ACR 1947 Algoma Central Railway Employee Timetable

Rolly Martin Country is encompassed on the geological map included in this post.

This employee timetable came from Rolly Martin. For a brief time, he worked as a sectionman on the Algoma Central. As he gave the timetable to me with a mass of other railway publications during one of our vacation visits, I didn't get a chance to ask if the other pages were culled during or after his service with the ACR. At any rate, the most important operating pages survived.

Of particular interest to me is the Michipicoten Subdivision. On different vacations, we travelled to both Hawk Junction and Michipicoten Harbour. 

Here are a few photos: Hawk Junction in 1991

Having a farm boy's practical experience with applied mechanics and good physical strength, Rolly told me a few times that he once single-handedly changed a rail out on the Michipicoten Sub. 

How? 

I suspect that this was an emergency repair and thus it was permissible to leave the defective rail on the ties and between the rails ... until other sectionmen were available to heave it clear of the track. So the replacement rail would be levered 'normally' off the side of the handcar - outside of the rails.

(If it was mandatory that the defective rail be cleared from the track area by Rolly, I've guessed that chaining the end of the replacement rail and levering the handcar out from under it might have worked. Then the defective rail could be levered off the end of the ties and down the ballast ... and the replacement levered from the centre of the track into place.)

 

from: Geology & Scenery, North Shore of Lake Superior; EG Pye; 1969; Ontario Department of Mines.

To make things more interesting, I chose this map to show the line of the Algoma Central Railway. The map includes the Heron Bay and Nipigon Subs of the CPR. Except for a brief period working out of Lambton, this map encompasses all of the railway lines of Rolly's railway career ... Rolly Martin Country.

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I don't think there was anything special about their 'Hayes Derails' - it was just a commercial product which one applied using a switch stand, or flopped onto the rail manually. Perhaps, in that culture a 'derail' evoked a fancy split-rail design as is seen on British railways and railways built during the Colonial period (India, Pakistan, etc).

Notice the 'ring codes' for various stations on the dispatcher/operators 'party line' telephone throughout this timetable.

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from: Algoma Central Railway; OS Nock; 1975; A & C Black Ltd.

Above is Hawk Junction (undated photo), looking timetable north. Beyond the yard tracks, you can see the main line swinging to the right of the photo. The Michipicoten Sub cutoff is the track climbing to the left of the main line. 

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from: Altitudes in Canada; James White; 1915; Commission of Conservation, Canada.

This mileage and elevation data could be used to draw a rough profile of the Michipicoten Sub.

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from: Algoma Central Railway; OS Nock; 1975; A & C Black Ltd.

Michipicoten Harbour handled different bulk commodities during different periods of its existence. A 2024 check via Google Maps suggests that the main dock is still used for some bulk commodities transported by road. The most typical bulk commodities would have been iron ore from the nearby Helen Mine and coal. The undated image above shows the 'new' coal bridge - this coal stockpiling area eventually became considerably longer. You can also see dredging activity in the harbour.

Before this modern coal bridge operation was built, a wooden pier with gravity hoppers below was used to load ships. OS Nock's caption suggests that that wooden dock was in place between 1900 and 1939. 

I think you can see the 'runaway' track curling around that grove of trees beyond the coal bridge (see the Michipicoten footnote paragraph above: "A terminal brake test as provided ... "). As the movement backed down the grade to the harbour, the tailend brakeman would have kept the SAFETY SWITCH lined for that track until the engineer whistled that he was in control of the movement. 

This failsafe process was followed on the CPR's original Big Hill near Field. In 2024 on YouTube there is a British-built railway location in Pakistan requiring a full stop ... before a switchtender will emerge from his shack and line the main line switch away from a spectacular steep runaway track ... for the main line.

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from: Algoma Central Railway; OS Nock; 1975; A & C Black Ltd.

For me, this is the most charming and interesting image of the set. This is Brient - timetable east is to the right. It was the terminal for 'unit trains' operating to the dock at Michipicoten Harbour. You can see a coaling tower and a water tower. An engine occupies the tail of the wye. A small shop area with stockpiles of spare parts can be seen with its own stub track near the west leg of the wye.

While the features of Brient are no longer visible on the satellite images of Google Maps, the underlying basic map still shows the wye and tracks there (below). 

Notice on the map below, that the track I suspect as being the 'runaway track' at Michipicoten is tangent with the main track ... while the dock is shown on a diverging route.

The rest of the timetable is shown below.

Notice all the forest fire precautions ...

LIRR 1948 Public Timetable, New York - Port Washington

Showing trains connecting New York and East Egg, this 3-inch by 7-inch pamphlet represents some high-density railroading (map below).

I bought a small handful of public timetables for a very low price. I've always been interested in the past work done by the LIRR as it efficiently took commuters into New York City. It was only when I was trying to figure out which branch of the railroad this covered that I discovered it covered my 'favourite' part of the line.

In 1922, it was this route which bond salesman Nick Carraway used to get to his job in the city. He was the bungalow-residing neighbour of a 'new money' type named Jay Gatsby. From West Egg (Great Neck) Gatsby would gaze across the bay at the green light on the shore of East Egg (Port Washington) where the 'old money' lived. 

I read this novel later in life for pleasure so I never had to write a few paragraphs about what the green light ... or the eyes of TJ Eckleburg's billboard ... represented. On Wiki, there is a lot of good historical material covering the setting and background of this novel, its low sales (25,000 copies) during F Scott Fitzgerald's lifetime, and the four Great Gatsby movies made over the years. I've only seen the 1974 movie with Robert Redford and, from what I've been reading, this would probably be the best 'historical document' to represent both the novel and that era in history. 

This timetable was printed about 23 years after the novel was published. 

It represents the railroad's operations of 76 years ago.

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A map of the LIRR from 1958 appears below.

You can see our line to Port Washington on the lower map panel - running from Pennsylvania Station to the east.

from: Official Guide of the Railways, November 1958.

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The historical overview from 1947, below, shows that the LIRR began in the 1830s as a through line connecting New York and Boston when railroad and construction technologies were not as well developed. The LIRR's eventual purchase by the Pennsylvania Railroad was linked to the latter's plans for a downtown New York station.

from: The Pennsylvania Railroad, a pictorial history; Edwin P Alexander; 1947; Bonanza Books.

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from: Long Island Rail Road; Rae Ediger; Trains, March 1949; Kalmbach.

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The Pennsylvania Railroad, a pictorial history; Edwin P Alexander; 1947; Bonanza Books.

The yard is still there and a Wiki article briefly explains its history and identifies the railroads currently using it.

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from: Long Island Rail Road; Rae Ediger; Trains, March 1949; Kalmbach.

At B Tower at Bethpage, Long Island, the engineer of a 4-6-0 picks up train orders.

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Today, the LIRR has a frequently-updated Facebook page.

It features photos of current and historical rolling stock, and promotes attractions along the railroad.