Falconbridge Nickel Mines Railway

Posted on August 14, 2024 by Chris van der Heide

While INCO (now Vale) was always the dominant player in the nickel mining and processing scene in Sudbury, Falconbridge (now Glencore) was the major independent competitor to INCO. This post will look at Falconbridge and how it relates to CPR’s railway operations.

Map showing location of Falconbridge smelter (top right) and rail lines. Red lines are Canadian Pacific, blue lines are Canadian National.

Falconbridge Mine and Smelter

Falconbridge Nickel Mines Ltd. was incorporated in 1928 to develop mining claims near the village of Falconbridge to the north-east of Sudbury. The first mine on the site was brought into operation in 1930. At the same time, development of a mill and smelter adjacent to the mine site was begun, with the smelter beginning operation in 1930 and the concentrating mill in 1933. A second mine at Falconbridge opened in 1935.

Due to patent restrictions in North America on nickel refining processes, Falconbridge purchased the Nikkelverk Refinery in Kristiansands, Norway in 1929 to acquire access to the refining processes they required. The smelter in Ontario produced a semi-refined nickel product known as “matte”, which would be refined to cathodes in the Norway facility.

Rail map of the Onaping-Levack area. Red line at bottom left is the CPR main line. The (now-abandoned) FNM railway is in purple. Yellow is the INCO line to Levack Mine.

Hardy Mine/Mill

In the early 1950s, Falconbridge expanded their mining operations from their original mines on the east side of Sudbury and developed some mines on the north west rim of the Sudbury crater in the Onaping-Levack area. By 1955 these operations included a pair of nickel-copper mines, Hardy Mine and Mount Nickel Mine, and a processing mill (Hardy Mill) located alongside Hardy Mine on the south-west edge of the town of Levack, capable of processing 1,500 tons of ore per day into concentrate which would be shipped to the smelter at Falconbridge east of Sudbury in open cars (hoppers and gondolas). This dry concentrate has been described as “pyrophoric”, meaning it can spontaneously undergo oxidation reactions (combustion) in contact with air and/or moisture, and could arrive at the smelter in a clumped or “burning” state.

To serve the new mines and mill, a new private rail line was built between Hardy Mine/Mill to the CPR Levack siding where several interchange transfer tracks were built. FNM locomotives would haul loads from the mill to the CPR and bring back empties delivered by CP. Hardy Mill was FNM’s rail base of operations, with a single stall engine shop, repair track, and a turning wye located next to the mill loading tracks.

1975 aerial photo of Hardy mine and mill. City of Greater Subdury aerial imagery. (Click on image to open larger size)

The Hardy Mill operated until 1977 when it was closed, with the older mines in the area reaching end of life near the end of the 1970s, and newer replacement mines having their ore processed at the newer Strathcona Mill (see below).

Fecunis Mine/Mill

In 1956 a new pair of mines, the Fecunis and Longvack Mines were in development on the north-east side of Levack. The odd name of “Fecunis” is based on the chemical symbols of the primary minerals found in the rocks here – iron (Fe), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), and sulphur (S). By 1957 these mines and a new mill at Fecunis to handle the production were on line capable of processing 2,400 tons per day of ore into concentrate, which like Hardy Mill was shipped in a partially dry concentrate in open cars. The FNM private rail line was extended past Hardy Mill to serve the new mill. Additionally another large mine, the Onaping Mine, was opened by the end of the 1950s.

Fecunis mine and mill aerial photo from 1975. City of Greater Sudbury aerial imagery. (Click on image to open larger size)

The Fecunis Mill closed operations in 1979.

Strathcona Mill

Also in 1956 the Strathcona Mine was discovered, though it would be 1967 before this mine went into full production along with a brand new mill which would serve as the basis for all further Falconbridge expansions in the Levack/Onaping area.

Strathcona mill Aerial 1975. City of Greater Sudbury aerial imagery. (Click on image to open larger size)

The new Strathcona mill opened in 1967 with a 6,000 tons per day capacity, but was upgraded quickly to 7,500 tons per day capacity to support increased production from various new mines in the area.

