Tracks (Out) Ahead for RailMark?

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*Sigh*

I was really hoping this would work out. I really was.

Despite my reservations when we first learned that RailMark was selected to be the new operator of the Algoma Central Railway passenger service, I was cautiously optimistic. There were lots of little red flags, but I really wanted it to succeed. Now, just in advance of a city council meeting next week to discuss the subject, things appear to be flaming out in spectacular fashion, and I wish I could say I was surprised.

To recap the history of the last few months for those not closely following the news out of Sault Ste. Marie: On March 31, the last possible day before CN was officially slated to end the service, the official announcement of the funding extension and new operator was finally made, although rumours had been swirling around before that. In the interim, CN agreed to operate the service until the end of April so that RailMark could get prepared to take over. Which happened, but the transition was a rough one with a gap in service of for several days at the beginning of May, with the first northbound train departing on May 7 with only a single passenger as no one even knew if the train would even be running. (Strike one.)

From this rough start however, the passenger service has been operating under RailMark for the last month and a half approximately, but more warning rumblings have occurred. As part of their takeover agreement, RailMark was to have also taken up the operation of the Agawa Canyon Tour Train, but at the beginning of June CN announced that they would again be operating the tour train this summer, citing RailMark’s complete failure to do anything to market or promote this operation. (Strike two.)

[Edit – June 22: watching today’s city council meeting clarified a few things for me. The Canyon Tour Train and regular passenger service are covered under separate agreements, but it makes sense for them to ideally fall under the same operator. Due to the logistics and time frames involved (the tour season starts tomorrow) CN had agreed to operate the tour train for this season at least. This actually makes a lot of sense and is not necessarily a black mark if it’s as simple as all that, but just on top of the other little bumps in the road, and the way it was reported by SooToday, definitely seemed like RailMark was out of that one. Part of the problem in figuring out what’s going on is a limited number of news sources reporting on any details, and an apparent lack of any clarifying information from RailMark’s side of things.]

All of this over the last month has been building up to a city council meeting now scheduled for this Monday to discuss the proposed funding agreement with RailMark (as the city has been appointed the executor of the federal subsidy for the passenger service). The city is understandably concerned that RailMark has the financial wherewithal to pull off this operation, and put forth two major conditions: that RailMark secure appropriate insurance, and be able to obtain a line of credit. So far, there has been no indication of RailMark being able to obtain such a line of credit, and now the passenger working group, which lobbied so hard over the last year for the preservation of the service, is now recommending that the city no longer enter into the funding agreement with RailMark. (Strike three.)

Now, it appears that an unspecified incident in Hearst has prevented the southbound train from operating on Friday as scheduled, stranding dozens of passengers, mainly tourists and no train to the Sault is being expected at this point until Tuesday! (Bloody hell, what’s the count at now?)

From the article:

Al Errington, owner operator of Errington’s Wilderness Islands Resort and member of the Algoma Passenger Rail Committee has a pretty good idea of why it didn’t arrive.

In fact, it’s not expected to be running at all before Tuesday.

“Maybe not even then,” says Errington. “Right now a crew is towing it to Hawk Junction behind a freight train.”

“There was an infraction,” he says. “I don’t know anything about these things or how they work. Only that it meant the train couldn’t leave Hearst.”

18 guests of Errington Wilderness Resort were supposed to be on the train on Friday.

The article states that as many as 54 people were evacuated by float plane after being stranded by the railway. This is just downright embarrassing at this point. (Now I’m really curious as to what in the world exactly happened in Hearst on Friday morning.) This is really just compounded by being a singular case of bad timing, but still illustrates some teething issues.

So, with RailMark having lost the Canyon Tour Train (the service that would have actually made money), and the whole funding agreement with the city up in the air still, and now a spectacular incident on the eve of the city council meeting about the agreement, will the city keep going with RailMark or say “enough is enough”?

Unfortunately, what happens at that point is entirely unclear. I’ve not seen a lot of RailMark’s side of the story in the news articles, although for his part president Allen Brown has suggested that part of the issue in not being able to secure a line of credit (one of the city’s preconditions) is the bankers being concerned about not having a signed agreement with the city yet. A chicken/egg problem. If the city does give RailMark the boot, some have suggested that it would fall back on CN to maintain operation with the subsidy, but CN has stated they have no intention of getting back into the passenger operation. And RailMark as an operator was selected by CN, not the city or region (as CN owns the actual railroad), so the logistics of trying to find another operator are … murky, to say the least. What a mess.

