General Information: Built: 2010 Beginning Point: Mileage 0.00, Red Deer Subdivision End Point: End of track General Direction: Northeast
Customers Although classified as a lead, the ML Lead does not have (and never has had) any customers. It is used by CPKC as a storage track for maintenance of way (MOW) trains as well as the TEC Train.
Map See my full map of every rail line to exist in Calgary here! Trackage coloured pink/magenta indicates the ML Lead
More on the ML Lead The ML Lead is Calgary's newest lead track. It was the only one constructed in the 21st Century. But this is because it doesn't serve any customers - it's a storage track for MOW equipment and TEC Trains. It follows the Red Deer Subdivision up the west leg of the wye and ends short of the 15th Street grade crossing. Something about the ML Lead that surprises me is that despite how modern it is, the track was constructed with jointed rail, when most would use CWR in its place in this day and age. So even though the track is little more than a decade old, it looks much older*. It looks out of place in the modern Alyth Yards.
*Although the tracks were laid in the 2010s, the rails themselves were probably forged much, much earlier than that. Railroads like to reuse jointed rail when laying non-main track. The best example of this in Calgary is on the JA Lead, where 117-year old rail can be found. The track was laid in 1953, but the rails were forged in 1907 for a different purpose, and reused for the JA Lead's construction.