Canadian Railroads > MLW Monday's-Extra South at Hart BC

Flying white flags, PGE 612 leads up BCR 583 & 566 at Hart British Columbia on June 5, 1974. Richard Yaremko

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Very interesting image and time for a backwoods forest products local. I have the idea that this train would later have the M420W's with a trailing RS3. Would this train have an assignment name? 1974 is pretty choice in the way-back machine.

I tried to Google 'Hart' and found a lot of history about the gentleman's political career but no location on the map. Can somebody offer if Hart is near somewhere or between two somewhere's? I really need to have my BC Rail book with me on Mondays.
tia.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/17 17:41 by TCnR.

TCnR Wrote:
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> Very interesting image and time for a backwoods
> forest products name. I have the idea that this
> train would later have the M420W's with a trailing
> RS3. Would this train have an assignment name?
> 1974 is pretty choice in the way-back machine.
>
> I tried to Google 'Hart' and found a lot of
> history about the gentleman's political career but
> no location on the map. Can somebody offer if Hart
> is near somewhere or between two somewhere's? I
> really need to have my BC Rail book with me on
> Mondays.
> tia.

Hart siding was shown at mile 510.3 on the Chetwynd sub, it was 9,600 feet long, south switch at mile 509.8, north switch at mile 511.3. The siding actually looped away from the main track and there was a sawmill "Pas Lumber" mill with connections to the siding. Can't recall exactly when Hart siding disappeared and was replaced by Mcewan siding shown at mile 508.5 and 8050 feet long. Most likely the train in the image is the "Mackenzie Switcher" south bound to Prince George. Doug

I think the mill could have got a few more woodchips into those hoppers :)

-Trevor

Holy chips! I never saw a woodchip gon loaded that high. Maybe because by the time they made it to the Squamish sub, most had blown off? That or these were short haul and used in the pulp mills around Prince George.

Great photo, Richard.

I think Hart siding was also used for scrapping equipment too, probably after the lumber mill was gone. I have a photo by Andy Wegmuller taken there that shows many of the 50'6" combo door boxcars pushed over on their sides without trucks awaiting the torch. I suppose these cars didn't meet the requirements of the 80xxx and 100xxx series rebuild program, or were deemed redundant by newer equipment.

Mike N.

Spent some time re-bonding with my copy of Garden's 'British Columbia Railway', realizing that the MacKenzie Switcher came out of Prince George and traveled to Mackenzie which is a stub or branch off of the full up mainline. Haven't found my BCR timetables to work out divisional names. The 'Financial Tables' Map near the end of the book helped sort out where the traffic originates, to some extent.

What I had missed was the four axle only area north of Chetwynd, at the time of publishing anyways. In that area all the mainline trains as well as the turns and 'switcher' jobs were restricted to four axle power due to the lighter rail and ballasting. In other words in that area, at that time, photos of four axle power did not immediately denote a local job.

Also interesting is digging out the many Rail photographers that spent quite a bit of time out in the bush waiting for a train photo.

TCnR in above reply is referring to the branch that went to Mackenzie. It was known as the "Mackenzie Industrial Lead" and branched off the Chetwynd subdivision at Kennedy siding. The track was 23 miles long. The Mackenzie Switcher crews were based in Prince George and usually departed late afternoon, did work on line and eventually into Mackenzie and laid over for the night and then departed early morning for the trip back to Prince George. Quite often the night yard crew in Mackenzie would transfer loads out to Kennedy for either the Mackenzie switcher or freight train from Chetwynd to pickup. Eventually the track to Mackenzie was noted in the time table as Mackenzie Subdivision, I can't recall when it became named as such. There were several sawmills and couple of pulp mills in Mackenzie and generated a lot of rail traffic. Doug

Thanks for filling in the details. That's what makes a regional like the BCR so interesting to hobbyists. It also fills in where all the employment was and where these monster lumber trains came from.