Iron ore and coal traffic on the Michipicoten subdivision

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Chris van der Heide

In the late 1890s industrialist Francis Clergue was building his business empire in Sault Ste. Marie when in 1898 a prospector brought a lump of ore to the attention of Clergue’s company and the rest, as they say, is history – albeit one with its share of bumps and bruises along the way and not necessarily a happy ending.

Early Years

In response to the ore discovery, in 1899 Clergue chartered the Algoma Central Railway and built a twelve mile line from a harbour at Michipicoten to the newly established Helen mine, a few miles northeast of what is today Wawa. Another mine (Josephine) was established a couple years later several miles further east. The harbour at Michipicoten featured a large 275′ wooden ore dock with a 600 ton capacity and a long curving approach trestle, as well as a 600′ commercial pier with a large warehouse and passenger station. Steel ore cars built in 1899-1901 were acquired new from the Pressed Steel Car Co. in Pennsylvania.

Michipicoten harbour around 1900.

Within a few years however, cracks began to appear in the ACR’s parent company, the Lake Superior Corporation, and in 1903 Clergue’s empire suffered a spectacular financial crash. Most iron mining activities came to a stop and Helen mine was abandoned. Not much happened on the Algoma Central for the next several years, with the railway and other various companies in the Lake Superior Corporation family entering a slow period until about 1909.

In 1909-1910, fortunes took a turn for the better. Construction was restarted on the main line from where it had been abandoned in 1903 some 70 miles north of the Sault, and by 1914 had been completed to Hearst. The line to Josephine mine was rebuilt and extended towards what would become Hawk Junction, and a new 9 mile long spur was built in 1910 from a point between Wawa and Josephine to access the new Magpie mine. The ore at Magpie was lower grade than what was mined at Helen, and extensive ore processing facilities were constructed at the mine to upgrade the ore. While Josephine mine seems to have never truly amounted to much, Magpie mine was a strong source of traffic for several years and additional steel ore cars were purchased secondhand from the Duluth & Iron Range Railway in 1916. Also in 1910, an pyrite mine was established by Madoc Mining near Goudreau, north of Hawk Junction with product shipped to the harbour at Michipicoten – mainly in wooden ore hoppers assigned to this service.

Ultimately however, Magpie shut down in 1921 bringing an end to iron mining in the Wawa region once again, and in about 1925 the pyrites operation at Goudreau also shut down. Through the rest of the 1920s the railway would be sustained by pulpwood revenues.

Coal and Fuel

In 1929 the remains of the abandoned ore dock were removed and replaced by a large coal dock with a travelling unloading bridge structure to unload coal from bulk freighters. The majority of the coal brought in to the port would be loaded in CN cars to be shipped to various northern Ontario terminals for locomotive fuel. This traffic would keep the port quite busy and in 1943 the dock was significantly expanded.

Dieselization during the 1950s was the death knell for coal being handled via this port, and the traffic declined throughout this decade, eventually ending some time in the 1960s at which point the coal handling equipment was removed. A small Imperial Oil tank farm was built at the habour in the early 1950s to bring in diesel fuel via tanker vessel which maintained some fuel traffic, but a few tank cars was a far cry from train loads (literally) of coal.

The Return of Iron Mining

In the late 1930s, Algoma Steel began an aggressive expansion and bold moves were made to redevelop the mines in the Wawa area. In 1939, nearly 20 years since that last ore had previously been mined in the area, the mine at Helen was redeveloped and a new ore processing plant was constructed at Wawa. Raw ore was shipped from the mine(s) to the sinter plant, and the processed ore was shipped either by rail to Sault Ste. Marie or to Michipicoten harbour where a large new unloading trestle and loading equipment were built to load ore into lake freighters. Large numbers of steel hoppers were acquired secondhand from various roads in the United States, the railway’s old fleet of 1900-built ore cars being long gone, and would have been massively obsolete anyway by then.

