Thursday, March 14, 2024

Kingston & Pembroke Railway - Part 1

There were so many shortlines to be built and so little time...

Prospectors, entrepreneurs, city fathers, venture capitalists, boosters, hucksters and railroaders were eager to lay steel across much of North America during the railway boom. Kingston was no different. This is the first post in a four-part series, in which I'll profile the history of the K&P, its facilities in Kingston and its stations along the southern part of the line.

SPECULATION

The urban growth of the late 19th-century required lumber, minerals, and wood for pulp. All were available north of Kingston, to be extracted and exploited by railway lines not yet built. As of 1846, there were several proposed railways promoted for the Kingston area: in 1846, the Wolfe Island, Kingston & Toronto Railway; in 1853, the Cataraqui & Peterborough Railway; in 1854, the Kingston & Smiths Falls Railway; in 1856 the Kingston & Newburgh Railway; in 1868, the Kingston & Frontenac Railway; in 1869, the Kingston & Madoc Railway.

Only one was successful – the Kingston & Pembroke (K&P) Railway. With a planned northern terminus on the Ottawa River and crossing two of its tributaries – the Mississippi and the Madawaska – all three rivers could bring forth lumber traffic. Development and settlement supplies could be shipped north, with agriculture and resource products shipped back south – to Kingston and beyond!

Later leased by Canadian Pacific, the line is still referred to in the local area as the K&P or in the vernacular, the Kick and Push. Both CP and K&P are used interchangeably here, and both refer to the same line. It was a lifeline connecting many small communities to a world that their inhabitants had little connection to, or interest in. A letter to the editor (one of a number of Kingston Whig-Standard and Kingston Daily News clippings in this post) published February 8, 1884 extols the area's conceptual commercial cornucopia:
Without the K&P and its southern terminus at Kingston, the city might have only had one railway reach its waterfront, not two.  In the early natural resource exploitation and transportation boom, a year-round timber supply not hampered by winter freeze-up, unlike river transport, was desirable. The K&P only reached Renfrew to the north, not its namesake city, though earlier promoters were keen to link Lake Ontario with the mighty Ottawa River. A jaundiced Renfrew Mercury opinion piece noted in 1915 that the K&P had no more to do with Pembroke than it did with Halifax! A connection to a transcontinental line was also desirable, potentially adding traffic and receiving a share of that traffic.

INVESTMENT

Early prospecting revealed iron, galena, phosphate and mica. The Lacey mica mine, east of Sydenham, was owned by the Loughborough Mining Company and was at one time the largest mica-producing site anywhere. And where there was potential, there would also be willing investors. Stock was subscribed to by local men of importance, with well-known surnames: Gildersleeve, Calvin, Cartwright, Campbell and Kirkpatrick. Even Sir John A. MacDonald had a behind-the-scenes interest in the K&P’s genesis, as well as representing the constituents of his riding, railway and business interests at various times. Eventually, three-quarters of the stock interests would be held by New York figures, two-thirds of whom also held stock in the Kingston & Pembroke Mining Company. The railway's board of directors, February 13, 1884:
After Confederation, the railway boom continued as it had before the American Civil War intervened. Between 1870 and 1890, total trackage in Ontario increased five-fold. By 1910, more than 115 railway charters had been granted in the province. Later that century, between 1970 to 1990, Ontario would lose three-quarters of its trackage.

CONSTRUCTION

Railway construction was made attractive by the Railway Aid Act of 1870. The act was designed to subsidize and thereby facilitate railway access to Crown lands, to further develop a burgeoning young nation which had just weathered an economic slump. The K&P was one of the first colonization railways to receive a government subsidy under the Act. The provincial government promised $2,000 per mile, or $3,000 per mile to the north where blasting was necessary, to a total of $400,000. Moneys were raised by communities along the line. Kingston contributed $300,000, Frontenac County $150,000, the County of Renfrew $400,000 (later reduced to $100,000) and the town of Pembroke $50,000. The cost of the line would top $3 million.

