Operations Series

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Over the next several weeks, I’m beginning a series of posts looking at some of the operations of the former Algoma Central railway, with each post focusing on some particular commodity and/or facet of the operation. Generally speaking, the posts will roughly cover historical and current operational information from about the 1970s to today.

As this series progresses, if anyone reading has further information that expands, illumines, adds to, corrects my information, or even flat out contradicts an assumption I’ve made, please do comment on the post or send me an email! I’d love to be able to flesh out any gaps or errors in my knowledge.

As a preliminary overview, one should understand the geography of the area, and how the ACR fits in to the other railways in the region. This map shows the railways in Northern Ontario in the mid 1980s.

regionalmap

(Click on the map for larger image)

The Algoma Central is the black line running vertically in the centre of the map. Important interchanges for traffic exchanged with other railways are located at Franz (Canadian Pacific), Oba (Canadian National), Hearst (CN and by extension Ontario Northland) and Sault Ste. Marie (SOO and CP). All of these points are extremely important for traffic coming onto or off of the ACR.

A quick rundown of changes that have been made to the map between 1985 and today:

  • The CN line between Longlac and Thunder Bay has been abandoned
  • The CN and CP spurs to Manitouwadge have been abandoned
  • The CN line between Nakina and Hearst (except for a few miles between Hearst and Calstock) was abandoned in 1986
  • The CN line between Hearst and Cochrane, including the spur to Calstock was sold to Ontario Northland in August 1993
  • The CN line east of Cochrane to Seneterre, QC has been abandoned between Cochrane and La Sarre, QC
  • The CN line between Capreol and North Bay, and North Bay to Ottawa has been abandoned
  • The Algoma Central was sold to Wisconsin Central in February 1995 which was then purchased by Canadian National in October 2001
  • The AC branch line to Wawa was abandoned in 2000
  • The SOO Line trackage in Michigan connecting to Sault Ste. Marie was sold to Wisconsin Central in 1987, then CN
  • The CP line between Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury is now operated by Huron Central Railway (G&W) since 1998
  • The CP line between Sudbury and North Bay, plus the branch line to Temiscaming, QC is now operated by the Ottawa Valley Railway (RaiLink, now G&W)
  • The CP line from North Bay to Smiths Falls has been abandoned east of the Temiscaming branch as of 2011

All posts from this series:

Completed E.B. Eddy Lumber Load

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Here’s a completed load for E.B. Eddy Forest Products that I finally finished up this evening. It’s one of a pair of loads that I made to fit a kitbashed CP 51’6″ bulkhead flatcar.

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This pair of loads will be used out of the E.B. Eddy sawmill at Nairn featured on the club layout.

I also have a small collection of extra stacks of bundles that will be placed along the backdrop at the mill site as part of the scenery for the mill.

The flatcar itself is one of several cars kitbashed by other members of the club to represent Canadian Pacific’s 51’6″ bulkhead flatcars. It was built from an older MDC/Roundhouse (now Athearn) bulkhead flatcar with a shortened body, shortened bulkheads and altered details.

Temrex Lumber Wrap

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Another reader-submitted lumber wrap comes from Taylor Main, this one representing Temrex, a local mill in Nouvelle, Québec, in the Gaspé peninsula. Below is a photo of Taylor’s load, and his graphics can be found at the bottom of this post.

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A company background indicates that from 1987-2002 the mill was owned by Tembec. In 2002, Tembec entered into a partnership with a subsidiary of Société générale de financement du Québec (SGF) Rexfor creating a joint venture under the name Produits forestiers Temrex. In 2009, SGF bought out Tembec’s interest in the mill and in 2011 merged with Investissement Québec which became Temrex’s sole owner.

This logo then would date from approximately 2009 or 2011 forward.

During the 2002-2009 period, according to Taylor:

I can remember their logo was identical to the Tembec one except it read Temrex in the same blue font and they would have started using the new orange and yellow logo in either 2009 or 2011.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the printable files:

PDF | XLSX – Prototype

Edit: revised version: PDF | XLSX

Painting and Weathering Started on 55 ton Twin Hoppers

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This weekend I had the chance to do some basic painting on this pair of hoppers and start some of the initial weathering of the cars. I gave the two cars an initial spray of weathered black for the basic body colour a while back, and now I had a chance to do the next step.

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First, I painted the interiors. To get the initial base colour for the interior, I actually used four different colours, lightly blending the colours up the sides with the airbrush. First I sprayed the lowest parts of the interior a metallic silver colour (Model Master “Steel”), then working up the sides with Gun Metal, Rail Brown and Rust, lightly blending each colour together so the the colour gradually transitions from a bare metal appearance on the centre sill and lower parts of the bays (where the load flowing out of the car during dumping would have the effect of “polishing” some of the rust off) to a more oxidized appearance on the sides and further up the hopper bays where less material is moving around during loading and unloading. This will likely be supplemented yet with a little bit of powders or pan pastels, but I’m liking the effect so far.

The next major step is weathering the exterior bodies of the cars. Most of these old cars on the ACR had a pretty distinctive weathering pattern caused by an older practice of loading sinter into the cars while still hot, resulting in much of the paint on the side sheets burning off over the years  causing the sides of the cars to essentially become an expanse of rusted metal, following the shape of the interior bays. Check out this early 1970s prototype photo from Ted Ellis to see what I mean.

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To begin replicating this pattern, I used a somewhat experimental technique. I masked off the sides and spayed them a mix of roof brown and dark rust. I first covered the ribs with strips of masking tape, as the burning effect of course only effected the sheet metal of the side sheets with which the hot material had direct contact. Then the bottom and side sills were also masked, and then the rest of the sides roughly masked in the shape of the load inside. The key here while masking is to deliberately NOT be too precise with it. Most importantly, prevent the masking tape from actually laying down on the sides of the car. The ribs were covered with a strip of tape wide enough to completely cover the rib, but these were not folded down over the shape of the ribs. The side mask was just laid down on the tops of the ribs and deliberately prevented from touching the surface of the side. My goal here was a nice soft edge that is NOT clearly defined when the rust colour is airbrushed. The masking thus completely, the sides were sprayed with a dark rust colour and the masking then removed.

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You can see the preliminary result above; so far, so good, I think. I have a ways to go yet with blending in darker colours with pan pastels to really make it look like rust. Eventually the raised panel at the left hand side car number and date will a shot of black before adding lettering.