Nightmare at Elm St ~ Trains of downtown Sudbury, Ontario, Canada ~ CPKC, HCRY, OVR, and VIA Rail

Every day close to twenty trains pass downtown Sudbury. Most trains are intermodal from CPKC Railway heading to and from Western Canada from terminals in Vaughan & Montreal. Sudbury will see other trains including Vehicle, Manifest, Grain, local trains pass through handling traffic from the regions mining and forest industry. This includes a daily CN freight from Capreol to Vale's mine at Clarabelle crossing the impressive bridge over the CPKC and Sudbury. In addition VIA Rail Canada operates a tri weekly “budd car” operating between Sudbury and White River and the remote Northern Ontario route over the Cartier, Nemegos, and White River Subdivisions. Sudbury yard is a major yard on CPKC’s network with both Huron Central Railway & Ottawa Valley Railway delivering trains to the yard with traffic from across Northern Ontario being switched for the end customer or heading to industries in the North. Sudbury is the hub of the Northern Ontario serving a huge catchment area and has a unique downtown full of painted murals on the sides of buildings. This and the rail yards can be easily viewed as CPKC Railway’s Vancouver, British Columbia to Toronto, Ontario train 100 makes its way down the hill and passes the nickel city!


-March 22/23, 2024 ~ Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
~CPKC Elm Street – MP 79.8 Cartier Subdivision~
~CPKC Sudbury – MP 79.0 Cartier Sub/MP 0.0 Nickel Spur~
~HCRY Sudbury – MP 0.0 Webbwood Subdivision~


On March 21-23 I was in Sudbury for a medical appointment. With some spare time I was able to walk over to the tracks from the hotel for a few trains through the day on March 22nd in the morning and afternoon. Before we headed back home Saturday (no HCRY noted action up/down) I caught 105 on the south and VIA 185 on the north at Elm Street as the north’s weather changed overnight! Here is a summary of the action I was able to catch on this trip.


March 22 ~ 1725 : 100 heading thru Sudbury as HCRY 911 switches
0:00 Aerial view of a CPKC train in downtown Sudbury
March 23 ~ 0900 : VIA 185 at Elm Street
5:05 VIA Rail’s Budd Car heads west for White River
March 22 ~ 0901 & 0922 trains 2112 & 112 at Elm Street
5:49 Eastbound Montreal stacks pass Elm Street
1500-1730 over the Sudbury Yard in the afternoon
13:02 Aerial Views of OVR, HCRY, and CPKC in Sudbury
1720 CPKC 100 from the aerial video at the beginning
13:36 CPKC 100 at Elm Street
2107 CPKC 420 arrives into the yard to switch
16:59 Evening at Elm Street as 420 pulls in
March 23 ~ 0840 is on the South in the snow
19:30 CPKC Sudbury’s weather and CPKC 105