Then in that same year Hitler’s Germany invaded Poland, and suddenly a resource hauling railway serving a steel mill became a rather hot property indeed. (It’s entirely possible that the politically savvy head of the Algoma Steel Company, Sir James Dunn, may have anticipated the conflict in attempting to redevelop the Wawa mining industry from 1937-39.) The boost that the wartime revenues gave the railway carried through after the end of the conflict with the railway continuing strong through the 1950s and 1960s. In the early 1960s the principal amount on the construction bonds to build the railway was finally paid off and the company paid a dividend to shareholders for the first time in its entire history.

During the early 1940s an attempt was made to redevelop the old Josephine mine as well, with work begun in 1941 on draining a lake and sinking new underground mine shafts. Ore began shipping out of the mine in 1945, unfortunately soon after a collapse of large section of the mine brought a final, permanent end to the works at Josephine. Other mines were developed though, such as the open pit Sir James mine, reached via the three and a half mile Siderite spur and operating through the 1950s.

During the 1950s facilities at the Helen mine were significantly upgraded, with a new underground mine shaft being developed at the site (The George A. MacLeod mine). A bucket tramline had been built in the 1940s or early 1950s to carry raw ore from the mine to Wawa and this was replaced later with a high capacity conveyor system that brought the ore directly from the underground MacLeod mine to the sinter plant. The unloading trestle at Michipicoten harbour was also upgraded in the 1950s to a conveyor system from a dumping pit for the railcars.

An indication of the importance of the facilities at Michipicoten during the 1950s is that the railway built new diesel locomotive servicing facilites at Brient (the yard for the harbour, just under a mile up the hill), although by the 1970s ore was shipped to Algoma Steel entirely by rail year-round, and the ore handling facilities, as well as the coal dock, the old commercial dock (as pulpwood shipments also switched to an all-rail basis in the late 1950s) and the Brient yard were all abandoned. (The old ore trestle doesn’t seem to have been actually demolished until the late 1980s.)

March 1981 view of Wawa yard. The main sintering facilities are to the left. The structures in the centre of the photo are part of the conveyor system that delivers ore from the mine to the plant, and the buff coloured building at right is the ACR station. Photographer unknown, slide in my collection.

In the early 1970s however, some new traffic began using the former coal dock at Michipicoten: limestone, deposited by self-unloading vessels, would be shipped to Wawa for blending with the sinter. Coke and even some additional grades of iron ore for blending with the Wawa ore were also handled via Michipicoten harbour through the 1980s and 1990s.

During the late 1990s however, Algoma Steel began switching over to using higher grades of iron ore mined in the Michigan Upper Penninsula, and in 1998 the mine and sinter plant at Wawa closed down, bringing a final? end to iron ore mining in the area, at least for now. With the sole source of traffic on the branch eliminated, the railway filed for abandonment of the line, and in 2000 the tracks from Hawk Junction to Michipicoten were removed.

Usage and Restrictions on 6 Axle Power on the ACR

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Chris van der Heide

In 1971 the ACR received what was to be their first order of modern, “second generation” diesel locomotives. In a marked departure from the smaller four axle 1500 and 1750 HP GP7 and GP9 units that comprised the motive power fleet at the time, the ACR ordered a trio of 3000 HP, six-axle SD40 locomotives from General Motors Diesel Division. This order was followed up two years later with six SD40-2 units in 1973.

AC 180, the road’s first SD40, at Steelton yard in Sault Ste. Marie. March 1981. Slide in my collection.

The large size and weight of these modern units, combined with the long rigid wheelbase of the three-axle trucks underneath raised some concerns about increased track wear and maintenance as a result of their use – similar concerns had largely restricted the use of the ACR’s largest steam locomotives, a pair of rather heavy 2-10-2 (most of the ACR’s freight engines were of a 2-8-2 wheel arrangement). However, unlike the steamers, which were just a little too big for the railway, the SD40 and SD40-2 units were massively successful in hauling heavy ore trains between Wawa and Steelton yard, so these concerns were muted or just chalked up to the cost of doing business.

This is not to say that the big units didn’t have certain restrictions placed on them. The employee’s timetables list numerous special speed restrictions when the SD40 type units are used in a diesel consist, mainly in areas with sharp curvatures. In many places these restrictions are 5 to 10 MPH lower than the standard freight speed limits for those zones, and speeds in passing sidings was restricted to a maximum of 12 MPH (where the normal legal maximum for Restricted or Slow speed was 15 MPH).

