Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Cars on CN No 376, January 22, 2016

CN No 376 travels between Toronto and Riviere des Prairies, QC on a daily basis. This train is predominantly covered hoppers and tank cars, heading to the chemical hinterland of Montreal with its precariously precious petroleum-based products. Though I christened 2015 The Year of Photographing the Mundane, I'm considering using similar nomenclature for 2016. How does The Year of Photographing the Blisteringly Mundane sound? If this is to be, I've got the perfect subject to lead it off. CN No 376.
It's so mundane that I pulled abeam along Bath Road having missed the power (CN 2889-2873 according to the RTC - thanks, Malcolm!) and indeed the entire first half of the train. Training (no pun intended) my camera on the consist, I was able to photograph the least mundane of the grossly mundane consist. Usually, if I was taking notes - I wasn't even doing that due to the extremely high degree of mundaneness that this train presented - I would simply note these cars as "MOSTLY HO/TA" not even worthy of recording specific reporting marks. But look! A cut of PROCOR propane tank cars reveal three consecutive cars (top three photos): PROX 93642-93641-93640. What are the chances these fairly new cars would stick together? Apparently chances are pretty good!
Next up - two UN1294 Toluene tank cars. And lo and behold (no pun intended - LO is the AAR car type for covered hoppers, though I record it as the more intuitive HO) two more consecutively-numbered cars - TILX 280659-280660. Toluene is highly flammable stuff that we use as a clearing agent when processing human tissue samples!
NATX 280072 is also a toluene-totaller:
 as is the tagged GATX 202107:
Another precinct heard from - the conical, cornucopial constituency of covered hoppers. GACX 011429:
 And two views of PLCX 44184. Wondering if these are plastic pellet cars...
You can decide which angle you like better - the pole-positioned broadside (above - wouldn't touch that one with a ten-foot pole) or the going-away shot:
 Some covered hoppers have their reporting marks outlined, such as UTCX 52321:
And last but not least mundane is GATX 59656 in the regular block of what I term 'red-square' tank cars:

Running extra...

Yet another precinct heard from - the head-end. Facebook friend Curtis Umbelina is the Prince of Pan, the Potentate of Pan-Frying, the Baron of Blur, the Sultan of Speed. And he caught CP 8645 with a friendly conductor screaming along CP's Galt Sub on Goundhog Day. Thanks, Curtis!
Kevin Klettke's Washington Northern is a proto-freelanced Pacific Northwest spare-room layout that packs a ton of operation and a tonne of prototype reality into a modest space. The graphics of the industries on the line are worth seeing! Makes me want to model seawater on my Vancouver Wharves layout!

Best of Brockville - watch for an upcoming post on the splitting of VIA trains in The City of the Thousand Islands! Thanks to Malcolm for this link - didn't see this train but did see a westbound VIA train No 63 the same day, a couple of hours later at Kingston. Ironically, I observed VIA 6542 in 1978 and 1980, but not at all in 1979!

8 comments:

Canadian Train Geek said...

Love that photo by Curtis!!

BArailsystem said...

I really enjoy your mundane car posts Eric. In warmer weather, one of my favorite pastimes is going to the local yard in the morning and photographing endless mundane cars in good light. Fun facts about the UTCX plastic pellet hopper. They are warm water washed or blown clean with high pressure air every time after returning empty so as not to contaminate the next load. Graffiti artists beware, the owner of these plastic pellet hoppers has a 0 tolerance policy with graffiti and it is painted over immediately upon return. You'll see lots of them with square and rectangular patches of battleship grey.
Thanks for the read!

Ben

Eric said...

Loved it on Trackside Treasure, liked it on Facebook, Steve!
Eric

Eric said...

Thanks for your comments, Ben. You certainly are at the epicentre of mundaneness with the workaday HO and TA out your way! It's fun to find some that stand out - the slightly less mundane ones!
Eric

GP9Rm4108 said...

All these new tanks all have a full two sided grab iron for climbing on.

Eric said...

Good eye, Chris.
Thanks for your comment,
Eric

Michael said...

Nice post. I like the concept for these posts. The mundane won't seem mundane one day, so why not fire off a bunch of shots? Reminds me the trains plying the rails back in my hometown. Lots of tank car and hoppers. I managed to snag CN 589 this week with a single tank car in tow. What passes for excitement up here in Ottawa!

Eric said...

Good job, Michael! Catching a one-car train makes it seem that you are embracing the mundane! Yes, the HO-TA are prevalent and mundane, though I must say I prefer a big 1976-era train of brightly-painted US RR boxcars and more. But guess what? At that time, that was mundane, too!
Main thing is - we are trackside!
Thanks for your comment,
Eric