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Caption: The 07:00 yard job has finished up at Parkdale Warehousing and will soon be heading back to Stuart Street. This is the last stretch of track and furthest customer on the N&NW Spur here in Hamilton, and is a location in which I have not seen shots of in the public realm before (either SOR or CN), though I am sure they do exist. I myself have a few shots of the one time I witnessed SOR switch this customer, but I have not yet posted them anywhere. Under SOR, this was a predominantly nighttime job, although I did get lucky and witnessed it in daylight the one time. When I saw SOR do it, they came in with one unit (4001) and two loads: a bulkhead and a boxcar. They used the minimal headroom (check it out on Google Maps - it really is minimal!) to lift the three empties one at a time, placing them adjacent to Parkdale Ave, before spotting the loads. CN however came in light power with two units, lifted the empties and shoved them towards Adams Yard (dropping them in the area between Strathearne Ave/Dominion Rd and Kenilworth - not sure if this is considered Adams Yard or not, so if you know please enlighten me). They then grabbed the two loads and came back to spot them before heading back westward light power to grab the empties they'd just lifted. This is how I always imagined this move taking place and was caught off guard the day I caught SOR here. Perhaps under CN this has become a predominantly daytime move and something others will be able to get shots of as time goes on.
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Beautiful lighting. A location I have never had any luck at.
Thanks for posting this one James. I almost moved to the end of the spur to Brighton Ave with an ex…she said at night the train literally looked like it was coming right into the back yard! I also loosely model this warehouse and have Googled mapped it many times and of course been there and shot around it. But never witnessed a train there myself until now! And thanks for that!
Adams yard is purely a TH&B/CP yard adjacent the wye to Dofasco and NSC. That yard is NOT joint track – the joint track sign is just east of Kenilworth adjacent the ore train lead. (Ore train lead is joint track CP/CN/Dofasco)
They probably used support/runaround tracks located by the Strathearne ave (along the Kenilworth lead which goes to Parkdale Warehousing). The small yard by Dofasco at Dominion Rd (Strathearne) is actually a Dofasco track – not used right now but was used until 2012 by Dofasco locomotives and CP (who lifted the cars for shipment) and possibly SOR. It’s rusty now… cars would come from Central Shipping – follow the circular track beside CN’s New Gages spur (between Parkdale yard/Steel Centre – forms a wye for CN) and you’ll see the extend of current Dofasco track located inside the Dofasco fence – through that yard – ends right at Kenilworth and Dofasco Drive at a stop block. Not much left of the former Dofasco main which used to go all the way past Depew St.
*whew* it’s really confusing down there and takes years to figure it out..
@ Arnold and Brad – thanks guy. Almost missed them by mere minutes. I knew they were down the hole somewhere and naturally this was the last spot I thought to check.
@ Steve. Thanks for the info and clarification. Was really hoping someone would be able to help me with that! They definitely used that runaround track – I went over to Kenilworth after nabbing this shot and saw the nose of 7058 appear way back in there, and then suddenly they disappeared again. So it would appear they backed onto that run around track to lift the empties.
It is indeed a tangled web down there. I remember the first few times I went down the Google Maps rabbit hole trying to follow it all. Talk about overwhelming. I’ve slowly picked up things along the way from the posts of yourself and others on the site, and firsthand experience exploring around there. Still plenty to learn though about the specifics.
*guys
Is that a remote pack on the conductor seeing as the GP9 is a remote unit? I always loved how the TTX car comes right up to the road with the big concrete blocks just in case they shoved in too far or it rolled.
I actually model that feature of a track stop as well, I believe there’s another big mound of dirt in front of them as an extra safety.
Yes those are controls for the unit. The beltpack on 7058 stopped working later that day and they were out switching with it like a normal locomotive. Not sure if it’s been fixed yet.
https://rac.jmaponline.net/canadianrailatlas/?autozoom=region;-8887290;5349812;7405;4319
BTW this is a fairly accurate map of who owns what. Doesn’t show Joint Sections though but any lines CP connects to.. they have rights to generally speaking