In contrast to the Hardy and Fecunis Mills, the concentrate produced at Strathcona Mill was shipped to the smelter in a slurry form, with the concentrate mixed with water. To handle this traffic, CP provided a small fleet of specially designed short cylindrical hoppers to carry the slurry from Strathcona to Falconbridge. The first 20 of these cars were built in 1967, with another 40 cars added in 1969. These cars operated to the late 1980s or early 1990s, as the cars were starting to wear out due to the rough effects of the concentrate slurry on the interiors of the cars. At this point, rail service to Falconbridge’s Levack operations came to an end, as Falconbridge elected to ship their product by truck rather than agree to CPR freight rates that would have covered replacement costs for the rail cars.

CP 381930 represents the special hoppers that were constructed for the slurry concentrate service from Strathcona Mill to Falconbridge. Bill Grandin Collection photo.

While no longer rail served, Strathcona Mill remains an important and active processing site for nickel ores from Glencore’s (Falconbridge’s current successor) mines in the area to this day.

Nickel-Iron Refinery

In 1970 Falconbridge opened a large new facility on their property on the south-east side of their main smelter to recover the trace amounts of iron from the processed nickel ores in order to directly market it to the steel industry. Unfortunately this operation was short-lived and closed in 1972.

Aerial photos from 1975 show a rather significant set of railway yard tracks and loading (and/or unloading) structures at this (then shuttered) facility, and CN (which also accessed the Falconbridge smelter via the north side) also built a spur crossing the CPR spur to directly access the iron plant. However given the short lived nature of this operation we have very little other information on its operation from a railway perspective; what went in and out by which railway and what kind of cars used.

Falconbridge Smelter Upgrades

Another major project at Falconbridge was the construction during the 1970s of an upgraded smelter using new modern technology. This modernization project opened in 1978. The project included new fluidized bed roasters which removed iron sulphide from the ore, and electric furnaces to smelt the roasted ore. The upgrade also included an acid plant which captured sulphur compounds from the off-gas of the roasters and produced large quantities of sulphuric acid. Some of the tracks leading to the shuttered iron plant (which was itself demolished) were reused to built large tank car loading racks for the sulphuric acid.

Railway Operations

Operations at Levack should have been fairly simple. While the exact operations of the FNM railway aren’t really documented, it seems Hardy Mine is their base of operations with a small engine shop and repair track. Operating from this base of operations, FNM switchers would gather up outbound loaded cars from the Hardy, Fecunis, and Strathcona Mills and deliver them to the CPR interchange tracks, pick up empties left by CP and spot them at the mills for loading. As noted in the individual descriptions of the mills above, Hardy and Fecunis mills loaded dry or semi-dry concentrate into open cars and Strathcona loaded a liquid slurry into special cylindrical hoppers. On the CP side, a local operating out of Sudbury yard would run up to Levack siding to deliver the empties and lift the loads left by FNM, which would then operate to the smelter where the loads would be dropped off in interchange tracks for the Falconbridge plant switchers.

After Hardy and Fecunis Mills closed (in 1977 and 1979 respectively), the trains from Levack to Falconbridge became “unit” trains of cylindrical slurry cars from Strathcona Mill. By the 1990s rail transport of concentrate from Strathcona was replaced by trucks ending FNM’s rail operations in Levack.

CP-FNM interchange tracks at Falconbridge smelter site. Note that a CP track is actively performing an interchange here (locos and caboose visible at left.) This shot gives a good overview of the traffic between Onaping and Falconbridge, showing a mix of open cars of dry concentrate, and the distinctive little short slurry cars from Strathcona. At bottom right the FNM switcher appears to also be lifting or spotting covered hoppers probably for nickel matte. (Click on image to open larger size)

Outbound traffic from the smelter was in the form of powdered nickel matte. Due to patent restrictions on refining processes in North America, the matte was shipped to the Falconbridge owned refinery in Kristiansands, Norway for refining. Originally the matte was shipped out of the smelter in barrels, but changed to bulk shipments in covered hopper cars in 1968. As both CN and CP had rail access to the Falconbridge smelter, it’s a little unclear how much product went out via each railway during the 1970s. By the 1990s, CN had abandoned their spur line to Falconbridge and contracted a switching arrangement with CP, wherein CN would supply cars via the interchange at CN Junction between Sudbury and Copper Cliff and CP would exclusively switch the plant.

