Throwback Thursday 10 – GT 4612 at Palmer MA In January 1992

A snowless January 24, 1992 finds GT 4926 on the point of a switching move while interchanging cars with CSX. David Simmons photo, author's collection.

OK so a little late, but it’s still Thursday (on the west coast) – today’s Throwback Thursday takes us back to January 24, 1992. We’re at Palmer, Massachusetts, the location of the crossing between CSX’s former Boston & Maine Selkirk-Boston mainline and the Grand Trunk (Central Vermont) line from St. Albans Vermont to New London Connecticut. In this photo by David Simmons, taken on January 24, 1992, the CN-controlled GT is making a reverse move to the interchange yard located adjacent to the CSX tracks toward the east side of town. The GT’s own yard is located to the west, on its’ own north-south line. The power for this move is GT 4612-CV 4926-GT 4605.

In the intervening 23 years, a good deal has changed at Palmer. The most obvious change was the takeover of the CV by Railtex’s New England Central Railroad in 1995. Gone were the blue and red (or green and yellow) geeps, replaced by GP38’s in an attractive yellow and blue paint scheme. Railtex was folded into RailAmerica in 2000, itself taken over by Genesee & Wyoming a few years back. Another shortline, Massachusetts Central also interchanges with CSX at Palmer, utilizing trackage rights over NECR south from their own line north of town. Power for the Mass Central is (among others) a pair of leased GP38-2’s in a retro-B&M paint scheme, a GP9 in the same paint scheme, and an eclectic ex-Southern NW5. Not only have the railroads changed, but the former GT station is now a popular local eatery, the Steaming Tender Restaurant; I’d be hard-pressed to find a better railfan-friendly restaurant!

What about the locomotives? GT 4612, a 1989 graduate of the GT GP9 rebuild program at the railroad’s Battle Creek Michigan shops, was no stranger to the area, having been built at CV GP9 #4923 in March 1957. The Battle Creek shop forces overhauled the mechanical systems on the engine, but more noticeably chopped the nose and applied an EMD Spartan-type cab; additionally, the unit lost its’ distinctive “torpedo tube” rooftop air tanks. Following its’ rebuild, the engine served the CN North America system until 2011 when it was sold to the Carolina Coastal Railway, and became CLNA 4612. Photos on the internet reveal that the engine is alive and well on the CLNA in and around Wilson, NC, still largely in its’ early-90’s blue and red paint. CV 4926 was likewise built in March 1957 and also eventually got chop-nosed (retaining existing cab and getting new number boards), but interestingly retained its’ green and yellow paint scheme. Evidently not as popular as the GT rebuilds, the unit was sold to the Arkansas & Eastern Railroad in 1993. GT 4605 began life as CV 4551 and similarly went through the GT rebuild program in 1989. The unit survives today as SSRX 4605 (Manning Rail), a grain elevator switcher at Fairmont, NE – a long way from its’ New England background! The unit is painted in a nice red and blue paint scheme.

A couple of my photos from a day spent railfanning the junction on July 8, 2014:

NECR 3015, the former CN 9457 is probably not a stranger to the rails through Palmer. Here is is seen shoving a good-sized cut of cars to the CSX interchange on July 8, 2014. Photo by author.

Mass Central 1751, in a nice modern rendition of the classic B&M paint scheme, has set off the interchange cars for CSX and heads back to home rails with a handful of cars for the shortline's customers. Author's photo, July 8, 2014.

Steaming Tender Website

‘Til next time,

Cheers,

Peter.

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January is National Hobby Month!

At the beginning of every New Year everyone has a list of Resolutions. Some are common like losing weight or getting more organized; some are unusual* such as learn a new party trick.  Why not be different this year and try a new hobby or rekindle your childhood hobby?


Here at Chinook & Hobby West all of our staff participate in at least one hobby that we sell. Jim loves building and airbrushing model kits, Tyler is creating a new HO layout**, Valerie is delving into painting/customizing 1:32 and smaller figures, and a couple of our guys are taking a break from their hobby to look into something new.



                          
                         Tyler                                 Jim                                     Valerie


So how can you find a hobby? Here are a few tips:

• Think about what interests you. Are you looking to do something outdoors or inside? Something active or quiet? Something to do alone or as a family? Make a list and you may find you can combine two hobbies into one. (i.e- love of photography and trains = railfanning)
• Think about cost/time/space. For Example- Many get intimidated when thinking of building a train layout. They believe they need a huge room, lots of time and a bucket of money. That is not so. You can start with a 4x6 board for HO scale and a starter set and build it up and add to it as you can. 
• Ask questions! When you find a hobby that interests you go to a source that will be able to answer your questions. A store that specializes in what you are interested in, The library, the internet, or someone that may already have the hobby you are looking into. 
• Get started on your hobby! Once you have decided which hobby best suits you in every way and you have bought or borrowed the equipment, clothing, tools and anything else you need, it is time to get it happening. Expect to start slowly at first, while learning, so have patience. You might even find a club to join and meet others with similar interests. This is a great way to make friends and to exchange ideas.

Need some ideas? Model Railroading, miniature figure painting, toy collecting, rocketry, dioramas, window box display, scratch building bridges, Remote Control vehicles, woodworking, Train spotting(fanning), reading, the list goes on and on.....