Additionally, while no prohibition exists in the timetable, most sources tend to suggest that the use of the larger units was discouraged north of Hawk Junction – particularly north of Oba where the mainline was mostly 80-85lb rail, much of it original from 1912, so train nos. 5 and 6 would typically be run with smaller 4-axle power, with the big SD40s earning their keep hauling tonnage between Steelton and Hawk Junction, and on the Michipicoten branch ore trains.

Interestingly, today CN runs freights on the line up into Hearst with even larger typical modern power like SD70 type locomotives, although I’m not sure if the rails have been materially upgraded. Probably just significantly speed restricted.

Passenger Operations

Posted on December 11, 2015 by Chris van der Heide

Regular Service

Regular passenger service on the ACR was provided by train nos. 1 and 2 from Sault Ste. Marie to Hearst (and vice versa).

Northbound no. 1 at the north end of Steelton yard, departing for Hearst with GP38-2 201 in the lead, Sept. 7, 1983. Francis J. Wiener photo in my collection.

In the 1980 timetable, no. 1 was scheduled to depart Sault Ste. Marie at 9:30 am daily except Mondays (with no. 2 therefore running daily except Tuesdays) in the summer timetable, and only Fridays through Sundays (Saturday to Monday for no. 2) an hour earlier at 8:30 am in the fall/winter timetable.

If you turn back the clock a bit to the 1950s-1960s, passenger service was also included on the Michipicoten subdivision, and nos. 1 and 2 were actually daily excluding Sundays between Sault Ste. Marie and Michipicoten, connecting with trains 3 and 4 to/from Hearst at Hawk Junction. (Although in the late 1940s to early 1950s, three days a week this ran instead as Mixed (freight and passenger) trains 5 and 6. If you go far enough back in history, all passenger service was in mixed trains.) Passenger service on the branch was discontinued in the mid 1960s when Trans-Canada Highway 17 was completed through the area.

The last northbound passenger train to leave Hawk Junction prepares for departure. July 13, 2015. My photo.

In more current times, CN continued to operate the regular passenger service (as trains P631 and P632) until early 2015, when for funding and political reasons the service was undertaken by a new operator (Railmark) which unfortunately – again, due to financial and political complications – was not successful and passenger service was terminated in July of 2015. As of this writing, local stakeholder groups are searching for and negotiating with potential new operators to try to save the service.

Tour Trains

In the 1950s, recognizing the scenic beauty of the Canyon and the tourist potential, the Algoma Central Railway established the privately owned Agawa Canyon Park and developed the location as a destination for a day trip tour out of Sault Ste. Marie on the “Agawa Canyon Tour Train”.

Tour train coaches dropped off by no. 1 at Canyon, July 3, 1972. R.J. Schwenk photo in my collection.

Some of the older coaches were upgraded with modified steps for easy de-training of passengers at the siding and service started out with regular train no. 1 dropping off a dining car and a coach or two in the siding to be picked up later by the southbound no. 2. This service grew in popularity throughout the 1960s with more and more cars being regularly set off in the siding at Canyon. By the early 1970s so many cars were being used in the Agawa Canyon Tour Train service that an extra train was run to exclusively handle the tour cars for Canyon. By the mid 1970s, it was permanently added as a regular daily train (nos. 3 and 4) in the summer timetable. Also from 1969 to 1974 “new” passenger cars were acquired to expand and replace the existing fleet, with coaches, baggage cars and dining cars acquired secondhand from such roads as Canadian Pacific, Central of Georgia, Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, Illinois Central, Union Pacific, and Denver & Rio Grande Western.

Equipment for the tour train service was upgraded again in the early 1990s with cars acquired from VIA Rail, and most recently in 2009 with the purchase of the Rio Grande Ski Train from Denver, Colorado. The Agawa Canyon Tour train still operates on a daily basis during the summer as CN P633 (for the entire round trip).

