F-Unit Friday: Wabash #667 at Canfield Jct. in April 1964

Wabash 667 leads a westbound freight on the CN Cayuga sub as it crosses the CN Dunnville sub at Canfield Jct in April 1964. The CASO mainline is behind the photographer. Uncredited slide, author's collection.

I was going to post this as a Throwback Thursday but it seems the day got away from me yesterday, so here is a slightly delayed “golden oldie” photo discussion.

It’s April 1964, and we’re at Canfield Jct (Ontario), a railroad location roughly fifteen miles east of Hagersville. In this view, we see Wabash F7A #667 leading a freight westbound on the CN’s Cayuga Subdivision over the diamond that intersects the CN’s Dunnville subdivision.

It’s April 1964, and the four F7A’s leading this train have just passed their thirteenth birthday, having graduated GMD London between December 1950 and March 1951. The engines were delivered as part of an order for 20 F7A’s, along with a single GP7 and three SW8’s. Tax and duty laws made it economically prohibitive at the time (recall, long before the days of Free Trade) to import US-built locomotives for Canadian use. The protective tariffs in fact contributed a significant portion of GMD’s early business as US roads with Canadian operations dieselized with Canadian-built locomotives (NYC, C&O, Wabash for example). Hence, these units seldom spent much time outside the country, at most wandering to Detroit or Buffalo to exchange cars with US roads. The lead unit, WAB 667 was now on her second number, having been delivered as WAB 1158A, and would go on to become N&W 3667. Distinctive features on the Canadian-built F’s included passenger-style pilots, square-top winterization hatches, double headlights (not often seen on Canadian F’s), and classy chrome-outlined number boards. About six months after this image was captured, in October 1964, the N&W leased the Wabash from the majority owner, the Pennsylvania Railroad, eventually gaining full control by 1970. After a repaint into N&W blue, the F’s continued to serve in their intended capacity for a number of years before being supplanted by second-generation power and ultimately met the scrapper’s torch.

If you’re looking for Canfield Junction on a map, you probably won’t ever find it, but it was synonymous with area railfans as a popular railfanning destination since it offered a diversity of railroading long since absent from operations in southern Ontario. Not only did two of CN’s own line cross here, but the CASO’s (Michigan Central/New York Central) double track mainline from Fort Erie to Windsor paralleled the CN Cayuga sub and also crossed the Dunville sub here. One could observe trains from four railroads: the CN, Wabah, NYC, and C&O (which had trackage rights on the CASO east of St. Thomas). Not only did this mean paint schemes not native to Canada, but also locomotive models such as the C&O’s U25B’s or NYC C430’s. Sadly though, time was not kind to Canfield Jct, with all three lines ultimately being abandoned. The Dunnville and Cayuga subdivisions, even though they crossed here, were effectively parallel to not only each other, but in principle the CN’s much busier Grimsby sub which runs east out of Hamilton to Niagara Falls (Clifton). Over time, as locally-originated carload traffic dried up, the lines no longer hosted through freights and became the domain of daily or as-needed locals before finally meeting abandonment in the 1980’s as all traffic was shifted to the Grimsby and Stamford subdivisions to move between Fort Erie and Hamilton. Similarly, through traffic dried up on the CASO, and never having much on-line traffic, was reduced to only a handful of trains per day by the late 1970’s. Deferred maintenance and reduced traffic in the Penn Central era eventually meant that the double track line once fit for 80 mph passenger trains (or higher) was reduced to operation over only the north track, and at greatly reduced speeds. As bridge line traffic dried up, or was shifted to an all-US routing, C&O (later CSX) became the dominant user of the line, but even that did not last as the line was sold to CN & CP in the early 1990’s. Not really intended for through use however, the line’s primary value was in the cross-border connections at each end of the line. That meant that most of what was left in between was already duplicate trackage, and of little value. Abandonment came, and like the CN’s own lines through Canfield, track removal left little but scarred earth to remember the better days at Canfield.

But what was the Wabash doing on CN in the first place? The Midwestern US road desired to reach Buffalo, NY, a jump-off point for traffic heading for New England and the northeast US. Arriving somewhat late to the ‘bridge line through Canada’ game, a deal was struck with CN to exercise trackage rights from Windsor to Fort Erie by way of the Chatham, Paynes, and Cayuga subdivisions (among others), informally known as the “air line”. The deal proved mutually lucrative, as CN gained utilization – hence, revenue – on an otherwise not very busy line, and the N&W gained high-value automotive traffic from the Ford plant in St. Thomas (Talbotville). After the abandonment of the Air Line, Wabash’s successors N&W and eventually Norfolk Southern were granted trackage rights over the CN Talbot, Dundas, Grimsby, and Stamford subdivisions pursuant to the original trackage rights deal signed in 1897.The end of this operation came, however, on December 30, 2006, as the 109 years of Wabash trackage rights expired, and present owner NS elected not to renew them. But at least we have numerous images from railfan outings to imaging what it must have been like back in the day at Canfield.

‘Til next time,

Cheers,

Peter.