Chartered April 14, 1871 under the laws of the Dominion Government, the K&P received 30 acres of land for terminal facilities in the city of Kingston from the Dominion Government. Sixty additional acres under water were received for docks, at nominal figures. The company also owned 10 acres of land at Sharbot Lake and 18 acres at Renfrew. It was exempt from taxation in Kingston and Renfrew.

Survey crews under Thomas Nash mapped out a route from Kingston to Sharbot Lake. The construction contract was let to G.B. Phelps & Company of Watertown, N.Y., coincidentally one of nine Watertown investors. The Calabogie-Renfrew contract was let to Chisholm, MacDonald and O’Brien. The official sod-turning for the K&P took place at Kingston on June 17, 1872 near the site of the Davis Tannery. Navvies toiled building the line for $1 a day.

Rail was 50 pounds per yard as far as Sharbot Lake, thereafter 56 or 60 pound rail further north. Of the line’s 103 miles of main line, the track was only level for 38 of them, and only tangent for 65 miles. Curves accounted for more than 35 miles. The combination of gradient and curvature kept train speeds leisurely, and trains were short by necessity. It was simply easier for construction crews to skirt many of the granite outcrops they encountered, than to blast them apart. At Lake Ontario, the Canadian Shield rests 150 feet beneath limestone, rising to the surface on Cedar Island. It is next encountered, northward, at Sydenham and Verona. The Shield rock was a headache for construction crews, reduced to hand-drilling it. Combined with commodities offering only low freight rates, return on investment would be less than ideal.

Godfrey was reached on June 17, 1875; Sharbot Lake on October 25, 1875 and opened for use on May 8, 1876. The Mississippi River was reached in the fall of 1878. Construction finished at Renfrew on November 29, 1884. On September 20, 1884 the Superintendent met with a Canadian railway mogul:
Though the line started in Kingston, mileages were later reversed, with Renfrew becoming Mile 0 and Kingston sitting at Mile 103. The grade north from Kingston to Sharbot Lake was 1.5%, meaning a D10 steam locomotive could haul 910 tons; a smaller D4 580 tons. Heading south, a 1.1% grade meant 1070 and 680 tons respectively.

Stations were established, within Frontenac County: Kingston, Glenvale, Murvale, Harrowsmith, Sigsworth (flag stop), Hartington, Verona, Godfrey, Hinchinbrooke, Parham, Olden, Sharbot Lake, Oso, Clarendon, Mississippi and Snow Road. Watch for an upcoming post on these stations.

K&P OPERATIONS

The first car of coal reached Kingston on March 14, 1884, carried across the St. Lawrence River from Morristown, NY to Brockville, thence Perth to Sharbot Lake and south on the K&P to Kingston. The first load of freight arrived from Toronto on July 18, 1884:
And the first load of freight north to Renfrew was sent north on November 21, 1884 (below) with another 20 loads sent by Christmas of that year.
The K&P connected to the Ontario and Quebec (O&Q) Railway line, hauling in supplies for its construction. The O&Q was in service by 1883, and its Tweed to Perth section would be abandoned in 1971. The K&P’s mainline connection would thereafter be only with CP’s Toronto-Montreal Belleville Subdivision at Tichborne, which was originally named Parham Junction, 8.5 miles from Sharbot Lake. This other CP line was completed fifty years later, and was the routing CP freight trains used to reach Kingston, originating in CP’s Smiths Falls yard. 

In 1883, the K&P carried 36,000 passengers (Above - December 13, 1884 advertisement for the "New Route", making reference to the station on Ontario Street, opposite the Tete d[e] Pont Barracks. This was the K&P's first station in Kingston). A telegraph office was established in Renfrew in November, 1884. An 1887 K&P passenger schedule shows eight trains per day – three each way between Kingston and Renfrew and one each way between Kingston and Sharbot Lake. Rail connections via Sharbot Lake were advertised for “all points east and west” and at Renfrew for all points west – Pembroke, Vancouver and even San Francisco! Steamer connections at Kingston were advertised for the St. Lawrence River Steamboat Company to Gananoque, Cape Vincent and Thousand Islands; Richelieu & Ontario Navigation Company; and the Bay of Quinte steamers for Bay ports.

