Intermodal Traffic via The Soo

Over twenty years ago when our club began holding its first operating sessions, we had to employ a lot of stand-in equipment to fill up our freights. Accurate HO-scale ready-to-run Canadian prototype models were only just starting to come into existence in the early 2000s. At the time our members understood most of the equipment we required would have to be assembled either from kitbashed US-based models, complicated resin kits, or built completely from scratch. We are very grateful (and relieved) that this didn’t turn out to be the case, as Rapido, Bowser, Atlas, North American Railcar, True Line Trains (RIP), etc, have produced so many wonderful Canadian prototype models over the years to help us emulate the operations of the 1970s-era CP Sudbury Division in miniature.

Despite the state of our early rolling stock fleet there was one operation we were able to model fairly accurately right from the beginning, and that was the intermodal traffic which used to be ferried via the Sault Ste Marie gateway. Canadian Pacific along with their US affiliate the SOO Line (Minneapolis, St Paul and Sault Ste Marie Railroad) had for many decades operated a pair of freights between Côte Saint-Luc QC (Montreal) and Schiller Park IL (Chicago) numbered 911 (westbound) and 912 (eastbound). These symbol freights were routed via the CPR’s transcon route between Montreal and Sudbury, and traversed across the north shore of Lake Huron between there and the USA at Sault Ste Marie. The border crossing was done via the CP/SOO international bridge, and the SOO Line’s network across the Michigan upper peninsula and Wisconsin was used to reach the Chicago area.

Route_911_912

The route of joint CP / SOO trains #911 & 912 shown in the dashed blue line (click to enlarge). Despite the circuitous routing, CP was able to lure New England customers away from Penn Central’s direct ex-NYC ‘Water Level Route’ between Albany NY and Chicago.

Throughout the 1970s, CP Rail was transporting a healthy level of New England – Chicago bridge traffic via their Sudbury-Soo gateway, regardless of its extended length and customs legalities. Despite Penn Central possessing the most direct route between Albany NY and Chicago (the former New York Central ‘Water Level Route’), the fallout from their bankruptcy coupled with the overall degradation of the Northeast US rail network resulted in conditions which allowed CP to offer competitive transit times for New England shippers. Additionally, Canadian Pacific had devoted a lot of capital throughout the 1950s and ’60s in intermodal operations, and that investment had cultivated a respectable level of container-on-flat-car (COFC) traffic rolling between Chicago and the Port of Montreal via trains 911/912.

CP Transfer at SOO MI 05Sept80 Mike Cleary

CP S-4 7099 arrives on a transfer run at Sault Ste Marie, Michigan with a COFC cut for SOO Line train #911 on 05 September 1980. (Mike Cleary photo)

Not only did this 911/912 intermodel service offer an interesting facet to our operating sessions, but as an added bonus this Chicago-Montreal COFC traffic was easy to model as it was carried on US-built Trailer-Train flatcars. It was also serendipitous that Accurail had introduced their Bethlehem 89ft piggyback flat kits just as we were planning our first op sessions. Naturally, we assembled a large pool quickly, and over the years that fleet has been augmented by various newer Atlas, Athearn-Genesis and Walthers intermodal flatcar releases as well.

COFC block off train 911 at Soo 18Jun83

A very healthy COFC block off train 911 at Sault Ste Marie, Ontario on18 June 1983. (Ted Ellis collection)

In direct contrast to these Trailer-Train flats on trains 911/912, all the transcontinental priority freights (901, 902, 949, 951, 952, etc) we need to model all operated with nothing but Canadian-built CP intermodal flat cars, for which no accurate models have even been produced. However, there is some great news here, as Rapido Trains will be producing Canadian piggyback flats as we’ve written about in a previous blog-post. We hope this is just the beginning.

TTAX 990569 flat at Sault Ste Marie on 9 6 80

Pullman-Standard built TTAX 990569 89ft container flat at Sault Ste Marie, Ontario on 06 September 1980. (Ted Ellis collection)

What might have been?

Despite the advent of Conrail and its significant improvement of the northeast US rail network, CP Rail was developing plans in the early 1980s to make trains #911/912 true run-through freights with pooled SOO/CP power and expedited schedules. However this was always held back by the money required to rehabilitate the international bridge and increase its weight limits. Rather than making that investment, instead the CPR negotiated trackage rights with CSX over their C&O / ex-Pere Marquette line across southern Michigan to Detroit. That resulted in the introduction of hot new CP/SOO intermodal trains #500/501 in 1985, operating on a much more direct Chicago-Detroit-Toronto-Montreal routing.

Travelling via the CP’s Galt Subdivision across southernwestern Ontario, the local railfans of the Cambridge / Kitchener-Waterloo area were pretty excited (myself included) seeing SOO/CP run-through power on hot container trains. By the 1990s this had grown to three pairs of joint CP/SOO freights operating daily. But it came at a cost, namely with the withering in importance of trains #911/912 over the Sudbury Division. Eventually the CPR spun off their Sudbury-Soo route (the Webbwood Sub) to the Huron Central shortline. Even more surprising, they sold off most of their Michigan/Wisconsin SOO Line network to the newly reconstituted Wisconsin Central Railroad. Ironically, it was the WC who fixed the bridge so that a 6-axle unit could finally cross it. But it was too late by then.

912_COFC_Nairn

A large cut of COFC intermodal traffic makes up the tail-end of train #912 as it rolls through Nairn siding enroute to the Port of Montreal. Model photo from the CP Sudbury Division layout.

