The railways seem hell bent on eliminating car-load traffic and if you’re not shipping a hundred cars at a time, they’re not interested. Thanks for adding to the story here. There’s a homeless encampment along that line that crosses Blackfoot and you can see it ever so briefly if you look west at the tracks. I recall in the 1990s, the line was busy (used to drive truck and frequented the area). Yes, that old gondola – we remember it! Appreciate it and drop by often!

The Lafarge cement bagging terminal still receives hoppers from the huge Exshaw Plant east of Canmore. It responds to demand and the construction season in Alberta is summer and short s the trains only really run late May to September, you probably just missed the last cars leaving. Being really speccy, the hoppers are usually the ACF or Trinity 2 bay types with a few old PS2 or 3 types. They get hauled in by the Alyth yard shunters, currently a pair of GP38-2 or an SD20ECO paired with another Gp. They have flashing lights fitted.

The centre beam cars with timber are more regular but still irregular!

The junction (left) line was lifted in 2013/4 at the road crossing and isolated the mass of tracks to the SE of there and the line at the bottom of the dip on Blackfoot Trail.

CN still services a number of bulk customer west of the Bow and Alyth including at least two scrap metal yards (gondola traffic), a grain specialist and a polymer moulding company. The scrap on Highfield Road side must be worth the work as the recent Inglewood to Bonnybrook sewage line upgrade meant a lot of work was done to maintain the lines. They also (last 18 months? possible as part of the sewer line works) renewed the headshunt to the north of there approaching Blackfoot Trail where the line used to cross and link to CP through what is now Crossroads Farmers’ Market. They even fitted a new track bumper stop to replace the wrecked gondola and pile of ballastt hat served well for 20+ years!

It’s a beautiful splash of colour in an otherwise drab industrial neighbourhood. It seems out of place but that’s said in a good, positive way.

And here I thought we were the only ones that followed old rail line in Google Maps!

All those industrial neighbourhoods have a similar look but this one’s Machester, east of MacLeod Trail.

We’ve seen old rail photos of San Fran and it appeared that down by the waterfront there was track going every which way.

It is.

Made a note of it.

I agree, send me a message on Facebook the next time you plan to visit the Alberta Railway Museum, it’s probably the most likely place our paths will cross.

All these industrial lines are on borrowed time it seems. As you say, intermodal is the go-to now, if you’re sticking with rail. We’ll be covering other industrial tracks in the future as we too kind of like that gritty vibe. Sounds like you’d have some interesting stories to share – we should chat sometime.

I’ve always had a soft spot for this gritty side of railroading, I started out working a job with a couple customers that needed their cars spotted precisely, within a foot or two of some stationary appliance. Boxcars at doors or a loading dock, tank cars at racks, or hoppers with the gate over a unloading chute (this customer rolled their cars downhill bit by bit as they unloaded each hopper bay). A shame it’s slowly being lost as freight shifts to intermodal and trucking.

Cramped industrial spurs also mean you have to really plan ahead and get creative with switching.