CP local heading up the spur track to Falconbridge in the late 1990s. The train consists mainly of CN hoppers for nickel matte loading (as CN had abandoned their access to Falconbridge by this time and engaged in a switching agreement with CP) and tank cars for sulphuric acid. By this point rail moves of ore concentrate to the smelter had ended. WRMRC collection.

After the new plant upgrades in 1978, sulphuric acid also became a major outbound commodity; with again CN and CP both having direct access to the acid loading tracks until CN’s abandonment of their line to Falconbridge, making it hard to know how much traffic was split between the two railways.

After the 1978 electric furnace upgrade, coke was used as an input. This was sourced from the US and we have noted the occasional presence of various hoppers from the Eastern Seaboard in Sudbury yard in some late seventies photos. An additional input to the mill was powdered dolomite or limestone, which mostly arrived in Penn Central/Conrail covered hoppers.

After the late 1970s upgrade, separate locals handled the ore concentrate from the Levack region and the acid/coke/dolomite/matte traffic to the smelter.

Equipment

Diesel locomotives operated by Falconbridge consisted of a small collection of ALCO/MLW S-series switchers and GE centre-cab models. The larger ALCO and GE 80-ton units seem to have seen service at either Falconbridge or Levack, while the smaller 45 ton models were probably exclusively used within the Falconbridge smelter complex.

Falconbridge S-4 #108, built new for Falconbridge in 1955, showing its 1970s era paint scheme. At CP’s Sudbury shops for maintenance or transfer between FNM operations.

FNM Railway Diesel Locomotive Roster
No.	Builder	Date	Model	Notes
101	ALCO	5/49	S-2	ex-NW 3321, ex-Wabash 321; to FNM 3/71
103	ALCO	12/46	S-1	ex-EL 309, ex-ERIE 309; to FNM ?/66
104	GE	8/26	45 ton	New
105	GE	1/48	45 ton	New; fire damaged 3/71, sold
106	GE	12/51	80 ton	New
107	GE	4/53	80 ton	New
108	MLW	7/55	S-4	New
109	MLW	1/50	S-4	ex-Canadian Commercial #1, to FNM /68

In terms of freight equipment, Falconbridge would have operated the usual assortment of hot-metal and slag cars for intra-plant movements within the smelter complex, and other freight equipment for the shipment of ores and concentrates from the Levack operation and shipment of refined products out from the smelter were provided by CN and CP.

INCO Ore Operations on the Sudbury Division

Posted on August 6, 2024 by Chris van der Heide

It’s hard to have any discussion about the Sudbury region’s industrial base without an extensive discourse on the mining industry. Sudbury is well known for being one of the world’s major sources for the production and refining of nickel, and the largest mining and smelting company in the area was the International Nickel Company, or INCO (today owned by Brazil’s Vale). Other companies in the area such as Canadian Copper Company, British-American Nickel Co. (BANC), and Mond Nickel were absorbed by INCO in the early 20th century helping to make INCO the biggest player in the Sudbury region.

INCO operated a large smelting and refining complex west of Sudbury at Copper Cliff, expanded from and replaced the original Canadian Copper Co. smelter in this area. Another older smelter at Coniston, built by Mond Nickel in 1913 was at the end of its useful life in the 1960s and finally closed in 1972. From the late 1970s to 2010s ore from all of INCOs mines was processed at the Clarabelle Mill, which opened in 1971 to consolidate all ore processing at a single mill.

INCO operated several large mining operations in the area, most of which were served by rail, and this posting will survey the mine and ore train operations of the 1970s which are (or will be) represented on the WRMRC’s layout.

Map of INCO mines and interchanges on WRMRC’s modeled territory. Mines are highlighted in blue, and CP-INCO interchange locations in green. Crushed quartz was also shipped from Lawson Quarry (highlighted in yellow) to Clarabelle in modified ore cars.

The key map above represents the Sudbury Division as modeled by the WRMRC. CP-served mines are highlighted in blue, and the interchanges connecting to INCO’s railway operations at Copper Cliff are marked in green.

