Had a sad reminder of the importance of passing sidings over the weekend, or running trains that will at the least fit into the sidings on a given line. Seems CP decided to run some over-siding length trains on the Belleville Sub (Toronto-Smiths Falls, Ontario - line to Montreal) Sunday, but the fun part was they did it in both directions
CP 143 stops at Port Hope siding and holds the main to wait for CP 118 to drop 3000' at Lovekin Siding and then proceed east to Port Hope to take the siding. once 118 is in the clear, 143 gets going westbound, and then 118's power heads west on 143's blocks to retrieve the first part of their train at Lovekin. Since the SBU (FRED) was at the tail of the train at Port Hope, they had to return at a restricted speed for the 10 or so miles between sidings. Once they arrived back at Port Hope, they put their train together and found that the SBU wouldn't come up, so they had CP 608, another oversiding train (crude oil with a block of general freight on the head end they lifted at Toronto) creep up to the west end of Port Hope to 'push the (reset) button' on the SBU. This was done several times to no avail, and it was decided to creep east at a restricted speed to the next siding that could hold them, which is Trenton (about 40 miles, four sidings east). By the time I left for home, CP 112 was also creeping up to Port Hope. It sounded as I left that the SBU started to communicate once 118 got moving, so maybe they finally caught a break! That 118 took about a four hour delay, plus 608 and 112 lost some time as well.