The long term future of the train is however uncertain as CN has been indicating they are not interesting in being in the passenger business. The original plan when Railmark assumed operation of the regular passenger service was for them to eventually operate the tour train as well; with the new search for another replacement operator, the idea as I understand it would again be to have that operator take control of all passenger service.

Modern Agawa Canyon Tour Train at Canyon. July 2014. My photo.

Somewhere around the late 1970s the railway also began running a weekend-only fall/winter version of the tour train service, with tour coaches being exchanged by regular trains no. 1 and 2 at Eton, without the stopover at Canyon park. In the 1990s and early 2000s the “Snow Train” ran as a separate train in its own right, still running through the entirety of the canyon and turning at Eton. This train has not run in several years now.

Paper traffic on the ACR

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Chris van der Heide

The primary source of paper traffic on the ACR was of course the old St. Marys Paper mill in Sault Ste. Marie. The original pulp mill dates back to the 1890s, and through a couple of name changes and significant expansions over the years, lasted until 2007 when the mill was shut down for good. The mill buildings, except for surviving parts of the original 1890 mill have since been demolished.

St. Marys Paper mill in 1992 from the International Highway Bridge. Nell vanderHeide photo.

Despite having exclusive access to serve the paper mill, the Algoma Central rostered no boxcars for this service. Instead, as pretty much all of the mill’s output was exported south to the US, empty cars were provided by Canadian Pacific and SOO Line, and later primarily by Wisconsin Central.

St. Marys Paper switcher, June 2000

St. Marys performed their own in-plant switching with their own engine, exchanging cars with the Algoma Central via several interchange tracks at the north west end of the property. ACR yard jobs would then accordingly deliver the cars to the CP/SOO interchange tracks.

In addition to the St. Marys mill in Sault Ste. Marie, additional paper traffic would also travel over the ACR from mills on the CN at Kapuskasing and Smooth Rock Falls and the Ontario Northland at Iroquois Falls bound for mid-west US destinations. Any westbound traffic that might have come these locations for central Canada or the west coast may have also traveled over the ACR from Hearst to Oba to continue westward on the CN main line.

CN Operations at Hearst

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Chris van der Heide

Hearst was the Algoma Central’s northern terminus and connection to the Canadian National Railway. For yard, station and other facilities the ACR shared with CN.

The ACR wye and connection to the CN main was just to the west of Hearst yard, and any movements on the CN main from Hearst Junction to Hearst would have to be made under the CN dispatcher’s authority. Conversely, if CN needed to turn some equipment, movements over the wye required the ACR dispatcher’s authority.

Equipment Restrictions

When the ACR first connected to Hearst in 1914, Hearst was a division point on the transcontinental mainline of the National Transcontinental Railway. However when the NTR became part of the Canadian National Railways in the early 1920s, this became a secondary line to the ex Canadian Northern Railway main line (crossed by the ACR at Oba) which is still CN’s primary transcontinental route today. As such, this line languished and was never maintained to the same standard as a more major route.

The Pagwa subdivision between Hearst and Nakina featured exceptionally light rail – often less than 80 lbs/yard – that had never been upgraded since the steam era and probably in these late years a fair bit of deferred maintenance in general. This line was *severely* restricted as to the weight and types of equipment that could run over it, with the heaviest diesel locomotive permitted on the line being an SW1200RS. (CN 1387-1395 are known to be in Hearst in the late 1970s.) Cars with greater than 177,000 lbs (88 tons) *gross* weight required special handling, and during the months of May-June for the spring thaw cars exceeding 142,000 lbs (71 tons) gross weight are banned west of Calstock.

East of Hearst is better, but still light rail. GP9s could operate west of Kapuskasing to Hearst, but between these two stations heavy six axle units like C630s and SD40s were explicitly banned and even modern four axle road switchers such as C424s, GP38-2s and GP40-2s are to be used “only in emergency, and at 10 miles per hour below” the regular speed limit making a GP9 pretty much the biggest unit that could be expected to run into Hearst in the 1970s and 1980s.

The north end of the ACR was also relatively light rail (but definitely better maintained than between Calstock and Nakina, which CN was trying to abandon anyway) and AC trains typically avoided using their six axle SD40 units north of Hawk Junction.

