AUGUST 2000

    Every railway requires a supply of ballast and fill for its physical plant. Back in the 1940s and 1950s, the CNR maintained several sites which supplied the needs of its various divisions. One of these supply pits was situated at Colwell, just west of the division point of Allandale. We will take a close look at the operations at this pit with an eye to replicating them on our miniature representations of the CNR, CPR or other roads.

    The CNR owned Colwell Pit, which was for company use only. In the 1940s and 1950s, the pit was accessed from the Meaford Subdivision (see Steam at Allandale, pages 80 and 113). Prior to that, it had been accessed from the Penetang Subdivision, and in the late 1950s, it returned to the Penetang Subdivision as the Meaford Subdivision pit had only poor quality material remaining. A temporary operator/timekeeper was put on duty at Colwell station, located at the junction of the Meaford and Penetang Subdivisions, for copying train orders when gravel trains were running in spring and summer.

    A rail-mounted Marion steam shovel with bucket worked in the pit (with operator and assistant) loading ballast cars. As the shovel was self-propelled, the operator could move cars around with it. Side or bottom dump gondola cars were moved to the shovel by the crew as they were loaded, 25 to 30 at a time. The Association of American Railroads (AAR) classification for these cars was MW. Characteristically, these "MW" ballast cars were crowned "mug wumps" or "mud wagons" by CNR men (see To Stratford Under Steam, pages 110 and 133, for good pictures of them; not to be confused with cinder cars, which were cut-down 36-foot outside-braced boxcars). When ballast was too far away for the crane, the crew moved the tracks closer, which was a simple operation. The shovel operator would move the track (in about 10-foot sections) ahead of him. The pit crew carried sections of track. Tracks would be moved by a bulldozer toward the new loading area after the gravel train left (tracks were moved with each train load). The bulldozer and crane worked together. In diesel times, when the steam crane was no longer available, crews spotted cars for a diesel clam.

    During the Second World War, the Colwell pit was very busy. Ballast trains out of Colwell after the War ran one or two per day after the ground had dried up, usually with Mikados. Operating crews were assigned to the pit for typically 4-6 weeks or a couple of months, depending on roadbed work required on the division. At one time, the pit worked six days per week for six months at a time. Colwell Pit was a very busy place in summer months. As many as two trains of ballast (gravel) were loaded and shipped to destinations on the Allandale Division daily. Two crews (one spotting, one loading) were ordered between 4 and 5 a.m. The spotting crew headed out first thing in the morning with a string of empties. After running around the empties at Colwell, cuts of ballast cars were set up and loaded at the pit. Water for the engines was siphoned out of a creek south of Colwell. The engine crew waited for loading, then headed back to Allandale with the loads in the afternoon.

    The work train was then ordered to take ballast out (and bring empties back) wherever the work was being done. This involved a crew change. Other crews unloaded the cars. Aprons between the cars allowed the entire length of train to be unloaded with a winch. Gravel/ballast from the pit went everywhere in the vicinity (Bala, Toronto, Newmarket, Milton, Orillia, Midland, Gravenhurst, etc.), but most went north. Material was used for ballast or berms on sidings. A Jordan spreader was used to spread down banks. Stone came from the Uhtoff Pit, just north of Orillia on the Midland Subdivision. There was also a gravel pit near Sudbury (Cavell) which shipped to the west (the only other place in the vicinity with a big operation). Wherever work was being done, the railway would haul material from the nearest source of supply.

    The operation at the pit dried up (wells had been drained by going too deep) by about 1964, at the conclusion of work on the new MacMillan Yard (on the north outskirts of Toronto). This sunset for the Colwell Pit represented the longest stretch of work, six months from spring to freeze-up, at which time two trains of 70 to 80 cars ran each day.

    On numerous occasions, fellow modellers have asked me what we can use to represent the mug wumps, as any modeller of the transition era (or any era, for that matter) could use a string of gravel cars. Sadly, there is nothing readily available. Years ago, Ulrich made a nice metal model of these cars in HO scale, but it has been discontinued. Recently, both Red Caboose and Proto1000 have introduced general purpose gondola cars in HO scale. While not overly similar to CNR cars, I don't believe a stand-in train of these units would be a bad idea. I for one am not about to wait around for a model of a relatively obscure prototype car to become available. If a reader of this column is able to do a reasonable kitbashing job on one of these (or other) available models, please e-mail me (ian@canadianbranchline.com) the details and we'll feature the effort in a future column.

Ian Wilson
August 1, 2000

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