In the 1970s, CP ran three unit ore train assignments for INCO. These were known as “INCO-1” (Creighton Mine), “INCO-2” (Crean Hill Mine), and “INCO-3” (Levack Mine). This posting will act as an overview of these operations and the mines they served.

Note: For a survey of the cars that CP used in ore service see the previous blog post The Sudbury Ore Car Fleet

INCO-1 (Creighton Mine to Clarabelle)

Creighton Mine, 1970. John Brown photo, WRMRC collection.

Creighton Mine is still active, and one of the oldest currently operating mines in the country, and while served by a CPKC line, is located so deep in Vale INCO private property and away from public roads that these trains are not easily seen.

Fans of astronomy and astrophysics will also note Creighton Mine as being the location of SNOLAB, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory/Detector built deep underground in a cavern connected to and accessed via the Creighton Mine shaft system.

Train symbol INCO-1 would have been based out of Sudbury yard, running as a caboose hop on the Nickel Subdivision to Clarabelle where empty ore cars would be lifted from the INCO interchange yard, then on to the end of the line at Creighton to switch out loads and empties at the mine shafts. Then the train would head back for Sudbury, shoving the loads into the INCO interchange at Clarabelle on the way back.

While the Creighton Mine is still active today, as mentioned, there have been many changes over the years and in the 1970s the old No. 3 and 5 shafts would have still been active, while today the modern No. 9 shaft is the main access and the older shafts are abandoned and capped with the associated structures demolished, so the track arrangements around Creighton are quite different today.

INCO-2 (Crean Hill Mine to Clarabelle)

Crean Hill Mine in the late 1990s. WRMRC collection.

The second INCO ore job serviced the Crean Hill Mine west of Sudbury on the CP’s Sault branch. This mine was accessed via the “Victoria Mine Spur” which connected to the Webbwood Subdivision at Victoria Mine. Why the different names? Well in the early 20th century CP had a previous station at or near the same location where the spur connected to the main line called Victoria Mine, which served a Mond Nickel mine of the same name. So the railway location and spur inherited the historical name.

The Victoria Mine Spur/Crean Hill Mine is the first of the INCO nickel mines and ore trains to be built and placed into operation on the WRMRC layout, with 3D printing technology enabling us to finally build and place into service a train of accurately modeled ore cars.

Ore train at Crean Hill Mine on the WRMRC layout.

A second mine, INCO’s Totten Mine at Worthington, was also located on the Webbwood subdivision, however this mine was closed in 1972. Due to its short period of operation relative to our modeled era, space constraints, and the fact that we already had one other mine on this line, this location was excluded from our model layout. (Interestingly, this mine was redeveloped in the mid 2000s, however ores are today shipped to Clarabelle Mill by truck, not rail.)

Abandoned loading conveyor at Totten Mine (Worthington) in the late 1990s. WRMRC collection.

Train symbol INCO-2 would have again been based out of Sudbury yard, running up to the Victoria Mine Spur on the Webbwood Subdivision to swap empties for loads at Crean Hill Mine, then back to Sudbury to runaround and head onto the Nickel Subdivision to Clarabelle to deliver the loads to INCO and pull empties for the next run.

Crean Hill Mine was closed in the mid 2000s, ending this service, although currently there is a mining company exploring redevelopment of the Crean Hill Mine property..

INCO-3 (Levack Mine to Sprecher)

1950s view of Levack mine.

This job would operate out of Sudbury yard and lift empty ore cars from the CP-INCO interchange tracks at Sprecher, on the Cartier subdivision main track west of Sudbury. Having lifted the empties, the ore train would then operate over the Cartier subdivision west to Levack siding, where the empties would be exchanged for loads on a series of interchange tracks with INCO’s spur line to Levack. Like most of INCO’s operations, this line was operated with electric engines under trolley wire catenary, which would bring the loads down from the mine to the interchange at the CP siding, and then spot the delivered empties up at the mine.

INCO 100T electric #126 at Levack in 1970. John Brown photo, WRMRC collection.

