Saint John Railfanning, 2006/09/23

Today my family and I went to Saint John to see the model train show and do some shopping. The show was in Millidgeville so I decided to cross Reversing Falls and head up Adelaide Drive. As we drove along Chesley Drive, I glanced up Bentley Street only to see the crossing lights flashing and NB Southern van 422990 enter the crossing. That can mean only one thing - a passenger excursion! I beat it to Harbour Station by a less-than-optimal route, but I still got there just ahead of the train at 11:05. I took some quick shots before we headed off to the train show.



The consist was 2318, 5471, 5448, 5537, 422990.


These kids were happy to have their picture taken.

After the show, we ran down Rothesay Avenue to McAllister Drive. Along the way I saw CN 5706, 5303 and another unit (24xx?) at rest in the Island Yard and CN 7010 by itself down by Tim Horton's at 12:15. Lunch time!

Around 14:45 I was out to the van in the mall parking lot and I saw a bunch of tank cars rolling by in the distance. I assume CN 305 was heading out to Moncton.

We headed home later in the afternoon. I decided to take the Grand Bay-Westfield route in the hopes of catching the NB Southern eastbound freight. It was raining fairly hard when I heard the beep of the EOT device on the scanner at the Epworth Park Road. I turned around quickly and parked by the crossing. Within two minutes the eastbound rumbled into view at 16:35.

The consist was 9801, 2319, 2317, 9802 and 59 cars.


Notice 2319 has the Sunbury logo and 2317 does not.

There were a couple of covered hoppers, a few tank cars and quite a few boxcars on the head end, with about six or seven loaded NBSR chip cars and about a dozen empty NBSR log cars trailing. There were no autoracks nor any intermodal equipment.

I used my new camera to shoot the train and I was pretty pleased. I had it on continuous shooting and it performed well, except I need to remember to pan with the train to keep the focus. Still, it performed well in the dark rainy day.