MemoryJct
Morning at Clarabelle Mill
Looking in a southwesterly direction from Elm Street/Regional Road 35 in Greater Sudbury is this iconic view that anyone familiar with the area should recognize. The impressive Clarabelle Mill is the first point of processing for ores brought in from the various mines in the surrounding area. Clarabelle is also the name of the junction that serves as an access point to Vale property for CP and CN for interchange purposes. Out of view to the left runs trackage leading back to downtown Sudbury via CP's Nickel Spur and CN's Sudbury Spur, and to the right runs the spur connecting to Creighton Mine. In the upper left background is the yard serving the mill itself as well as trackage leading further in to Vale's sprawling Copper Cliff complex. The track with our subject heads under Elm St and branches off 2 ways, with one way leading to CP's Cartier Sub at Sprecher, and the other heading up to Frood Mine and the now shuttered Stobie Mine. This was for me perhaps the largest of several small victories 2019 brought to me. This was one shot I had always wanted to do from a young age but the opportunity just never materialized. Eventually, SD40-2s stopped becoming commonplace on Sudbury locals and my sense of urgency to pull it off evaporated. It became one of those shots that I figured I would get around to eventually when the time was right, but never did I think the chance would come to do it with a matching pair of 40s again.
In 2019, a steady stream of SD40-2s were coming back online after years in storage to be used on work trains. All I really knew was that this pair had arrived in Sudbury a couple of days prior with ballast empties for re-loading and that power from such trains sometimes ended up on the locals based here. On one of those chilly October days when you don't know if its going to snow, rain, or be sunny, I arrived at the CP yard and shop tracks in downtown Sudbury dark and early to find nothing. I took this as a good sign and headed west of out town. It wasn't long before I could hear train U57 switching on the radio and did a double take when seeing this perfect multimark pair (6055/6069) slowly rolling up out of Clarabelle Yard heading for Sprecher and onward to Levack. One questionable parking job later and I was hoofing it across the busy road to machine gun the shutter button for quick minute and then book it back out as it's hardly a safe spot to hang around. Had I been 5 minutes later I would have missed the move and would probably still be cursing it to this day. Such fortuitous circumstances can make or break this "hobby" (I've never thought that was an adequate word to describe this interest we have but that's a topic for another day) and they don't come often. Every time I look at this picture I'm reminded to be grateful for the times that things just work out alright.
Morning at Clarabelle Mill
Looking in a southwesterly direction from Elm Street/Regional Road 35 in Greater Sudbury is this iconic view that anyone familiar with the area should recognize. The impressive Clarabelle Mill is the first point of processing for ores brought in from the various mines in the surrounding area. Clarabelle is also the name of the junction that serves as an access point to Vale property for CP and CN for interchange purposes. Out of view to the left runs trackage leading back to downtown Sudbury via CP's Nickel Spur and CN's Sudbury Spur, and to the right runs the spur connecting to Creighton Mine. In the upper left background is the yard serving the mill itself as well as trackage leading further in to Vale's sprawling Copper Cliff complex. The track with our subject heads under Elm St and branches off 2 ways, with one way leading to CP's Cartier Sub at Sprecher, and the other heading up to Frood Mine and the now shuttered Stobie Mine. This was for me perhaps the largest of several small victories 2019 brought to me. This was one shot I had always wanted to do from a young age but the opportunity just never materialized. Eventually, SD40-2s stopped becoming commonplace on Sudbury locals and my sense of urgency to pull it off evaporated. It became one of those shots that I figured I would get around to eventually when the time was right, but never did I think the chance would come to do it with a matching pair of 40s again.
In 2019, a steady stream of SD40-2s were coming back online after years in storage to be used on work trains. All I really knew was that this pair had arrived in Sudbury a couple of days prior with ballast empties for re-loading and that power from such trains sometimes ended up on the locals based here. On one of those chilly October days when you don't know if its going to snow, rain, or be sunny, I arrived at the CP yard and shop tracks in downtown Sudbury dark and early to find nothing. I took this as a good sign and headed west of out town. It wasn't long before I could hear train U57 switching on the radio and did a double take when seeing this perfect multimark pair (6055/6069) slowly rolling up out of Clarabelle Yard heading for Sprecher and onward to Levack. One questionable parking job later and I was hoofing it across the busy road to machine gun the shutter button for quick minute and then book it back out as it's hardly a safe spot to hang around. Had I been 5 minutes later I would have missed the move and would probably still be cursing it to this day. Such fortuitous circumstances can make or break this "hobby" (I've never thought that was an adequate word to describe this interest we have but that's a topic for another day) and they don't come often. Every time I look at this picture I'm reminded to be grateful for the times that things just work out alright.