Two Streaks of Rust

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Stumbling across an abandoned railway line in Saskatchewan is not hard to do. There used to be a literal spaghetti bowl of tracks going every which way in the province, with nearly every town regardless of size, having train service. There was a branch to anywhere and everywhere! Almost all these are long gone now, although reminders of what was, mostly the roadbeds bereft of track, can easily be found in a multitude of places. We make a project of following these ghost lines on Google Earth.

To find a disused stretch with the rails still in place is much less common, as is what we see in the attached photo. Along some dusty backroad, in a place remote and lonely, some remains of Canadian National Railway’s Mantario Subdivision heading south from Alsask, near the Alberta border. While it’s been a while since a train last ran here, close to a decade or so, for some reason the rails here were not pulled up once the last customer closed, a Sodium Sulphate operation (used mostly as a fertilizer) a few clicks south of our photo position. Perhaps there was plans to reopen the plant at some later date and the track retained?

This line was built about a hundred years ago (started by Canadian Northern, finished by the CNR) and while never that busy it was a vital outside connection those who lived in the area. A small part of it remains in service on its far south-eastern end with a shortline operator. Otherwise, it’s all quiet.

Standing there alone on the limitless plains, with nary a sound to be heard, we await a train that will never come. These two streaks of rust take us back to an earlier time when railways were the lifeblood of the communities here, hauling out grain and bringing in settlers. The future looked bright. And now it’s this.

Something cool that same weekend…
Canadian Civil Defence Museum’s Alsask Dome.

Short Subjects: reports that for any number of reasons are brief in nature. They might be updates to older articles, previews of posts planned or not yet published, brief snippets of things that don’t fit in anywhere else or subjects that are so obscure that information on them can’t be found. Or sometimes we just ramble on about Lord knows what.

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Date of adventure: April, 2019
Location: South of Alsask, SK.

CNR Mantario Subdivision

The disused Mantario Subdivision.

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17 responses

  1. Bob Niznik says:
    October 24, 2021 at 08:20

    Thank you for this interesting post! The photo ‘speaks volumes’ to a railfan such as myself who lived in a village in the 60’s and 70’s that was situated along a branch line. Hard to believe most of it is gone; hard to believe that it was ever there. I enjoy reading Larry Buchan’s Railway Earth posts about his time working on wayfreights in Alberta and Saskatchewan in the 1970’s. The photo ties into his experiences very well.

    • Chris Doering says:
      October 25, 2021 at 07:47

      There’s something about disused track like this that primes the imagination. Of all the things we document, railway archeology subjects are a particular favourite (even if they’re not with our readers) and so we’ll often be seen checking out old lines even if few of those photos ever make it here. We had the chance to spend an afternoon with Larry at his home a few years back. What an incredible experience, just sitting there listening. With his compromised health, you could see it was draining for him, but he went on as long as he could. His retention for recalling even the tiniest detail was incredible. Sad to see him go.

  2. Bob says:
    November 30, 2019 at 13:48

    Did some research the mine switched hands a couple of times
    in 1970 the company that owned mine went bankrupt. And the mine sat vacant until the 1990’s. You can even see the railway spur on google maps.

  3. Connie Biggart says:
    November 8, 2019 at 20:09

    It just draws you in!

  4. Dean McMillan says:
    October 29, 2019 at 18:41

    Abandoned railroad porn!

  5. Eric says:
    October 24, 2019 at 19:43

    Nothing like a pair of rails receding into the distance to draw you in and start your mind wandering.

  6. Bob Smith says:
    October 24, 2019 at 15:53

    As part of the abandonment of this trackage, CN and Cando Rail Services donated a significant amount of 60 lb rail to the Alberta Railway Museum, and delivered it free of charge.

    • Chris Doering says:
      October 25, 2019 at 09:42

      Wow light rail. The track further down past where the last customer was?

      CN and a kind act? Stop the presses! Haha, nice of them to do that.

      • Bob Smith says:
        October 28, 2019 at 16:39

        All I know is that it came from a spur at or near Alsask. Enough rail for half a mile of track was donated, so it may have been the old elevator tracks right in Alsask, or yard trackage at the Sodium Sulphate plant, if any of that was still there.

        60 lb rail is of no use to the big railroads anymore as they do not have any locomotives that can safely operate on it, and much track jewelry and switch parts are no longer in regular production.

        Locomotives are prohibited from using the few spurs and backtracks that still have 60 lb rail, reachers (extra cars) must be used.

        • Chris Doering says:
          October 29, 2019 at 16:27

          Looked at my notes and the rail in this picture is 85lbs, which I guess makes sense as the line was in use at least partway into this century. I suppose that’s about the minimum a big locomotive could safely operate on. Anyway you are probably right in that the rail you’re speaking of came from sidings or some such thing. Sixty pounds is tiny track. Got to tour steamer #6060, all stripped down and being worked on (a post as yet unpublished), and it looked way too large to be sitting on the sixty pound track in use by the Alberta Prairie Railway. But I guess it handles it fine.

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