Some more cynical minds have suggested this was CN’s agenda all along: pass off the operation to someone that would cock it up and then when it fails be able to happily wipe their hands of the whole thing without being the “bad guy” in the room. I’d like to think I’m not quite that cynical, but any of my other friends that have previously heard of RailMark through inside contacts in shortlines and operations in Southern Ontario pretty much instantly said “Well, that’s just a matter of time. Kiss that service good-bye.” when we heard RailMark would be the new operator. Their reputation locally by anyone professing to be “in the know” is somewhat of a joke. I just hope the Sault to Hearst passenger service isn’t the punch line.

I guess we’ll see what happens following the city council meeting on Monday…

Update: It seems that there was indeed an allegation of a rules violation and a formal Transport Canada investigation (during which the crew would have been barred from operating a train thus causing the disruption over the weekend) but the crew was ultimately cleared of doing anything wrong.

Freight Car Friday #39 – GTW 187977

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Today’s entry looks at a modern CN coil steel car.

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Photographed at Hawk Junction from the vestibule of the northbound passenger train, GTW 187977 is an example of one of several batches of modern cars built by National Steel Car for CN from 2006-2008 and assigned the reporting marks of CN’s subsidiary Grand Trunk Western. Currently there are a total of 890 of these NSC built cars from GTW 187400-188289, following 369 similar cars built in 2000-2003 with plain grey markings and CN numbers from CN 187000-187368.

ONT 9′ Door Boxcar Rebuild (AC 2917)

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A while back I stripped the paint on a handful of True Line Trains 40′ Ontario Northland boxcars in preparation for modifying and repainting them as cars acquired second hand by the Algoma Central for LCL and company service. Naturally, these then sat on the workbench for a while awaiting detailing and painting while I tackled other projects. Last night I pulled these back out in order to start finishing off the details and get them ready for painting.

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First up is this car which will end up representing AC 2917. This car was built in 1947-48 by National Steel Car for Ontario Northland and rebuilt by the ONR in the early 1960s with a 9′ door opening. This rebuild required reinforcing of the side sill below the door opening and new door tracks. Note that the new doors used were taller than the original doors, being meant for a 10’6″ interior height car while the Ontario Northland boxcars were older cars with a 10’0″ interior height, so the door tracks in addition to being longer to accommodate the larger size of the door are mounted lower down.

The doors on the True Line model are unfortunately molded as part of the car body, so the first step of the major modification was to cut this opening out entirely. The side sills also had to be carefully cut off along the bottom edge of the car body so that new side sills and door tracks cut from styrene strip could be added. I don’t really recall where the doors came from originally, I pulled them out of my parts box where they’ve been for a while.

After removing the ladders and brake detail, original mounting holes were filled in with round styrene rod and the ladders were shortened and reattached. Tackboards on the doors and ends are original parts from the model relocated. The brake wheel housing was also remounted lower down.

This car just requires a few more of the brake detail parts to be re-applied on the “B” end of the car, and also the addition of a new horizontal grab iron on each end (I couldn’t find my small diameter brass wire last night) to complete the detailing. Then it should be ready for the paint shop.

I have a few more cars that basically just need all of the ladder and brake detailing work done which I hope to complete over the next week and then I should have a small fleet of about half a dozen ex-Ontario Northland boxcars for work and wayfreight service.

Freight Car Friday #38 – FURX Coil Steel Gondolas

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Today’s post features additional coil steel cars leased to Canadian Pacific, and commonly seen carrying steel coils eastward from Essar Steel Algoma over the Huron Central to interchange with CP at Sudbury.

These cars with FURX reporting marks are part of a group of 100 cars leased to Essar Steel Algoma from First Union Rail, the rail leasing and financing arm of First Union Bank. These cars were originally built by Alstom in 1999 as part of NOKL 380601-380850 series.

Officially the NOKL reporting marks are registered to the Northwestern Oklahoma Railroad, but in reality cars with the NOKL reporting mark are owned by First Union and leased to other railroads. Some of these NOKL (like these three here) have been re-marked to FURX and SMW (another First Union managed mark). I’m not sure why First Union sometimes transfers cars between their various marks (FURX, NDYX, NOKL and SMW) but I’m sure there is a organizing system to this in their accounting department and may or may not have something to do with whether a railroad or private operator is leasing the cars.

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Three photos taken by myself on two separate visits in 2013.

Recently, a group of these FURX/NOKL cars have been rotating through Ontario Northland Railway’s car shops in North Bay for inspection and repairs prior to lease return; they seem to be largely being replaced by the cars leased from CIT Group featured last week.