A 1915 K&P passenger schedule shows six trains a day – two each way between Kingston and Renfrew and one each way between Kingston and Sharbot Lake. Train 612 left Renfrew at 10:40 a.m., arriving at Kingston at 3:45 pm. Train 613 departed Kingston at 8:10 a.m., arriving at Renfrew at 4:20 p.m. By 1926, service was six days per week, meeting CP mainline trains at Sharbot Lake and at Tichborne. Passenger trains were limited to a leisurely maximum speed of 30 miles per hour in 1950.
Two-thirds of total freight tonnage carried by the K&P in 1890 was lumber, and it was being rapidly depleted. There was little fertile soil to produce successful crops. In the K&P era, Snow Road held the distinction of being the single station shipping the most maple syrup in the Dominion of Canada! Grain being shipped from Harrowsmith in the November 19, 1884 news item (above).

Mines produced apatite, lead, talc, feldspar, graphite and mica. Shipped to Kingston and forwarded by the James Richardson Company to markets in the United States and Europe, these mineral deposits were comparatively small. For instance, the Wilbur mine near Lavant, yielded 143,000 tons between 1886 and 1900. It was said that in 1903 there was hardly a prospector in Ontario who searched beyond Frontenac and Hastings counties. It was also said that a year later, there was not a prospector who would remain in the area! New and far-away prospecting fields that were now open beckoned.
In 1890, Sydenham’s Foxton Company sold mica for $200 per ton. By 1914, the price was set at only six cents per pound. Feldspar mining began after 1900. Richardson’s Kingston Feldspar & Mining Co. shipped sizeable quantities by rail from operations like the Card mine, two miles west of the K&P station in Verona, and the Reynolds mine in Portland Township. Mica was used for tile glazing with the opening of the Richardson Co.’s Frontenac Floor & Wall Tile Co. plant in Kingston. The Richardson quarries shipped 16,374 tons of feldspar in 1910. Some went to enamelware factories in New Jersey and Ohio.

CANADIAN PACIFIC COMES A BOARD

In 1893, the K&P defaulted on bond interest payments. A receiver was appointed on October 15, 1894 and the company was reorganized four years later. Beginning in the 1880’s, the ‘upstart’ CP and the GTR engaged in an acquisition struggle, acquiring smaller Ontario railways to prevent the other from encroaching on their own company’s perceived railway fiefdom. By the turn of the century, CP had purchased 83% of the K&P’s capital stock. This move was perhaps intended to keep the K&P out of the hands of the competitor, the GTR. 

Watch for the next post on the post-K&P era and takeover by Canadian Pacific.

RESOURCES

There are already a couple of books on the K&P, both out of print: In Search of the K&P and The Men and My Memories of the K&P. While both books tended to be on the colloquial, folksy side there is still the need for a good corporate history with a complete photo roster, photos of stations and scenes along the line, roster data, relevant dates and places profiled, and photos of the trains right up to the end of operations. 


Running extra...

Watching this video is just plain fun. My years of spending hours trackside seem to be over. Really, why bother when YouTubers are out there doing it? Dawn to dusk along CN's Kingston Sub, at various locations,  with CP action including one of the last H10 turns now that the Trenton mill is closing. The  day and many, many more trains await you here.

A nice-looking three-part Youtube series on Tom Linke's Jayville Terminal switching layout.

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Pop-up Post: CN X377 and 7 VIA's, Feb. 2024

911 with four HEP cars eastbound at 1302
I had a free afternoon while my good wife was taking part in an online crafting event on Saturday, February 10, 2024. After morning visits to return the winter's empties then checking out the book selection at Value Village, before lunch together at home, it was time to get trackside right after visiting the Tim Hortons drive-thru!  This pop-up post comprises all the cornucopia catches constructively caught trackside. Four VIA's slipped through before the first freight. Also VIA 920 with five LRC cars westbound at 1418 (not photographed, because frankly it snuck up on me!)

