Caption: It's the late afternoon of August 26, 2015, and the elusive CN #589 is almost home. GP38-2(W) 4771 has retrieved three tank cars from Nylene in Arnprior, and is rolling east across the Walkley Diamond. In a moment it will rumble under the Bank Street overpass (where I'm standing) and into CN's Walkley Yard.
The North-South line is currently Capital Railway's Ellwood Subdivision, better known as the Trillium Line of OC Transpo's O-Train. Previously this was Canadian Pacific's Prescott Subdivision, running between Hull, Quebec, and its namesake town in Ontario. At the time of writing (October 2020), this line is shut down for a major rebuilding and extension, but in 2015, CN #589 had to wait for clearance to cross in between O-trains on a 15-minute frequency.
Milepost 4 is measuring 4 miles from Hawthorne, the junction of the Walkley Line with the VIA (nee CN) Alexandria Subdivision. At one time the Walkley Line was joint CN-CP trackage, and until 1995 this track carried mainline CN freights across Ottawa to the Beachburg Subdivision, on which they travelled up the Ottawa Valley, across Algonquin Park, and on to Capreol. Today, track on the Beachburg Sub has been removed west of Nepean Junction, and the only regular traffic is the weekly trundle of #589 to Arnprior.
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Very nice! Don’t see many shots of freight action in Ottawa on here.
Thanks Kevin! That’s probably because there is very little freight action left in Ottawa, unfortunately. I was very lucky to catch this after finishing work for the day.