Tag Archives: Passenger

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.

New Funding and New Operator for ACR Passenger Service

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Well this came right down to the wire. With the ACR regular passenger service slated to be no more as of April 1st without a decision on support from the federal government, it was announced today that the government will renew a subsidy for the passenger service for a further three years.

See the article on Sault Online here:
Passenger Rail Service Funding Extended for Three Years

From the article:

The City of Sault Ste. Marie will receive federal support for three years for the continued operation of the passenger rail service to establish a new regime of passenger rail service in the area. This would allow Railmark, the proposed operator, to demonstrate its ability to deliver on its business plan. A review will be carried out at the three-year mark to determine if additional funding is warranted.

That new operator is Railmark Holdings Inc., in the form of a newly incorporated Canadian subsidiary, Railmark Canada, to operate the train service in Ontario.

Over the last few months articles have appeared in the local media documenting the bidding and evaluation process for finding a new operator for the passenger service (or at least what information could be known outside of the standard business NDAs covering the negotiations). As the months leading up to the deadline became shorter, several companies had submitted bids for evaluation by CN and the local stakeholders group, which then turned into one (as then yet unidentified) finalist selected for final negotiations, and then the announcement that agreements were basically in place between CN and the new mystery operator, with a grand plan to expand the services and make the operation no longer dependent on the federal subsidy in about five years. As the months became weeks, the request for additional interim federal funding was submitted to the government, and it was gradually revealed that Railmark was the final bidder, while as the weeks became days, the parties awaited the recommendation and decision from Transport Canada. And on the last day before the service would have become another page in the history book of Canadian passenger operations, that funding decision came down.

Railmark seems to have grand plans for the service, including additional options and changes to the service, cross-promotions with other tourism activities in the area, and additional dinner trains and special runs. If this all sounds a little vague, well, I tend to agree. A lot will need to be proven here, and I’m pretty skeptical about a short-distance dinner train in a remote market like the Sault, although special runs to things like folk music festivals in Searchmont seem to have been relatively well patronized locally in the past. The above article also mentions a return of the winter Snow Train through Agawa Canyon, which has not been running the last few years. This could be a good thing, if the demand is there. We will have to see. (Note that Railmark’s bid includes taking over the operation of the Algoma Central Railway passenger services, including the Agawa Canyon Tour Train.)

Railmark has a lot to prove over the next three years. Railmark markets themselves as a railway company with 15 years of experience in the business, although they don’t appear to have any current operations. Two previous dinner train operations are defunct; one was shut down and sold during the major recession several years ago, the other appears to be the focus of a complicated dispute with the city of Columbia, MO and also involving a failed merger with another company, Train Travel Inc. RailMark’s website announces this merger on their news releases, but fails to follow up the fact this this merger was unwound scarcely two months later. Keep digging around these companies and find a dizzying collection of small shell corporations with little or no actual apparent operations or assets.

Railmark was also involved in some bidding last year for some CN branch trackage between London and St. Thomas in southern Ontario. While this has gone absolutely nowhere so far (CN is still operating those tracks at the moment, and former CP and Trillium Railway lines in the St. Thomas area are now under Ontario Southland’s banner), Railmark doesn’t seem to have a serious reputation in this area talking to some friends who know some contacts in the local railway scene.

So, today’s announcement means that the “show will go on”, at least for now. What that show will be, time will tell. In the immediate term, Railmark needs to get their ducks in line in order to prepare to even take over the current operation and hopefully get that all sorted out before the tourist season really starts. (I’m not even sure what the immediate situation is as of tomorrow, as before this afternoon’s announcement, today’s train was basically slated to be the last if no support was provided.) And then they really need to prove themselves on this operation. While I remain cautiously optimistic for the future for now, there’s some red flags here that are slightly unsettling.

