Pyrites from Northern Ontario and Quebec to the Niagara area

For many years, North American Cyanamid of Welland, Ontario (pictured circa 1930) used only imported sulphur for acid production (Canada had no known deposits of sulphur). Then, in late 1954, a Noranda Mines plant opened in nearby Port Robinson, Ontario. This outfit recovered sulphur from a substance known as pyrites (a mud-like by-product of smelting operations).

Coincident with the opening of the recovery plant, half a dozen steel-frame boxcar loads of pyrites were shipped from the mining area every day. These cars were routed along the CNR Huntsville and Bala Subdivisions to Mimico, then to the Niagara Peninsula.

With the new Noranda Mines plant in Port Robinson, the Cyanamid began sourcing most of its sulphur (in the form of sulphur dioxide) from there. This is the kind of development which makes writing books and building model railways so fascinating. My Steam to the Niagara Frontier book is set in June of 1954, so the Noranda-Port Robinson traffic is non-existent. By February of 1955, those half dozen cars a day were being forwarded from the mine to the Port Robinson plant (along the Huntsville Subdivision, which I and Dave Robinson are modelling). For that reason, I'm a little flexible on the era of the railway layout. Besides, the passenger diesels in the late 1954 Super Continental paint scheme are too tempting to pass up in N scale...