Not often you get that. Click the pic for larger and more info!
Nice colors, composition, and scenery ! [tup]
And the DPU running in reverse - wonder if that freaks out people along the way or at grade crossings when it goes roaring by, with no one visible on board ? [swg]
But what’s that ‘sore thumb’ industrial plant in the distance ?
- Paul North.
Ehh, that’s just the LaFarge cement or lime plant, whatever…I try to ignore it.
Paul, that operation has been going on at Exshaw, AB. since 1906. It was one of the most important CPR customers on the line to Vancouver for many years. It produced a product for industrial use as opposed to resource mining and timber.
You see a lot of trucks pulling LaFarge hopper trailers now so I am not sure how much rail traffic it generates, although I still see cement hoppers once in a while coming in and out of Calgary.
Here is a bit of the history of the cement and limestone operations in that area from Wikipedia.
*Sir Sanford Fleming named Exshaw after his son-in-law, E. William Exshaw (B. 15 Feb 1866, Bordeaux, D. 16 Mar 1927; of Anglo-Irish decent; and Sailing*Olympic Gold Medalist at the Paris 1900 Summer Olympics), who with Fleming helped establish the Western Canada Cement and Coal Company. William Exshaw visited in 1908 when a banquet was held in his honour by the staff of WCC&C.
Robert D. Hassan, an American mechanical engineer, was hired in 1906 to build a mill in Exshaw, Alberta for the Western Canada Cement and Coal Company. He was assisted in building the plant by Alexander Graham Christie, 1880-1964, a mechanical and electrical engineering graduate from the University of Toronto, who later in 1909 became associate professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin, and in 1914 joined the School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Very nice shot - meets my criteria of “would I hang this on my wall?”
I noticed the plant, but didn’t really feel it took away from the picture. Rather, it tends to give the railroad a sense of purpose, whether the plant is rail-served or not. It’s no more a distraction from the mountains, forest, and river than the train itself.
Terms differ, all over the country. To me, “Head End Power” is the “Hotel Power” generated for electrically-operated passenger cars for heat, lights, and A/C. Here, in the northern Rockies, one may hear “Head End Power” for the train leaders, I guess. On the BNSF, DP (“Distributed Power”) is used on the tail of the train only. Montana Rail Link, and Canadian Pacific, and Canadian National use mid-train “Slaves” (radio-controlled, of course) as well as DP “helpers”. CN even has EOT (end-of-train) air generators to assist in braking. A, sometimes, disconcerting thingie on the BNSF: the EOT DPUs don’t use a “FRED” (“Flashing Rear End Device”, amongst other names), but leave the trailing locomotive’s headlight on low. Spooky, when the headlight is going away from you at 60 mph! Did the engineer forget his lunch?
Bruce/ AgentKid - Thanks [tup] for that very thorough and detailed reply.
Small world, too - the LaFarge Whitehall, Pennsylvania plant is about 5 miles northeast from my home - I can even see the ‘steam’ / condensing vapor from the stacks on these cold mornings, and the anti-colision strobe lights on them at night. See:
Or go to: http://www.lafarge-na.com/wps/portal/lna/products/cement and then use the ‘‘Search Locations’’ box for ‘North America’ locations.
- Paul North.</
HEY, c’mon, Isn’t that Morant’s Curve ? ? There is a mountain conspicuously missing as it was ground down to make cement, now they are dismantling the mountain across from Canmore, Alberta.
The plant actually tried a process of burning tires for a heat source, but for some reason stopped, at the rate of mountain levelling you should be able to see Banff in a few years. There was a “rock wool” plant around here back in the early 60’s, nice photo
Morant’s Curve is at Mileage 113.0 of the Laggan Sub. between Eldon and Lake Louise. The plant in Matthew’s picture is at Exshaw at Mileage 56.1 counting west from Calgary.
As for the mountain leveling, the plant operators are no fools. I belong to an organization that went to a banquet with an affiliated group at Exshaw about ten years ago and the locals had some interesting stories… What you can’t see in the photo, is that they have gone around behind the mountain to get the limestone so that the tourists on the Trans-Canada Highway still see a pretty mountain scene. But one day it will be like the false fronts on a Hollywood movie, you will see a mountain face and trees but there will be nothing behind it!
I’m still trying to find out about the “rock wool” plant, I’ve read something about it but I can’t put my finger on it now.
Bruce
You can always tell it’s a DP unit as the ditch lights are not turned on. I love the rear facing DPU’s.
…To my eyes it is a beautiful railroad, scenic photo and I see no harm in the photo from the industrial plant. Just part of the scene.
Great shot! BNSF does run DP’s mid train as well. Its something they run on the northern tier. We had a few NTW’s when they wanted to DP them that came in mid train.When we would get a GALTUL with a fred number we knew it wouldnt be a DP. SOmedays we wished for a fred cause dping can be a PITA, however there were nights when we would try 4 freds and they wouldnt arm.
Interesting - the Whitehall, PA LaFarge plant near me started doing that like 10 years ago. As far as I know, they will still take all they can get - usually from community clean-ups and the like - for a fee of 50 cents or a dollar each, which includes furnishing a van-traliler to load them in. At the plant they are shredded - the steel cords are separated and recycled as scrap - before being fed into the rotating kiln. Since they’ve been so successful at that, I’m not sure how many ‘tire mines’ are left in this area - but I suspect by now that the new tire dealers are well-accustomed to taking the scrap ones there instaed of to a landfill. So a couple years ago the plant was granted a permit to burn all of the ‘miscellaneous’ recycled plastics that don’t have a good market - i.e., code numbers /3\ through /7\ stamped on the bottom, etc., except styrofoam - as well.
EDIT: From [emphasis added - PDN] - http://cementamericas.com/mag/cement_lafarge_whitehall_transforms/
Lafarge Whitehall transforms discarded plastics into power
That’s exactly what happened. Western Canada was once under water and all that is left of it is Hudson Bay. The dead sea creatures and plant life under the sea is what created Alberta’s petroleum industry. All this colliding plate business has created an interesting problem on the west side of the Great Divide though, over to where the Selkirk Range starts to rise.
When the area has wet summers or heavy wet snow winters it is subject to many avalanches which close both the Trans Canada Highway and the CPR line. That is because all this grinding of plates west of Field, BC has created what appear to be mountains, but almost seem to be large gravel piles held together with mud. Heavy precipitation softens the mud and the gravel cuts loose and clobbers the rail line and the highway.
All these fossils from the time the area was covered in sea water has been a godsend to Field. During the steam era the CPR employed 300 men at a fully equipped divisional point, and now they employ 1 part rime caretaker. It is still a crew change point from both directions. But now there is big time tourism.
Above the Spiral Tunnels is the world famous Burgess Shale fossil deposits. Professional and amateur fossil hunters come from all around to see this stuff. They even run university level course there. My sister took a course a few summers ago and it was the first time she had time to look over the whole area where our Dad worked from '48 to '53. Her husband and kids came for a look after the course was over and then she had more questions for our mother and me than ever befo