Update:

CN has recalled laid off employees and will continue to operate the service until Railmark is ready to take over, so passenger service will continue to operate this week. Note that the subsidy funds will actually be managed by the city of Sault Ste. Marie, which to me sounds like a good thing, and allowing the local stakeholders to hopefully be able to keep the operator(s) accountable.

Rail Company in Negotiations for ACR Passenger Service

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For those following the continuing saga of the Algoma Central “Tour of the Line”/regular passenger service between Sault Ste. Marie and Hearst, there was an press release published today in the Soo media outlets indicating that of three companies that had tendered qualified bids (a fourth had previously bid, but later withdrew) in the past year to operate the passenger service on the ACR, one has now been selected to move to final negotiations to take over operation of the passenger train from CN this spring.

While details of the company involved are still confidential at this point and not publicly released, the press release indicates that the company’s bid includes plans to “increase revenue and ridership by diversifying the types of tourism products and services available to passengers, as well as making the service self-sustaining within five years.”

For more details, click on the link below at SooToday.com:

Mystery rail firm enters negotiations to operate ACR

Railfanning Around Sault Ste. Marie

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After (and, well, let’s face it, during) my day trip on the Agawa Canyon Tour Train, and in between visits to the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library, I tried to also take the opportunity to do a little railfanning around town. I also visited last July and September, and caught a few things then too, so while I certainly don’t have full information of everything that goes on, I’ve been reasonably successful for an outsider, and I’m starting to learn what’s going on and put together at least a broad picture of things.

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Obviously the most well-known rail operating in Sault Ste. Marie is the Agawa Canyon Tour Train. Departing daily at 8 AM during the summer and fall seasons from the Algoma Central Railway’s downtown station beside the Station Mall, the train runs north to Canyon and returns to the downtown station typically around 5:30 PM (although the schedule on the ACR web site says 6). If one is wanting to photograph the train at the station, the best sun angles will be in the afternoon due to the roughly north-west angle of the tracks at this location.

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About half an hour before train arrives back in the Sault, it will be passing through this curve just north of mile 10 on the railway. (Restricted speed through the yard limits in Sault Ste. Marie to the station means this final part of the trip through town takes a little time.) North of town the highway, river and rail line all parallel for a short stretch; this shot is taken from the shoulder of highway 17. This is another shot where the sun angles favour the afternoon southbound train as the highway is to the west side of the railway and river. A northbound morning shot could work here if it is an overcast day.

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Unfortunately I just missed the southbound regular passenger train from Hearst as it came in later; I was just returning to this spot and it arrived about the same time I did, so I chased it a bit closer to town and had to content with this shot at the highway 17 underpass at the north edge of town.

The regular train operates north from Sault Ste. Marie on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, departing at 9:20 AM during the current summer season from a track at the entrance to Steelton yard, in behind the shops facilities, rather than the downtown passenger station. The southbound train returns from Hearst the following day(s) – that being Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays – and is scheduled to return to Sault Ste. Marie at 6:10 PM, but will often be running a little late. So it should be around the mile 10 curve pretty much any time after 6. (I just missed it at about 7:30.) Note that Wednesday is the off day, where the train will not be running, and the equipment remain parked at Steelton yard.

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I missed catching the daily freight train from the US this time around, but it typically operates into the Canadian Sault in the early evening, around 7 PM or so, shortly before the southbound regular passenger train. I did manage to catch it last summer, so I can share a photo or two of that.

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Interestingly, this train typically runs with distributed power, with one engine at the front of the train and a second splice somewhere in the middle. The train handles iron ore for Algoma Steel from a mine in uppser Michigan and all manner of interchange traffic from Sault Ste. Marie, primarily southbound steel and pulpwood loads.

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The northbound train runs directly into the former ACR yards in Sault Ste. Marie, ON, and will perform some switching to break down the inbound train, fish out the distributed power unit and assemble the southbound train to the States. Once the outbound is prepared, it will head south again; often this will be near or well after dark, depending on the season.