910 with five LRC cars eastbound at 1358

'love the way' 6402 westbound with four LRC cars (the last three Future-wrapped) at 1428 
CN Police returning to his speed-trap (above) from which he nabbed three speeders. At 1450, CN X377 was westbound:
CN 3182 in the lead. It's got pickup!
'Flying-P' BCNE 900351 and CN 196603 - bathtubs in coal service
They DID look nice when new -  GATX/BKTY 157791 (above) and GATX/LRS 137555 (below)
HPJX 52214 and 52391 with aluminum

Former Chicago Central 40113 in scrap tie service

Mid-train DPU 3229 with CN100 logo

St Louis Southwestern reporting marks survive on Union Pacific 78907

Two of three used-to-be-clean CSXT boxcars: 142907 and 142961

Great grain for graffiti! CN 113418

Two of three ONT boxcars including 7430-7782

NDYX 380606 coil steel car 
Three more VIA trains went by after X377: VIA 901 with four HEP cars westbound at 1504 (not photo'd), and 915 with four HEP cars eastbound at 1505 (below - taken from atop a snow pile with Kingston's Railfan Walking Trail  railing in foreground) and 6426 westbound at 1640 with four LRC cars.
A Lennox & Addington County ambulance hurriedly heading to KHSC's KGH site. Everyone comes to Kingston eventually. Such is the life of a tertiary-care trauma centre teaching hospital

Running extra...

It was a Leap Year and Day and all five February fleetingly thoughtful Thursday posts had something in common...Drew De Bruyn of Ingersoll is the successful guesser in this OOF contest. Each post in February had a double-number in its title: 6060, 2338, 8558, 200 and 9900. This numerology will carry on into March. Or as I'm calling it, 60(60) March. Stay tuned, thanks to all those who entered and congratulations, Drew! Some reading material is on its way...

Speaking of double numbers, here are two Siemens Ventures nine minutes apart last Friday. Set 4 as VIA No 43 (first of two photos) and Set 2 as VIA No 63 (second of two photos - below). Actually, a third set is now making daily runs (X6/7) through Kingston as of March 3! Feel three to keep track (puns intended) in this post.
        
Speaking of things that come in twos, Ontario Northland just received the first of three 72-foot refrigerator cars that arrived in Cochrane on March 1.  ONT 254/255 photographed and posted to social media on their way, with one car already tagged! These will be in 'captive'service between Cochrane and Moosonee.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

CN 9900's


New "Draper Taper" CN 9900's were operating on CN freights in late-January and early-February, 1986. On January 30, 1986 at 1435 CN 9901-9900-9525 were heading west, just west of Ernestown at Bath (top three photos). 

Confusingly known alternatively as SD50AF and/or SD60F's (class GF-638a in CN nomenclature, GMDD order C448) these four locomotives were considered demonstrator SD60F units with the then-new 710 prime mover instead of the 645 used on the SD50-series. Their GMDD builder's plates were stamped SD50AF. 

Think of them as SD50 on the outside, SD60 on the inside! The rest of the class, built as GMDD order C480, were sixty SD60F's numbered 5504-5563. These first four have number boards and triangularly-arranged class lights above the front cab windows. The others built beginning in February of 1989 had nose-mounted number boards and linear class lights. CN's SD60F's with their microprocessor-improved reliability were in class GF-638b and GF638c, (CN's 5400-series SD50F's were in classes GF-636a and GF-636b). CN's motive power department's model number is shown as SD50AF/SD60F:
The four 9900's were renumbered into the 5500 series circa 1988, thereby displacing earlier 5500's into the 7500-series, faster than Archimedes' bathtub!

On March 11, 1986, CN 9903-9900-5282 are working hard leading CN No 397 west through the S-curve at Mi 183 Kingston Sub:
Railfans love to hypothesize about these units. Some have suggested that while numbered as 9900's, the four units were actually on lease from GMDD before being later absorbed and renumbered as CN 5500's. Were they experimental, test-bed prototypes, pre-production locomotives or demonstrators, various terms used to described them? 