So come down to either of our stores here in Calgary or email us and we will do our best to match you to a hobby! (even if we may not sell it - lol)

* Reference the article: 10 Unusual New Year's Resolutions http://www.realbuzz.com/articles/10-unusual-new-year-s-resolutions-us-en/
**Follow Tyler's progress (Thompson River) on our blog - http://chinookhobbytalk.blogspot.ca/

~~This article is the opinion of Valerie Gale, Owner of Chinook & Hobby West

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Throwback Thursday 7 CNR 6218 at Hamilton ON Ferguson Ave in January 1966

CNR 6218 leads a railfan excursion southbound through downtown Hamilton, ON on a snowy day back in January 1966, with a good-sized crowd in attendance. Uncredited slide, author's collection.

Since we’re still in the grip of winter here in southern Ontario, today’s Throwback Thursday takes us back to another snowy day in January 1966. In the above photo we see CNR 4-8-4 #6218 southbound on a railfan excursion over the CN’s Hagersville sub, on the infamous portion of street running through downtown Hamilton, ON.

Running from a connection to the CN Grimsby sub near Elgin street in north Hamilton, the line extended southward through the city and up the escarpment (“the mountain” to Hamiltonians), and from there through its’ namesake town to Jarvis, where it met the “Canada Air Line” (CN Cayuga sub). Aside from running north-south in an otherwise east-west dominated area of trackage, the line was also noteworthy for its’ street running portion, the steep grade up the mountain, and in later years, it gained additional fame when the Hamilton-Nanticoke steel train ran over the line with an A-B-A set of F7’s.

Long before the F’s became a fixture on the line, however, CN was known to run railfan excursions over the line with their popular Northern engines 6218 and, at least on one occasion, CNR 6167. Not generally a through line, there was little traffic to interfere with the railfan excursions; moreover, it provided a convenient way to turn a train without wyeing it (i.e. Windsor-Caledonia, Caledonia-Hamilton, Hamilton-Windsor; this particular arrangement likely never actually took place but is used to demonstrate logic of turning the train without a reversing move). Interestingly, the big CNR Northerns were not native to the line in the days of steam – quite the opposite in fact. Due to weight restrictions over the antiquated Grand River bridge at Caledonia, the line was restricted to the use of lighter engines, particularly CNR’s E-10 moguls. The light engines were insufficient for the steep climb up the mountain however, thus doubleheading (or even tripleheading) was common, with the helper(s) cutting off at Rymal, Glanford, or sometimes Caledonia if tonnage was heavy enough. A new bridge installed in 1953 eliminated the weight restrictions, and allowed heavier power such as the J-4 Pacifics, N-5 Consolidations, or H-6 Ten-wheelers, though the E-10’s were still common on the line. Undoubtedly the largest steam ever operated on the Hagersville sub, the CN Northerns on occasion did require helpers if traversing the line southward (up the grade), particularly in winter.

Which makes this photo that much more interesting. Indeed, the train is southbound on the Hagersville sub, heading for the climb up the mountain. Since helpers on the excursions were usually placed in front of the steam locomotive to simplify their removal at the top of the grade, it would appear that this excursion will climb the grade without helpers (the steam obscures the view of part of the train behind the engine, but it does not appear that helpers were added on this trip). This is even more interesting considering that the city appeared to have got a pretty decent snowstorm shortly before this excursion – note that Ferguson Avenue isn’t plowed! It would appear that the train is perhaps 8-9 cars long, likely well within the capability of the big Northern to pull up the grade – though I wonder if there was ever a calculation done to see what the tonnage rating would be for a U-2 Northern southbound up the grade?  The train is about to make the sharp left turn, cross the TH&B tracks and begin the climb up the grade to Rymal - I bet the sound would have been fantastic!

Being that the photo was taken in downtown Hamilton, we are fortunate to have an exact location for the photo, even though there was no information on the slide mount. The street sign in the photo reveals that the photographer was standing at the corner of Ferguson Ave and Hunter Street. Another slide I have shows that he took a photo of the street sign up close, perhaps to remind himself where he was on this particular day. It also appears that the photographer was in good company this day – note how many other people are out on a snowy day to observe this special run. I doubt that if CN still ran excursions today, that many people would stop to watch – or even care about – the magnificent Northern leading a passenger train. The crowd in the photo is probably heavily biased towards railfans I would guess. A Google Streetview image of the same location today reveals that the area has been entirely reconfigured. What was once a mostly-residential neighbourhood has been somewhat commercialized, and many of the houses have been demolished and replaced with apartment buildings. One would be hard-pressed to even recognize that a rail line ever ran down the street! (Which interestingly, has been paved with bricks, as if to make it easy to replace the line if CN ever chose to do so – but will never happen). Though I bet if they did, the view from some of those apartment buildings would be awesome...

A snapshot from Google Streetview of approximately the same angle as the above photo, taken almost fifty years later. Photo credit: Google.

But at least the subject photo reminds us that not all grey winter days are dull – often the best action seems to happen on grey gloomy days!

‘Til next time,

Cheers,

Peter.

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