(The two daylight shots of the northbound freight crossing the swing bridge and the old Canadian ship canal were taken in July 2013. The night shot is a time exposure of the southbound freight departing Canada taken in September 2013.)

Freight service on the line north of Sault Ste. Marie I’m a little less clear on, but the northbound freight seems to generally hit Hawk Junction around lunchtime, so would be out of Sault Ste. Marie very early in the morning, possibly just before dawn. When I rode the Tour of the Line back on the last day of September, our regular train met the southbound freight at Northland siding, with the tour train ahead of us meeting the freight at Wabos. However, when I recently rode the Agawa Canyon Tour Train, we encountered no other trains on the trip north.

I’m not entirely certain whether the freights do indeed operate daily (sources indicate yes, and I’m pretty much 3/3 for encountering the northbound freight at or near Hawk Junction) or whether it may be adjusted based on the traffic levels, and that single observation at Northland is not really enough data to say whether that timing is typical, or quite late (for what it’s worth, when I chased the tour train to Searchmont in July 2013, I never saw nor heard any sign of freight activity then either; the passenger train seemed to be having a completely unrestricted run north, just like my ride two weeks ago). Or whether the operating times simply vary wildly for some reason like crew availability at Hearst and/or Hawk Junction.

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Huron Central action appears to be typically (and reliably – I’ve shot them all three times I’ve visited the Sault over the past year) caught around mid-afternoon at their yard in the Sault, with the mainline freight to Sudbury departing a little before supper time. Theirs is a colourful operation, and you can quite comfortable watch them switching from the old platform of the former CPR passenger station at the east end of the HCRY yard. The bright orange of the G&W family colour scheme definitely adds a lot of colour to the experience. The westbound counterpart appears to leave Sudbury in the early evening, so this would arrive in Sault Ste. Marie well after dark.

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Along the south side of the Huron Central yard are a pair of tracks used for pulpwood loading. The cars loaded here are a mix of cars with Huron Central’s own reporting marks and cars with LRIX markings, that translating to the owner being “Lake Superior Eastern Rail Industries Ltd.” This appears to be a local freight car lessor, headquartered in White River, ON and their entire fleet of about 30 cars appears dedicated to service on the Huron Central. Both the LRIX and HCRY fleets consists of about 30 cars of varying designs and lineages. And since neither are really seen off of Huron Central rails, a quick peek at the pulpwood loading tracks in Sault Ste. Marie is an interesting stop for the freight car enthusiast.

Agawa Canyon Tour Train Ride

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At the beginning of this week I just returned from another week long vacation north of Lake Huron, visting the former Algoma Central and the Huron Central and Ontario Northland railways.

Having previously ridden the Tour of the Line last October, on Monday July 28th, I had a ticket booked to ride the Agawa Canyon Tour Train. The tickets are booked over the phone (which the helpful ACR staff make quite easy – and it’s nice to hear them answer the phone as “Algoma Central Railway”) and can be picked up at the station the morning of the departure. The train’s scheduled departure is at 8 AM, and tickets can be picked up at the station half an hour before the train leaves. I think I arrived there a little before 7:30 and ended up beating the line. Eventually around 7:40 or so the train pulled into the station and we were able to board.

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The tour train at Sault Ste. Marie station. (This photo actually taken after the return to the Sault, when the sunlight is actually on the right side for photographs at this location.)

The train this day was a short 6 cars, including dining car 506, and one of the regular F40PHR locomotives was apparently away in Toronto for some repair work, so the engine on the south end of the train was a CN GP9Rm. The complete consist was as follows (from the north end):

CN 105 (F40PHR)
AC 5705 (Coach)
AC 5702 (Coach)
AC 5655 (Coach)
AC 5703 (Coach)
AC 506 (Dining Car)
AC 5704
CN 4110 (GP9Rm)

The train left precisely on time and we slowly rolled through the downtown, past the huge Essar Steel Algoma mill and past the sprawling CN yards and shops before finally clearing the yard limits and entering the main line north of town. Then it was off into the wilderness north of the Sault.

