Ride The Rails With Benny Plant

The weather is supposed to be nice. Cool at night and just warm during the day. I hope I get to see what’s going on the Bradford Barrie Go line. My dad and I checked out a few things just north of Bradford last night. You could see where they had done some track work and crossing upgrades.

We will probably hit the Vivian crossing Saturday night and maybe even Sunday. It’s a great siding to watch at. There is plenty of room to park and setup the camera. Lots of room for safety even when it’s dark. With any luck I will get to upload a few videos to Youtube with my dad’s help.

Still hearing lots of horns in the early morning hours on the Newmarket sub/Go Line. One of these nights I’m going to camp out near the tracks somewhere and just wait. I’m very curious about what kind of trains are going up there.

Happy Canada Day!

I have a story to tell here about my Great Grandfather, Arthur Cunningham Plant (born March 22, 1891). He was was The Depot Master for CN in Brantford Ontario after the first world war until his death in 1948. To go further back, he fought in the first world war at Vimy Ridge in the 40th Field Battery also know as the “Sportsmen’s Battery” with his good friend Conn Smythe of Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey fame. They were all great althletes. This where fate has affected my life I think.

The Toronto Maple Leafs won The Stanley Cup on April 14 1948 in Detroit (in 4 straight). The team, owned by Conn Smythe, returned to Toronto by train on April 15. That train had to pass through Brantford enroute to Toronto as goes that part of the Burford, Dundas, Dunnville subdivision. Mr. Smythe decided that he wanted to stop in Brantford to say hello to his old buddy Art Plant thinking to share the glory of The Stanley Cup with him. As the story goes from my Aunt Isobel, the train did in fact stop in Brantford, Mr. Smythe did say hello to his old friend and war buddy Art Plant and then departed again for Toronto. Just after the train departed for Toronto, my Great Grandfather suffered a hear attack and died right there on the platform at the age of 57. The Brantford CN Station Depot Master was gone.

He died on April 15 1948. My birthday is April 24 1992. I think this a strange twist of fate. There are obviously a few years between us but I think it’s kind of cool. Something about one door closing and another one opening? The picture you see here is of me here is from a school project I did at my mom’s work but maybe it’s of my Great Grandfather too. Maybe that is where I get desire to ride the rails and like him I love to play hockey too.

Since my dad was taking us up to Kahshe Lake on Sunday afternoon (June 24), we decided to to hit the Vivian Crossing on Saturday night. There were two things of interest. First we wanted to hike along the tracks to check out a spring fed Oak Ridges Moraine pond we discovered on Google Maps not far from the spot where we sit. Secondly, we had watched a night train the weekend before and wanted to see if the same schedule would would happen again.

Well, two things did happen. First of all, the pond was a bust. Lot’s bull frogs and lily pads. Didn’t look good for swimming which is what we wanted to do in the first place, maybe even take Bumper for a swim. It almost looked like the pond had been drained somewhat. We saw a beaver and you could tell that there were fish in there but didn’t look too appealing. We walked back to the siding after that and just waited in the car watching the fireflies and swatting mosquitoes.

About 10:00 PM (my dad had fallen asleep by now) I heard a horn off in the north. We jumped out and looked at the signals…two reds…in both directions. What gives we thought! The excitement started when the southbound train (a freighter) was approaching on the siding where my dad was standing! Low and behold it slowly approached and stopped right in front of us! We waddled up to the front of the loco and then to check the northbound signal. It was Orange/Red. Something was coming north and this guy was waiting.

The best part was that we noticed the conductor got out to have a pee beside the track and then the Engineer came out to talk to us! While we were we were chatting, the northbound freighter came through on the main line. It was explained to us that the northbound freighter was too long (9,000 ft) for the siding and thus they had to come in on the siding and wait. His train was only 6,000 ft and fit well into the siding.

He was a great guy and spoke to us while the other train passed. We talked about the whole George Brown course thing. He told us that CN also would train new people right out of high school. It got me thinking!. The other part of the conversation related to the fact that he was 50 years old and would be retired in 4 years as well as many of his baby-boomer buddies and that they would be needing new young guys like me to fill the void. I can’t wait! Anyway, the big northbound freighter passed and then he climbed back up into the cab, powered up (that was soooo frikken cool) and off they went.

It was all so sureall, happened so unexpectedly and it was so incredibly cool. We were out there, it was dark and there we were chatting with this loco engineer while he waited for this other freighter to pass!

More to follow. Still hearing this early morning horns going to Bradford. I know there is something going on we are not being told about!

As luck would have it, my dad’s car broke down a couple of weeks ago as we investigated two “refer” rail cars on a seldom used siding at Dominion Produce in Bradford right near the Go Station. What a pain, tow truck drivers and all. It turned out to be a late night after what should have been an outing of discovery about the Bradford Veggie Train. Having decided to contact Dominion Produce directly we discovered that the “Veggie Train” brings carrots from California during the late winter and early spring. This happened to be one of those times…early June. When they run out of stored material from the previous fall’s harvest from Ontario, they call up California and subsequently receive two car loads of carrots which are washed and bagged (5 or 10 lb bags). Then it’s off to A&P/Dominion, Loblaws, IGA and so on. Having heard the horns at 4:00 AM in the morning, it was told to us that CN brings up the cars late at night, they are unloaded the next day and then CN picks up the cars the next night and takes them back to the MacMillan yard. It all happens at night. Bummer! There is no schedule. It is only as needed and all arranged by e-mail with CN. Another mystery solved!