Kingston and "97" Freight Car Chalk Marks

This post (300TH POST!) really gets down to the nitty-gritty details of railroading! In fact, these details are so far down in the weeds that no-one would probably notice them in photos, or give them a second thought. But they're meaningful for my Hanley Spur modelling.

In a January, 2016 post on my main railway blog, I showed some examples of 'hat checks' that were used to denote passengers' destinations on Canadian passenger trains. Specifically, these shorthand numbers were used on CN's Kingston Subdivision by CN and later by VIA conductors:

• Oshawa 14
• Cobourg 8
• Belleville 3
• Napanee 0
• Kingston 7
• Gananoque 90
• Brockville 91
• Prescott 89
• Cornwall 81

Former VIA trainman and current CN conductor Steve Lucas has noted that these numbers were shortened versions of previous Grand Trunk Railway station designations, for instance:

• Belleville 103
• Napanee 100
• Kingston 97

and that these designations may well have begun from the east in either Portland, ME or even Riviere du Loup, QC!

In another post from April, 2021 I discussed the prototype use and modelling of freight car chalk marks. In the pre-digital era, these marks were used by train crews to convey all sorts of specific messages to other train crews.

The top photo of this post is an enlargement of a chalk mark that was very much in the background of an undated photo showing Canadian Locomotive Co. (CLC) officials in front of a new diesel locomotive. Two hopper cars, one Delaware & Hudson and one New York, Chicago & St Louis "Nickel Plate Road" are visible, and the Richardson 97 chalk mark appears on the latter. This meant that the car was destined to Richardson coal at Kingston "97". Richardson's coal operation at the foot of Queen Street became Crawford in the 1950's, and was just a short shovaway from where the above photo were taken.

Then I started looking closer at some other cars carrying CLC loads, to see if similar chalk marks could be found. Calcutta C-1 steam engine on CP depressed-centre flat car 309928 bears a 'Kingston Rush' chalk mark, making me think that shipment of the first locomotive in this order was to be expedited!

A CLC diesel bound for Calcutta on depressed-centre CP 309925, taken on August 21, 1967 in front of the derelict canaller Bayquinte, is also chalked Kingston. 

Even as late as 1981, CN documents in my collection denote cars for Kingston with a handwritten "97" showing that the steam-era designation was very much alive well into the diesel era!

All photos in this post are from Canadian Locomotive Co. fonds or Kingston Whig-Standard Fonds, Queen's University Archives.