Here (circa 1980) are some old photos, showing mostly extinct equipment moving near Kingston station.
Added bonus: My unqualified musings on 'The Rules'.
Probably leading the equivalent of 318, three roadswitchers pass one of the two wayfreights which regularly operated during this era. The wayfreight is on the south track at Kingston.
Trains 317/318 were mainline trains which set off and lifted local traffic between Montreal and Toronto. On Sundays, they would handle any dimensional traffic moving between the two cities. It seems that 318 is heading for Queens Track 4 - perhaps to be followed there by the wayfreight.
During this era, one wayfreight's power would generally be left at the old 'outer station' overnight. Car Control maintained an office and transmitter there as well.
Also during this period, it was common for freight movements to clear converging passenger trains in one of the four-track 'stations' on the Kingston Subdivision.
The tailend crew would usually call itself 'in the clear' on the radio to help the engineer. Things sometimes got tight with extra-long eastbounds inching the last few carlengths down the long hill into Queens as the engineer worked to avoid running through the Stop signal at the east end of the siding. Occasionally, the dispatcher would call up to investigate the delay - to the annoyance of the engineer.
Above, our eastbound is leaving Queens 4.
I've patched together my photos of each individual unit as they left.
This is probably the wayfreight backing into the west end of Queens 4.
I've just missed the signal behind the caboose, but it would be a Restricting signal if 318 is there.
This photo at Queens west was probably taken BEFORE the photos above
showing the departure of 318 from Queens east.
... When freights ducked into Queens, one could often photograph them arriving,
and head to the other end of the siding to see them leaving after the passenger congestion cleared.
* * *
A Fun Evening in Kingston
As the sun sets and the mosquitos bite at Queens west, you can see a dead one-unit VIA train as it waits for the donation of a unit from a westbound CN freight.
To keep things simple it is possible that the Belleville dispatcher has allowed the VIA train to limp into Queens 2 (the north main track) with the freight sitting in Queens 1 (the north siding)
You'll see why this makes sense below.
The first two units of the freight cut off, as the VIA will be getting an MLW unit.
This is 'rush hour' for the passenger trains, so No 56 is passing our comedy/tragedy using the south track and will run through Queens 3.
By the switch heater, you can see the headend brakeman of the CN freight. Because only Queens 4 had (circa 1960s CTC) wiring to allow a 'return to train' feature (i.e. Restricting signal - see above), it would have been necessary to copy Rule 266 authority from the Belleville dispatcher to switch the freight unit onto the leading end of the passenger train on Queens 2. And subsequently to allow the lone leading unit of the freight to return to its train on Queens 1.
... so the brakeman is there to take the switch 'off power', and to line it to bring the freight power in on the passenger train's track - ignoring the red signal above it. (The whole point of a CTC or ABS system is to PREVENT the odd freight from coming into contact with a passenger train on the same track.)
... If things were really congested and twitchy, the dispatcher could well have done things in a more piecemeal fashion using SOME signal indications (e.g. to leave Queens Track 1 for the North track west of the switch) and SOME Rule 264 authorities to pass Stop signals as the need arose. (However, I think the system might have to 'run time' for some of these moves. Running time, e.g. 20 minutes, prevents an (absolute) Stop signal from being 'thrown in the face' of an approaching train if a dispatcher suddenly changed their mind. While the absolute Stop is running time, the approaching train theoretically has time to see an intermediate signal warning of the Stop awaiting them down the track.)
So ... for the sake of simplicity ... let's assume the dispatcher issued a single, powerful 266 to get the job done: Track 1, Track 2, the power switch between them ... and the north main track to Ernestown (the dispatcher's next control point/absolute signal) ... were 'given' to the freight crew for their switching.
... Oh! ... This is why all sorts of time is spent teaching 'The Rules' - they'd also need some kind of a joint occupancy arrangement with the VIA because we want the units (of an Extra) to come into contact with what is still a First Class train. Again, something to be prevented with all our might on every other day of the year.
It would not be good enough for the dispatcher to verbally communicate 'OK, VIA train on Track 2, don't move for a few minutes ... OK?' A 266 by itself would not solve all of their problems.
Some form of 'protecting against eachother' language might be the most elegant and this may be what they actually used.
or
'Extra xxxx West ... with right over ... Train No xx on Queens Track 2 between signals xx and xx' language might work. But here we don't want the VIA to actually clear the freight units on Queens Track 2 - we want it to stay there so it gets 'hit' by them. Technically, as their train seems to be dead and trapped between Stop signals, that order would compel them to provide themselves with flag protection - which might solve the problem ... They could 'flag' the freight units and then hand signal them into a safe coupling. (However, one could argue that it is impossible for the passenger crewmember to flag at the prescribed distance from the VIA train - there just isn't enough track to walk down. So it might be a bad practice for the dispatcher to order something which was not possible.)
With something of this trickiness, the Chief Dispatcher might be called on to provide sage advice. And the desk dispatcher had to keep his cool - even as a number of trains were now facing delays as they were all bearing down on this bottleneck at Kingston.
... If something went wrong, those running the investigation would have ALL DAY to question the participants why they didn't do 'this' or 'that' logical thing instead.
After all the drama, Train 69 has come up on the South Track.
The crews may be joking about two crewmembers who have been set back into 'Freight Service'.
Notice that this was the rare train headed by a freight unit without class lights on the Kingston Sub.
