A Pop-Up Surprise

This pop-up post needed a little digging before I could identify the location. All I had was two images that I scanned off a 4-image 35mm film strip of mine… CN 5691 above, and CP 5570 below.

It’s pretty clear that they were both taken at the same place, and if you squint hard enough at the first image, you’ll see that CP 5570 was trailing CN 5691.

When is a bit problematic. It’s autumn for sure, and I was shooting film, so it was 1999, 2000 or 2001. I’ll likely never get closer than that.

But where was this taken?

At first I thought it was Berry Mills, just outside Moncton, New Brunswick on the CN Springhill subdivision. I remember once screeching to a stop and running toward the track, trying to take a photograph as a CN train hurtled past, and I thought this was that time. Clearly I was out of position, because I would never have taken an “artsy” photo like that at that time.

However, the more I looked at the photos, and compared them to other photos I’ve taken at Berry Mills, I became convinced that was not the right location. The telegraph poles, for example. They have been gone from the stretch of track through Berry Mills for a long time.

I thought of other locations that I have photographed at, and eventually I came up with the right answer… CN Cantor siding, aka Hardwood Ridge, New Brunswick to the non-railfans.

(This photo of the Cantor siding sign was taken on December 29, 2002. That date I know!)

Cantor has a siding, and an impressive steel bridge just west of the siding, and at one time there was a wye on the south side that led to Minto and the coal mines there. I’m not sure when that was removed but it isn’t in the April 1953 CN timetable. The line is still visible on satellite images.

I remember seeing a map in the NB Power Grand Lake power plant of some of the rail lines serving the Minto coal mines. There were quite a few. I should have asked for that map when the plant was torn down…

Anyway, I think this photo is the tail end of the train that was led by the CN and CP locomotives.

Judging by where I was, I think I started exploring the wye when I heard a train, ran back toward the tracks, and grabbed a few shots of the head end.

I certainly remember Hardwood Ridge – I went there many times in the hope of seeing a train on the CN main line – but I don’t remember this particular time. I think I’ve reverse engineered this enough.