However it is always the 1970s back in the time-warp that is our club’s CP Sudbury Division layout, and trains 911 & 912 roll over our territory daily. As a consequence whenever we hold an operating session and I happen to spot a cut of US-northeast and Chicago-area freight cars rolling by, followed by that oh-so familiar string of Trailer-Train COFC flats punctuated by a bright Action Yellow van; I can’t help but wonder what might have been had CP stuck with their original plan.

 

Switching ‘The Canadian’ Video Posted

Our club has been rather neglectful in video creation lately, due in no small part to COVID restrictions keeping us from hosting operating sessions and filming the events. However we’ve cleaned the cobwebs and dusted out our YouTube channel, and are pleased to announce a new video.

This explains how a typical 12-car consist of CP train #2 ‘The Canadian’ was switched out at Sudbury into Toronto (CP train #12) and Montreal (continuing as CP #2) sections, and goes through the shunting step-by-step.

Our club goes through this process each operating session, and the reverse process as well (combining Montreal and Toronto sections into one) at the close of the session. It takes up one scale hour (15 minutes real time) to complete, requires four operators to perform all the moves, and completely shuts down the yard while in progress. Needless to say, it’s a pain in the backside for whoever is performing the Sudbury Yardmaster’s roll that op session, but it’s also an operational highlight of the layout.

As the vaccine roll-out continues, we are hopeful that full club operating sessions can be held again later this year, and you may be able to witness switching ‘The Canadian’ in person again.

 

Signalling the Sudbury Division

Since our club’s initial decision to model the CP Sudbury Division in the 1970s era, it was understood by the membership that at some point railway signals would need to be installed on the layout. Not only did we want our layout scenes to look close to their real place counterparts despite having to selectively compress them, or operate equipment that appeared just like what really ran through northern Ontario in the ’70s, but we also wished to operate the layout in a realistic manner too.

The CP Cartier Subdivision between North Bay and Cartier was all CTC (Centralized Traffic Control) territory during the 1970s, with the exception of the six mile double-track section between Romford and Sudbury yard which was ABS (Automatic Block Signal System) signalled in one direction for current of traffic. Regardless of the two signalling methods it meant the club’s entire east-west mainline was protected by signals, and therefore we would need to duplicate this if we wished to achieve our goals of both looking right, and running right.

That said, we can report that signalling a model railway is very much more easier said than done. However after 20 years of planning, and of delaying a lot of scenery work from being started due to the wiring and complexity of the project, the 1/87 scale Sudbury Division is seeing its first signals begin to sprout around the layout.

RomfordSignals01

Temporary dual-head and permanent dwarf signals installed at Romford. Once fully programmed they will protect this busy junction just like their real-life counterparts.

Though much of the hobby has progressed quite dramatically over the past 40 years, sadly the process of signalling a layout has lagged behind despite the pioneering efforts of Allen MccLelland’s V&O, or Bruce Chubb’s Sunset Valley back in the 1970s. Yes, there are multiple sources of hardware available, and JMRI (Java Model Railroad Interface) software is free, however none of this is really plug and play. You need to program signal scripts and modify JMRI for any of this to work. Between knowing where the signals need to be installed, planning and wiring the signal blocks accordingly, selecting the detectors, switch and signal controllers and then programming it all to work, there is one other big problem for us. No one out there offers ready-to-run Canadian-style searchlight signals.

Romford, ON in October 6, 1971

From the cab of ‘The Canadian’ at Romford, ON – 06 October 1971. Photo by Roger Puta, from Marty Bernard’s Flickr album.

Though searchlight signal kits do exist in HO scale, they are US-based and need to be disassembled and pretty much scratch-build to have them appear like the real deal did. This and both CP and CN did have some differences in their ladder assemblies. For this reason, the WRMRC has decided to build their own, and to use temporary signals in the meantime. But it sure would be nice if a Canadian model manufacturer considered reproducing them for HO modellers at some point. Hello Rapido; wink, wink, nudge, nudge!

RomfordSignals02

Westbound signals guarding Romford. The mainline is on the right. The wye tracks to the left connect with the Parry Sound Sub to Toronto. The track in the middle is a set-off siding.

There is also the little wrinkle of the dispatcher needing a CTC panel for this all to work. However the good news for the WRMRC is the CP Cartier Sub was signalled in the 1960s, and thus never used one of the ‘classic’ CTC panels that railfans usually imagine. CP had their own hybrid system housed on the second floor of the Sudbury Division HQ building, featuring a large white wall panel with a black trackage schematic, and yellow lights displaying track occupancy. The dispatcher set switches and direction of traffic with a keypad assembly. Frankly, this sounds a lot like something you can duplicate on a computer screen and controlled with a keyboard, and so that’s exactly what we will be doing.

RomfordSignals03

Temporary dual-head signals protect the CP Cartier Sub diamond crossing with the CN Bala Sub at Coniston, Ontario. The diamond, much like our signals, is a work in progress.

Regardless of all these difficulties, the WRMRC has a small team working on the project and they’ve been making great strides recently. As you can tell from the photographs, the layout is already looking dramatically different. We look forward to the day we can ‘un-bag’ these signals for a future operating session, and have our engineers operate their trains as per signal indication. This also means scenery can progress in these areas too. The WRMRC’s goals of ‘looking right’ and ‘running right’ are slowly being achieved.