Railfanning in Saint John and area

I was down in Saint John yesterday (April 27) and saw a few trains, my first since my son was born.

CN 305's power, 2645, 5616 and 2451?? sat in the yard all morning. They were still there at noon. CN 7000 was running light in the west end of the yard.

I noticed the transformer that has graced the yard forever has moved to behind Crosby's Molasses. Surely someone is missing that...

At 12:40 I noticed NBSR 370x (one of the SW1200s) and a CN GP9 behind the Moosehead facility with a couple of boxcars. NBSR 2319 was working the west end of the Dever Road yard and I snapped a few quick shots.



On my way home, I noticed some fresh ballast around mile 16-17 (Sagwa) that has not yet been profiled.

In Fredericton Junction, NBSR 403383 is starting to look very run-down. Compare the top photo (taken yesterday) to the bottom photo from this page.



Speaking of run-down, the Fredericton Junction station is definitely being hit hard by vandals. I saw broken windows in the station the last time I was through, and now they are boarded up.

Off-topic search keywords

While trying to get to sleep last night, I was looking at what words people type into search engines to get to my site. Most are relevant to the content, like "train videos new brunswick", "new brunswick railway", or even "cp train video". But a couple really puzzle me.

"steve nash" - The only reason I know Steve Nash plays basketball is from the TSN SportCenter commercials (and I guess now from the computer commercial). I have zero basketball (or sports) content on my web site. We do share the same first name but there are a bazillion Steves out there.

"leah donna" - Who is this?

Maybe I need to talk about trains and sports!

UPM 711 on the move

UPM-Kymmene's switcher #711 was sighted by David Chiasson traveling north through Bathurst on April 7 on its way to points unknown. I assume it is going for servicing somewhere while the UPM plant is shut down.


David Chiasson caught UPM 711 in Bathurst.

Smurfit-Stone rail assets distributed

Since Smurfit-Stone's facility in Bathurst shut down late last year, their rail assets (engine, caboose, plow) have sat idle. No more!

I'm told the engine is going to Belledune to the smelter there. The smelter used to have a little trackmobile but in the past few years they have been "renting" an NBEC RS-18 to do their shunting while NBEC train 587 is around.

I'm also told that New Brunswick East Coast Railway has acquired the plow and caboose. The plow will join NBEC/CFMG's fleet of ex-CN plows, but I'm not sure what they are going to do with the caboose. Maybe it will go to CFMG? I hope not. I'd like to see it in New Brunswick!