CN 5500-5501 went to the DMV&W; 5502-5503 were sold for scrapping by K&K Recycling. The rest of this class of units was retired by CN circa 2017. Pastorally-posed GMDD builder's photo image of CN 9900: 

Lots o' links:
Running extra...

This is Feb24 OOF (One-Off February) fifth and last Post OO5. You may have noticed that each post during the month centred on an event or a piece of equipment that was unique, happened only once, or was a one-off, too. Now it's Leap Day, February 29th - that too is too unique! You'll also note something unique and unusual that every blog post title in this OOF has in common, too. If you think you know what that thing is that's too unique and too unusual, you might be a prize-winner! Simply reply with your guess, in five or fewer words, via email to mile179kingston@yahoo.ca or comment on this post. The contest closed March 2 at 2:22 p.m. The winner will be randomly chosen from all entries received and announced in the next post. Thanks for playing!

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Schnabel HEPX 200 Retires

From a passing GO train, I photographed load-less Hydro One (formerly Ontario Hydro) Schnabel car HEPX 200 and accompanying caboose HEPX (ex-CN) 79640 at CN's parallel Oshawa yard in October, 2012. The unique Schnabel often rested at Pickering on CN track W317, occasionally visible on the southward lead while I was aboard VIA Rail. This (top photo) was my most recent sighting of the soon-to-be-retired car. It was repainted from yellow/orange Ontario Hydro to overall orange Hydro One between 2001 and 2003, likely due to the splitting of Ontario Hydro into Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation.

Eleven years earlier, Ontario Hydro Schnabel car HEPX 200 and caboose HEPX 79640, a D-9R dimensional movement symbolled CN No 423 behind CN 9445 and five idler gondolas requiring daylight movements only, are on track KL30 off the Queens South Service Track.  An Ontario Hydro pickup truck is idling near the tail-end. Having overnighted east of Brockville on January 14, 2001 then reaching Kingston at 1820 on January 15, No 423 later continued west at noon as one of the few westbound freights this January 16 morning, arriving at the Ontario Hydro Lennox Generating Station on CN's Bath Spur at 1330. CN No 310 had derailed at Mallorytown, meaning all eastbound VIA trains had to be wyed at Queens then head west, like VIA Enterprise No 50. Its passengers have been bussed east: 6428-4121-Chateau Radisson-Yoho Park - the consist's markers visible at right on the south service track.  One of my few visits to the north side of Queens, and not crossing any tracks, this 0700 one rated a visit from a passing Kingston Police constable.  
Nearly impossible to fit in one frame, I resorted to some close-ups. The main load supports are near the end of the car, with inboard support seen here at right (below). Loads could be shifted 12 inches vertically and 14 inches horizontally if required, with a width of 10'8" and a height of 14'8". Note stencilling 'RETURN CAR WHEN EMPTY TO ONTARIO HYDRO PICKERING ONTARIO CN DELIVERY'.
With a load limit of one million pounds, HEPX 200's gross weight on rails was rated as 1,466,000 pounds.  


