-A video I filmed close to 8 years ago now of CN's Brampton Local 559 running down the 'Now Permanently Disused' Brampton Industrial Lead which is a short industrial spur branching off the CN Halton Subdivision near Kennedy road and actually passing through the IKO Industires property at 71 Orenda road to service a former customer at 68 Eastern Ave which at this time was known as “General Latex”.
*A infrequent move at this time also, during the time the customer was known as G.L: (at least in the early-mid 2010s & probably also 2000s) they were served on a much less frequent basis then a lot of the other Brampton customers in this area like on the Glass Lead (maybe once a month' ish, if lucky) stated by the people who worked here at this time and one person mentioned that in year 2013 they were only served 4 times within the whole year (I cant be 100% though if that actually was the case) but nevertheless from the summer of 2014 into 2015 I was on a personal mission more or less to capture this infrequent move because I really did want to film a train going over this 4 lane crossing & passing through IKO but more importantly: knowing that it was a one-customer spur line that for all we know could be here today gone tomorrow... made me forsure not want to miss any opportunity I potentially had to see something here. So after a number of months of trying when i had a Monday or Thursday off school (as those were the days this local ran at the time), stars came together for me on this COLD Monday (-20 ish) afternoon.
Finished my English exam early that morning and made it down to the Glass Lead for about 11am (where the local starts and also the only Orenda road spur that’s still active today as I state later in this video). Local was working the Owen-Illinois Glass Plant at the time I arrived but soon enough I seen them backing the empty hoppers out of the plant in the distance & making the run-around move. When the power came close to the Orenda rd crossing on the Glass Lead, crew was friendly and said hi. When I asked, they quickly confirmed to me that they will in fact be making the infrequent trip down to General Latex today so after hearing that I immediately headed off and walked about a km west down Orenda to the G.L Spur at 71 Orenda as there was absolutely no chance I was gonna let this opportunity slide.
-Was yet another 2hr wait from there (almost) in the freezing cold but finally just before 2pm I caught a glimpse of the local shoving by the hoppers on the main from the O-I Glass Plant and a couple min later: spotted the lead tanker car shoving down the spur. Video should just about explain the rest🙂
STATE OF THIS SPUR TODAY:
As I talked about a bit at the beginning, this spur has since gone completely dormant in about mid-2018. Sometime earlier in 2016, a new Buisness known as ‘Textile Rubber and Chemcials’ took over this 80+yo factory at 68 Eastern Ave and in the next 2+ years they actively received chemical loads in Ethonal tanks. Still semi-regular service for them but they did go some points when it seemed they were wanting a switch every week and other points seemed like it was once a month or even less than that (as CN Crews told me). Did capture the move once also in the time the customer was owned by Textile: • MAY BE HISTORY NOW??, ... , however somewhere around mid-2018 they stopped a lot of their production as the company wanted to relocate to Quebec and sell their plant in Brampton. Which is what they did, took about 3yrs to sell ( Pandemic probably delayed that process a bit) but eventually later in 2021 the “Two Men and a Truck” moving company bought that plant and the property and obviously rail service plays absolutely no role with their Buisness so they buried up the tracks on the property as seen in this video at 6:50 and I think it’s only a matter of time before IKO dose the same at the Orenda rd crossing I filmed at…l
OTHER ORENDA RD SPURS I SHOWN IN THIS VID:
As some of you may remember who follow my channel, I personally have always been a bit enthusiated about the spur line history in my hometown and some viewers from my other videos (who have lived In Brampton at one point or another) have also told me they really liked my content and remembered well for themselves when all the currently disused Brampton spurs today ‘were active’ so thought I should show off the second of the 3 Orenda rd spurs currently in the ground today which I was once told was known as the ‘Belfeild Industiral Lead’ near Rutherford road. Been in disuse since 2006: Thought the overgrowth process from Streetview would be a little interesting also:
To close out the night, I offered a quick scene of a aerial view of this area from 1968. Originally 4 Orenda rd spurs put in the ground when this Industiral area was beginning to form in the mid-late 1960s, the fourth one however had been gone for a number of years already by the time the 1994 view was taken:
Hope you all enjoy 👍