Canadian Railroads > Fall Colors Friday near Sudbury Ontario - October 2009

Fall colors east of Sudbury was a pleasant surprise given Sudbury had been known for large mines and smelters. Looking for some CN locations the trusty map found an area with rail, road and river just north of Capreol, at first glance it appeared to be a siding and spur with a ballast re-load. A few minutes provided a CN intermodal train with unique Canadian container graphics, a few photos and time to get back into town.

Quite some time later searching the web determines this location was called Milnet, actually at the far end of the siding was an abandoned townsite where logs had been floated down the Vermillion river to a lumber mill. More searching shows a branch to an open pit ore mine and small town in the hills. There are videos on YouTube indicating logging camps in the area during WWII and other stories.

An oops for further exploration but I did get some fall color photographs.

https://www.thesudburystar.com/2015/10/24/sudbury-accent-the-ghosts-of-milnet

#1 CN 2639 on an Eastbound doublestack.

#2 Everyday Canadian containers, not seen in the USA.

#3 CN ballast cars surpriingly complementing the forest colors.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/24 17:11 by TCnR.

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Some photos from the area:

#3 apparently the CAT 9886 front end loader is used to load the ballast cars;

#4 the ancient Bailey Bridge Route 84 to cross the Vermilion River, also shown in the google Streetview in 2014;

#5 Vermilion River looking north.

Thanks for looking.

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/24 10:24 by TCnR.

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Nice explorations!  I like your last image of the fall colour.  How long are you in that region for?

The two trips were in July and October 2009 based on Business in the area, total of four days for photos.

Researching the area I figured out the change in the traffic pattern and the directional running of CN and CP, also noted the north south portion of the routes would be tough to learn and chase because of the contrasting grid of the RR's and the roadways. Sudbury was a good choice as the central location and then chasing out on the individual routes worked out pretty well.

There seemed to be potential just north of Parry Sound but wasn't finding locations, Trains seemed to show up without advance warning. Didn't have enough location info to try and pace a train. I had heard about the traffic on the Western Divisions being different than the Eastern Divisions, the Regionals were also mostly Monday to Friday operations. Regardless it's an interesting area.

What I didn't know was the overall Smelter operations had been sent offshore and a 'Labor action'  had started just before I arrived, I found out when I went to the Sudbury stack for some photos and talked with some locals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%932010_Vale_Inco_strike



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/24 10:53 by TCnR.