Passenger Service

Passenger service west of Hearst to Nakina (junction with CN’s main line) was actually still provided during the early 1980s by trains 272/273. While officially listed as mixed (freight and passenger) trains in the timetable, most sources seem to agree that in practice it was passenger-only in the 1980s, with any westbound freight routed via the ACR to Oba, as there was zero on-line freight traffic except for the Lecours lumber mill at Calstock, which by this point would be served by a turn job out of Hearst yard. CN was petitioning to abandon the line between Calstock and Nakina at this point, and moving the through traffic off of the line probably helped to destroy any remaining on-paper revenue and support their petition. And due to the extreme weight restrictions on the line, a lot of traffic simply could not go that way. Abandonment formally happened in 1986 and the line was torn out west of Calstock.

CN 7210 combination baggage/coach at Hearst in 1976. Paul O’Shell photo.

The (non) “mixed” typically ran with an SW1200RS and single heavyweight baggage/coach combination car. CN 7210 appears to have been the regularly assigned car on this line. This car remained in CN colours all through the early 1980s, although passenger service was officially operated by VIA Rail then. In my summer 1979 CN timetable, 273 departs Hearst at noon on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, with 272 from Nakina running on opposite days (Wednesdays, Fridays, Sundays) and scheduled to arrive at 5:30 pm.

There was no passenger service running east out of Hearst anymore by this point in time. Hearst was once the final destination of local passenger service from Cochrane, connecting with southbound trains over the Ontario Northland to Toronto, but by the late 1970s passenger service was provided only as far as Kapuskasing by the joint CN-ONR train the “Northland” from Toronto. (Replaced later by the Toronto-Cochrane coach-only “Northlander”, which itself was discontinued in 2009.)

ACR No. 1 at Hearst, July 2, 1972. Robert Schwenk photo in my collection.

The Algoma Central’s passenger service ran daily except Monday from Sault Ste. Marie to Hearst during the spring/summer, and on the weekends only (Fridays through Sundays) during the fall/winter season. No. 1 had a scheduled arrival time of about quarter after seven during the summer, and quarter to six in the winter. The ACR train would tie down on the main track in front of the station and depart early the next morning as no. 2. (On days that the CN “mixed” ran, the inbound ACR would arrive up to two hours after, and the outbound train would be almost to Hawk Junction by the time of the 273’s noon departure.)

Freight

Local switching of the yard and local industries around Hearst would have been performed by CN, as it was their track and facilities. The lumber mill at Calstock would have also been handled by an extra turn job out of Hearst yard although I do not know when this would run.

The 1979 CN timetable shows a Kapuskasing subdivision freight departing Hearst at 11 am on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays for Cochrane. I would presume that the CN crew would spend the morning performing the local switching requirements

The corresponding westbound is not timetabled, but I would assume it to operate as an extra on opposite days (Wednesdays, Fridays, Sundays) the same as the mixed train to the west of Hearst.

My 1989 CN timetable does not have any freight schedules actually listed for the Kap. sub, and sadly I do not have one from closer to 1985.

As mentioned above, except for the lumber mill at Calstock, there was no on-line freight customers on the Pagwa subdivision towards Nakina, and due to the condition of the line, really no traffic at all was actually routed over this line anymore at this point, instead being handled by the ACR to Oba to be returned to CN for the trip westward.

ONT no. 516 prepares to depart Hearst for Kapuskasing with several loads of lumber from Lecours and several loads of copper concentrate from Michigan bound for Rouyn-Noranda. July 2015, my photo.

The Kapuskasing subdivision and the remains of the Pagwa subdivision to Calstock (the rest abandoned in 1986) were sold to Ontario Northland in August 1993.

On the ACR side of things, ACR freight no. 5 would arrive in Hearst in the evenings on weekdays, Monday through Friday, with no. 6 departing south with interchange traffic the following day, Tuesdays through Saturdays.

Algoma Central in HO Scale

Modelling the Algoma Central Railway in HO scale

Tag Archives: Operations