Today CPKC still runs ore trains to Levack, although the old fleet of CP drop bottom ore gondolas have been retired since the late 2000s, and the ore is coming not from the same Levack Mine, but nearby Coleman Mine. Vale INCO now owns their own fleet of 220 modern ore gondolas built by Freightcar America in 2008, replacing both CP cars and INCO’s own previous fleet of aging cars. INCO’s old electric operations have long been abandoned, and CP locomotives handle the ore train all the way to the loadout tracks and do the switching themselves. While a few other mines are also still served direct by Vale INCO, this is the only ore train operating out on a CPKC main line.

CN Garson Ore

CN 198750. Bill Grandin collection.

Another source of ore for INCO was Garson Mine, located east of Sudbury between Sudbury and Falconbridge. This mine was served by a CN spur which accessed Garson Mine, a sand pit, and the Falconbridge smelter which will be discussed elsewhere. CN trains operating out of Algo yard in Sudbury would assemble a train of empty ore and sand cars, run out to the spur and switch the mine and sand pit, then run back across Sudbury to the CPR connection at CN Junction and joint trackage on the CPR Nickel Subdivision to interchange with INCO at Clarabelle to deliver the ore and sand to INCO’s operations. As CP did and does have exclusive physical access to INCO’s operations, all interchange traffic to INCO operated through Clarabelle, with CN sharing CPR tracks from CN Junction to Clarabelle and both railways jointly operating over this section.

Garson Mine appears to be still active today, but is no longer rail-served.

Other INCO Mines

INCO Copper Cliff South Mine in the late 1990s. The track at right next to the highway (Highway 55) with the stored cars is the CPR Copper Cliff Spur which accessed the INCO Iron Ore Recovery Plant, now closed. WRMRC collection

A few other INCO mines were rail served directly by INCO’s own private rail system connected to the Copper Cliff mill and smelter operations, and therefore would not impact CPR operations, although parts of these operations could be seen from CPR rails. These mines included Frood and Stobie, which were and are accessed via an INCO private line heading north from Clarabelle which crosses the CPR Nickel sub at grade at Clarabelle, and bridges over the Cartier sub near Sprecher. Copper Cliff South Mine is located alongside the CPR Copper Cliff spur near where it connects to the Webbwood Subdivision, and can actually be included on the layout as static non-operating tracks here. Frood and Copper Cliff South are still active, and served exclusively by Vale INCO’s private railway. There is also a Copper Cliff North mine, but being located immediately next to Clarabelle Mill it was not rail served.

A loaded INCO train of ore returns to Clarabelle Mill from Frood/Stobie Mine. CP cars on the tracks in the background are loads from Levack on the Sprecher interchange track.

Lawson Quarry

An honourable mention, the quarry at Lawson Quarry south of Espanola on the CPR Little Current subdivision quarried crushed quartzite rock which was shipped to INCO to use as a flux in their smelting process. While not an ore-bearing rock, the quartz was shipped in modified ore cars with side extensions (as the quartz was lighter than the nickel ores) from the quarry to the INCO interchange at Clarabelle. The INCO quarry operation began in 1942, and rail operation ended by the early 1980s, although a quarry is still active here today.

Abandoned crushing/screening building and loading tipple at Lawson Quarry, late 1990s. WRMRC collection

While we don’t have solid information on the frequency of this operation, there is some indication that this was shipped in occasional “stone train” extras. We don’t have solid information on how often these trains operated, or any evidence on whether individual cars of quartz were occasionally handled by the regular trains 73/74 on the Little Current branch, although the limited information does point towards dedicated extra trains. Any further information or clarifications (on any of the topics and articles we post) are always appreciated.

The Sudbury Ore Car Fleet

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Chris van der Heide

It was during the construction of the CPR during the 1880s that copper ore was discovered and sparked a flurry of mineral exploration and mining claims. Since then, Sudbury has been known as a major mining and smelting centre, producing not just copper but becoming a world leader in the production of nickel. As the new railway opened up accessibility to the mineral resources in the area, many mining and smelting companies were incorporated such as The Canadian Copper Company, Mond Nickel, British America Nickle Co. (BANC), Dominion Nickel, International Nickel Co. (INCO), and Falconbridge Nickel.(The first four would later be absorbed by INCO to become the major player on the Sudbury scene.)