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Typical lake view along the line.

Inside the coaches on the train there are video monitors throughout, which over the course of the trip play video commentary describing features of the line and its history. The video segments are apparently triggered by GPS location, so it tells you when certain notable features (like the Montreal Falls trestle for one particular example) are soon to be encountered, and also to spread out the history segments over the trip. While to an ACR historian like myself much of the information was known, I still found myself watching each segment when they played with interest, and it certainly gives an interesting background to the area you’re riding through. (Although a couple parts of the narration could use some updating as they refer to the St. Marys Paper Company as a current operation, while it has closed down a few years ago and the mill has been mostly demolished except for some of the remaining original sandstone structures dating from the 1890s mill.)

When the history segments weren’t showing on the monitors, the view was normally from a camera mounted in the front window of the lead F40PHR locomotive, giving a nice live view of the track ahead of the train. This was nice to see features ahead of the train, and was particularly interesting at one point where the train slowed because of a pair of large birds that when disturbed by the train simply flew along the tracks in front of the train for about a minute or so before finally gaining height and flying out of the way!

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The train skirts the shore of another small northern Ontario lake.

About half an hour after departure from the Sault, the dining car opened for breakfast, for which they called the various coaches in turn. I had made sure I had something to eat at my room before heading down to the station, so I did not partake of breakfast, but later when the dining car switched over to serving lunch (for which the kitchen remained continuously open until a little after 4 PM) the on-board service staff took orders for boxed lunches from those who wished it, and these orders were taken far enough in advance of the arrival at Canyon so that you would be able to take your lunch and have a nice picnic within the park environs. I ended up ordering one of these lunches, which I believe was about $15 and contained a sandwich (on a nice large Kaiser bun, which could be one of three options: roast beef, tuna or ham & cheese – I chose the ham & cheese), bottle of water, bag of chips, brownie and a hard-boiled egg.

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F40PHR 105 on the north end of the Agawa Canyon Tour Train at Agawa Canyon Park.

After arrival at Canyon, I wandered around the lower part of the park for a while, enjoying the area along the river, eating my lunch and taking a number of photos of the train in the park setting.

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This CN GP9Rm was the southbound unit on the train. There are no turning facilities at Canyon, and the F40PHR has to remain connected to the train as it is also the on-board power source, so the tour train is operated with locomotives at each end.

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Looking south from the train at Canyon.

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The tour train in its context at Agawa Canyon Park. The small car on the house track to the left of the train is the railway’s “camp car”, which car be rented for an overnight stay at the park.

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The rocky cliffs on the other side of the river from the train’s stopping location in the park.

Ultimately, the time in the canyon came to an end, and the whistle was blown giving the 5 minute warning to return to the train for departure. The northbound passenger train to Hearst was also running that day, and I had hoped to photograph it arriving at the south end of Canyon siding, unfortunately it did not end up arriving until after our train had reboarded, and we rolled slowly to the south switch to meet the regular train there, heading south as soon as it had cleared into the siding. So I was only able to see the train from the windows of my coach as it passed by on the adjacent track, and no photos. So that was my disappointment on the trip, from a railfan’s perspective, but the actual ride to and from the Canyon was relaxing and enjoyable, as I alternately read my book or watched the northern Ontario scenery with it’s unending forest dotted with rocky hills and myriad small lakes roll by outside.

Our return time to the Sault was approximately 5:30 PM, and with the sun now in the perfect position for taking photographs at the station, I photographed the train as the unboarding completed and the train pulled out of the station to head back to the yard for servicing, cleaning and overnight parking until the next day’s train. Once the train departed the station, I wandered past the Huron Central yard to photograph some of the pulpwood flatcars around there and then headed off to find some supper, a nice day of train riding completed.