Thanks to my brother Dave for passing along this link showing the impending retirement of Schnabel car HEPX 200. Built in May, 1974 I can only guess that it's reaching its 50-year AAR interchange age limit. In the video, the suggestion is that due to technology, the old Schnabel, its load-adjustment equipment along with its four man crew, and caboose are no longer required. It looks like HEPX 201 just takes its load and goes with it, as the transformer it carries can not form 'part of the car' structure as it is on HEPX 200. 
  • HEPX 200 was 121 feet long when empty, up to 132 feet loaded, with two four-wheel and two six-wheel trucks at each end, a total of twenty 33-inch wheels on each side, built by National Steel Car.
  • HEPX 201 is 146 feet long, with four four-wheel trucks at each end with 36-inch wheels, built by Kasgro in November, 2020. The unique car is 9 feet wide and has a 40-foot long deck, and a load limit of 806,000 pounds. Its first load was a transformer travelling from Quebec to Nanticoke, ON in May, 2021. On a maiden trip on February 20, seen heading eastward at Belleville (image courtesy Railstream, LLC):
Hearing the odd throb of a GP-9 at 1745 from our house on April 11, 1998 we headed out to the Bath area, based on scanner information from my brother. We got there in time to see the unique yellow caboose in the Lennox transformer yard, but Dave transcribed the entire consist of the transformer move to the Lennox Generating Station at 1809:
  • CN 7202
  • CN orange ballast gondola 90430
  • CN renumbered for company service 'tank hoppers' 53398-53395-53399, often used as idlers on CN dimensional moves
  • HEPX 200 with transformer
  • HEPX 79640
After the above sighting, I was able to use CN's public car tracing function to track HEPX 200's movements from April 11, 1998 through February 7, 2001. Empty movements were on manifest freights like 332, 380 and 382 through London east to Toronto, 366 east to Montreal, 395 to Sarnia, and Don turns 527 and 548 to Pickering:
  • Apr 30/98-Jul 9/98 Stored empty at Pickering.
  • Jul 11/98 - Placed loaded at Courtright/Sarnia CSX and still there Nov 2/98 (reportedly arrived behind CN 9591 with 4 covered hoppers).
  • Nov 22/98-Apr 19/99 Stored empty at Pickering track W317.
  • Apr 28/99 - Placed empty at Courtright/Sarnia CSX.
  • May 7/99 - Placed loaded on GEXR track XY01 at Guelph.
  • May 20/99-Jun 17/99 Stored empty at Pickering.
  • June 19/99 - Interchanged to RailinkHH at Hamilton.
  • June 25/99 - Placed loaded on GEXR at Guelph.
  • Jul 15/99-Nov 9/99 Stored empty at Pickering.
  • Nov 12/99 - Placed empty on GEXR at Guelph.
  • Nov 26/99 - Placed loaded on RailinkHH at Hamilton.
  • Dec 3/99 - Feb 4/00 Stored empty on GEXR at Guelph.
  • Feb 13/00 - Placed loaded at Courtright/Sarnia CSX.
  • Feb 25/00-Mar 31/00 Stored empty at Pickering.
  • Apr 10/00 - Loaded at Guelph GEXR track XY01 to Courtright/Sarnia CSXT.
  • Apr 18/00-Nov 23/00 Stored empty on GEXR at Guelph.
  • Dec 28/00 - Placed empty at Montreal Wharf track SE52.
  • Jan 16/01 - Placed loaded on Bath Spur track KN23.
  • Jan 24/01-Feb 7/01 Stored empty at Pickering track W317.
CN track W317 is at the end of the Pickering lead that leaves the CN Kingston Sub near the Pickering Town Centre and ends near Montgomery Park Road, across from the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. There's a large Hydro One transformer and equipment yard there with several CN spurs (below). 
The 2024 Google imagery shows two depressed-centre flat cars surrounded by transformers (enlarged red box) though these don't appear to be HEPX cars. 
HEPX 200, with yellow transformer at Bayview Junction in 1979 (online auction site photo):

Lots o' links:

This is Feb24 OOF (One-Off February) second-last Post OO4. Each post during the month will centre on an event or a piece of equipment that was unique, happened only once, or was a one-off, too. And who knows what I'll come up with for Leap Day, February 29th, too!? You'll also note something unique and unusual that every blog post title in this OOF has in common, too. I still smell a contest!

Running extra...

If you're tracking the delivery and implementation of the transformative new Corridor sets, check these links...this past week saw the introduction of a second Siemens set through Kingston as well as the delivery of VIA's 13th Siemens set. Unlucky 13? After the set was unusually stashed at the TMC, adjacent equipment from VIA No 78 derailed upright at TMC early on February 21: VIA 905-4007-4103-4111-8100.

Speaking of transformers, digital photography has sure changed prototype and layout photography. For this week's Tail End Tuesday, I snapped 80 digital photos of co-located CN and CP cabooses, all in 20 minutes on my Kingston's Hanley Spur layout. Whether it's iPhone layout photography, disco at the club, or a war movie, it's always good advice to "Get Down!" for best results.
CN crossing Rideau Street (above), CP approaching Cataraqui Street (below) and the 'race' (last photo).