Much of this ore would be moved between the mines and the smelters by rail, so transport of both ores and finished products is a major part of the rail scene in the Sudbury area. The mining companies had their own private railways connecting some of the mines, and other mines were served by the “common carrier” railways: Canadian Pacific, Algoma Eastern (later part of CP), and Canadian Northern (later Canadian National).

Sometime around 1910, the Hart-Otis Car Company of Montreal patented a drop-bottom gondola design, whereby doors in the floor of the car could be operated by geared handles on the ends of the car to discharge its load to the sides of the track, which would quickly become popular across Canadian railways with short steel versions of these cars being adopted as the standard car for shipping raw ore for INCO in the Sudbury region.

The Pre-1920 CC&F Cars

CP 370094 was built in 1916 as part of the AE 2801-2925 series and renumbered to CP around 1932. John Brown photo (WRMRC collection), 1970.

The early Hart-Otis design cars used by INCO were a 22’5″ interior length car with 4 drop-bottom doors on each side. Interior bracing give the cars a nice smooth-sided appearance. Canadian Pacific, Canadian Northern (later Canadian National), Algoma Eastern, and INCO themselves all rostered cars to this basic design and size. (When CP went to a larger car size as we will see below, CN and INCO continued to also use cars of this smaller size at some of their operations.)

The CP cars were built (probably by Canadian Car & Foundry in Montreal) in three batches totaling 200 cars between 1914 and 1919. Another 125 were built for the Algoma Eastern, which would later be transferred to CP in the early 1930s after CP leased the AER and absorbed its operations. An unknown number of identical cars were also owned by INCO.

By the 1970s only a tiny handful of these older cars would still survive.

Series	#Cars	IL	Builder	Date	Note
CP 370000-370124	125	22’5″	CC&F	1916	ex-AE 2801-2925 /32
CP 371200-371239	40	22’5″	CC&F?	1914
CP 371240-371259	20	22’5″	CC&F?	1916
CP 371260-371399	140	22’5″	CC&F?	1919

The 1926-1930 CC&F Cars

CP 376650, built in 1929 by CC&F, at Sudbury yard. Jim Parker photo, sometime in the 1970s.

Between 1926 and 1930 Canadian Car & Foundry (CC&F) built 350 cars (in three batches) for Canadian Pacific to a larger size of 25’11” interior length. The extra 3’6″ of interior length provided an increase of approximately 200 cubic feet over the previous cars and would become the standard ore car size for all new deliveries going forward.

The buttressed ends and riveted Z-shaped side bracing give these cars a rather distinctive appearance among the CP ore car fleet.

In the early 1940s, a number of the cars from this group were rebuilt with side extensions to raise the internal height and add another approximately 300 cubic feet of capacity for service hauling crushed quartz out of INCO’s Lawson Quarry, which began production in January 1942. Other cars from this group were rebuilt in the mid 1970s to convert them from drop bottom to solid bottom cars, which will be mentioned again later further down in this article. A few remained in more or less original condition until retired in the early 1980s.

CP 376809, built in 1930 and rebuilt with side extensions in the 1940s for quartzite service. Jim Parker photo, April 1973.

Series	#Cars	IL	Builder	Date
CP 376500-376599	100	25’11”	CC&F	12/1925-1/1926
CP 376600-376699	100	25’11”	CC&F	9-10/1929
CP 376700-376849	150	25’11”	CC&F	6-7/1930

The 1942 NSC Cars

CP 376469, built 1/1943 by National Steel Car. Jim Parker photo, sometime in the 1970s.

The next batch of new cars acquired by CP were built by National Steel Car (NSC) of Hamilton, Ontario in late 1942, replacing cars that had been transferred to quartzite service (see above). Similar in overall size specifications to the previous 25’11” cars built by CC&F, interior bracing gave these cars a smooth sided appearance similar to the early pre-1920 22’5″ CC&F cars, but unique among the larger 25’11” cars.

While delivered many years before the Canadian Pacific “script” logo and paint scheme was debuted, the smooth sides lent themselves nicely to repainting with this lettering, and by the 1970s it seems most photos of these cars show them repainted in the 1960s script.

