Canadian Railroads > a few for "on this day"

May 23, 2005, I was asked by a fellow railfan / modeller for some images of the BC Rail Williams Lake yard. Here are a few that I took as per his request.
images:
01 Looking south, taken from the Hwy 20 overpass, great vantage point except for the wires.

02 Left to right: north leg of the wye, "fuel spur" track, RIP track, shop track and then the main line. There used to be fuel storage tanks, a sand tower and fuel racks. All gone now.

03 Looking straight down track #1, with the "pass" and main line to the left, track 2 to 9 on the right. Wood chip cars are in track #3.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/15 04:24 by hoggerdoug.

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few more images:
04 yard crew shoving north to "the web" and other industry

05 In the distance is Pinnacle Pellet storage silos for wood pellet loading. We called this track "stock track" as there used to be a cattle stock yard and the beef was shipped in stock cars.

06 I am standing almost in front of the yard office. the switch is "north leg wye", lined for the shop track, units are on the main line.

 

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last images, thanks for looking.  Doug
07 looking south from the "lead switch" lined down the lead for tracks 2 to 9. "stock track" on the right.

08 Looking north from the "south leg wye" switch, shop and rip tracks on the right

09  3609 with an "identity crisis"

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Thanks for posting I like seeing how yards are layed out.
 

Bob Ritchie
Chase, BC

Whats with the two diamonds on the switch targets?

PHall Wrote:
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> Whats with the two diamonds on the switch targets?

Restricted Clearance Identifier (General Rule E). "overhead and side clearance may be restricted on a track at a main shop, diesel or car shop blah blah.....Employees must not ride on top or side of equipment etc etc whether or not the overhead and side clearance is restricted.

In other words, walk with the movement or be in a position to observe the leading end of the movement account possible restricted clearance, applies mostly on diesel and car shop tracks as well as other areas.  The switches in my images connect to the shop and RIP tracks hence the double diamond on the targets.   Doug

Doug, do you recall when BC Rail started installing self gaurded frogs (no gaurd rails) on the switches in Williams lake? I see there are still some with guard rails in the photos. I thought Squamish was done in the early to mid '90s, around the same time CWR was being installed.  Do you know if the MOW gangs worked on this from south to north, north to south or system wide all at once? Thanks in advance if you can answer.

Mike N.

Mike,  I really can't recall when the switches were changed out. Perhaps late 90's or early 2000. I do recall the upgrades in Williams Lake, it was chaos for the yard and road crews, lot of track work, ditching for drainage and light poles being planted. A lot of the work was "scheduled" maintenance / upgrades. Perhaps it is just coincidence that this was done shortly before the "sale" of BC Rail.  Doug