the crew moving the missile launchers to the tune. I think they got in trouble for that. I also remember looking at my house through a periscope - good optics on those things.

Anyway, if you like ships, go check out those blogs.

This Day, 20 Years Ago

This slide was shot in McAdam, NB 20 years ago, on June 3, 1990, by Carl G. Perelman. The engines are MLW RS-23 units 8041 and 8038, and a CP caboose. I believe the units are just west of the station.

These units were built in mid 1960 by Montreal Locomotive Works (MLW) and were uniquely Canadian. They had a six cylinder 251C engine delivering 1000 horsepower. They served CP for many years, and these two units were eventually sold to the Windsor & Hantsport Railway in 1996. They served that shortline for a while, until they ran out of "steam" and were scrapped in 2006.

CEMR Units Leaving Windsor & Hantsport?

David Othen reported that CEMR 4011 and 4014 are "now coupled nose to nose with 5 or 6 empty grain cars" at Windsor Junction outside Halifax, Nova Scotia. Windsor Junction is where the Windsor & Hantsport Railway interchanges traffic with CN. These two GP9s have had some mechanical problems. It appears that now that the W&H's GE units are on site, and at least somewhat operational, the CEMR units are being sent back.

New Units for Windsor & Hantsport

Two "new" engines have been acquired for the Windsor & Hantsport Railway in Nova Scotia. These are Conrail painted GE B23-7 units. The two former Conrail engines (now relettered WHRC 1968 and 4069 under the numbers) arrived in Halifax this morning on train CN 120. They had spent several days in Moncton.

Here they are at Bayview Junction in Ontario.


Here they are in Tennessee, I believe.

The discussion on their journey is here.

"Two GE B23-7's are destined for the Windsor & Hansport RR. WHRC #1968
and 4079 both arrived in Louisville,KY on CSX on March 6, 2010. Both were most recently owned by the Nashville & Eastern RR and as far as I know never
turned a wheel in service. Both are in Conrail blue, with #1968 in nearly pure CR paint and markings while #4079 had the original number patched while in operation on NS and later had CR markings painted out when acquired by National Railway Equipment."

CEMR Units Leaving the Windsor & Hantsport

CEMR 4012 (in Central Manitoba Railway black and grey) and CEMR 4013 (in CN stripes) are leaving Nova Scotia today. They were brought up to Windsor Junction on Thursday, to Dartmouth on Friday, and are on CN train 407 this morning on their way to Moncton. 4012 and 4013 have been non-operable for some time. 4012 and 4013 are both remanufactured GP9s.

Thanks to David Othen for the excellent commentary.

Windsor & Hantsport Woes

The Windsor & Hantsport Railway (Windsor, NS to Windsor Junction, NS) has had its share of troubles recently.

On the morning of February 2 they had a locomotive (CEMR 4011) derail just east of the East Uniacke crossing, on the way to Windsor Junction. They used the second engine (RLK 4004) to rerail 4011. They were bringing 4 empty grain cars to Windsor Junction, and were to pick up some loads from CN there. Apparently after rerailing 4011, they backed up all the way back to Windsor.

Late in the morning of February 4, they sent a plough (55360) and ballast regulator (with two engines pushing) to clear the ice from the line. This was to allow the following freight train to finally get to Windsor Junction. Apparently the plow derailed (twice) around the same place that 4011 did.

On February 5 they used a bulldozer and the ballast regulator to clear 5 miles of track. There were 18 loaded cars at Windsor Junction waiting for them. I assume they have picked them up by now.

Quite a struggle!

EDIT: The track was cleared by Sunday February 8, and a train left Windsor at 07:45 with 6 empty cars to go to Windsor Junction.

Last? freight from New Minas to Hantsport

David Othen put a video of what might be the last freight train from New Minas, NS to Hantsport, NS from this past Friday, August 17. The video shows the CEMR 4014 and its three car train passing the Wolfville train station.

Windsor and Hantsport

Noting the rumours about the cessation of some freight service on the Windsor & Hantsport, Ivan Smith has created a page documenting what might be one of the last freight runs on the W&H. Check it out!