Series	#Cars	IL	Builder	Date	Note
CP 376350-376499	150	25’11”	11/1942-1/1943	NSC

The 1956-1967 CCF/ECC Cars

CP 376231, built 1967 by Hawker-Siddeley Transportation. Jurgen Kleylein photo, late 1990s.

In the late 1950s, CP expanded their ore car fleet again, with orders in 1956 and 1957 to CC&F and Eastern Car Co. (ECC) of Trenton, NS for 2 virtually identical groups of 100 cars from each builder. Another 60 identical cars from Hawker-Siddeley Transportation (HST), ECC’s successor company, were added on in 1967. These groups of cars were numbered above and below the existing number series for the 1926-1942 cars.

These cars feature riveted body construction with heavier external bracing compared to older cars. The 1967 order would have been the first (and only) ore gondolas to be delivered in script lettering from the factory. The 1956-57 built cars would have been almost identical construction, but painted in the block lettering scheme.

Series	#Cars	IL	Builder	Date
CP 376190-376249	60	25’11”	HST	8/1967
CP 376250-376349	100	25’11”	ECC	10/1957
CP 376900-376999	100	25’11”	CC&F	11/1956

The 1970 HST Cars

CP 375692 built in 1970 by Hawker-Siddeley. Jacques Richard photo.

CP’s last order of ore gondolas was this 200 car group built by Hawker-Siddeley in November 1970. While extremely similar to the previous cars built by ECC/HST, these are distinguished by being the only all-welded ore cars (the previous cars being of all riveted construction), and the only group of cars to be painted in the CP Rail “Action Red” paint scheme with the iconic “MultiMark”.

Sylvan Scale Models made a resin kit for this car.

Series	#Cars	IL	Builder	Date	Note
CP 375500-375699	200	25’11”	HST	/1970

The “Tight-Bottoms”

CP 375818 1926-1930 built CC&F ore car rebuilt with solid floor, retired and awaiting scrapping at Winnnipeg, August 1985. Fred Shannon photo.

In the mid-1970s, INCO installed a rotary car dumper at their smelter facility in Copper Cliff, converting to rotary rather than bottom dumping. Some 200 cars originally built between 1926-1942 were rebuilt between 1973 and 1979 to remove the bottom doors and replace them with a solid steel floor. These rebuilt cars were selected and renumbered rather at random into the 375800-375999 series and colloquially known as “tight bottom” ore cars.

Many of the newer cars built after 1956 would later simply have their bottom doors welded shut and door operating levers removed to convert them to “tight-bottom” cars and retain their original numbers, which can actually be seen in the photo of CP 376231 above, which lacks its door operating levers, the doors having been welded shut.

Series	#Cars	IL	Builder	Date	Note
CP 375700-375799	0	25’11”	n/a	n/a	planned but never filled; shows in some 1970s ORERs
CP 375800-375899	100	25’11”	var.	1926-1942	ex 376350-376499 & 376500-376849 /73-/77
CP 375900-375999	100	25’11”	var.	1926-1942	ex 376350-376499 & 376500-376849 /77-/79

The Falconbridge Slurry Cars

CP 381930, built 1969 by Davie Shipbuilding. Bill Grandin collection photo.

Last but not least, we leave INCO behind and head over to competitor Falconbridge Nickel for something completely different. In the late 1960s, Falconbridge decided to ship concentrated ore as a slurry (finely crushed and mixed with water) between their mine and mill near Levack to their smelter at Falconbridge to the east of Sudbury. To ship this ore slurry, CP acquired a group of very unique cylindrical hopper cars that were dedicated to this service between Levack and Falconbridge. These distinctive cars were built in two separate batches in 1967 (delivered in script paint) and 1969 (delivered in Multimark paint) by Davie Shipbuilding. Since rainwater mixing with the slurry wasn’t considered an issue, the openings at the top of the car did not have covers.

The ore slurry was abrasive to the interior of the cars, and with the cars wearing out in the late 1980s Falconbridge switched to shipping by truck and the slurry cars were retired. A few survived however, being used as scale test cars by CP.