NB Southern 2318 East

Sick with cabin fever, I decided to brave the rain and go see a train today. Word was that the eastbound was due to arrive in McAdam at 2 PM, so I left my house at that time to intercept it near Fredericton Junction. My two youngest kids and I arrived at the Junction and did a bit of scouting before settling in at a private crossing just east of the highway crossing at Vespra. Or Rooth. Not sure.

Anyway, it was a long, long wait. I set up my tripod but left my video camera off, because the rain was intermittent and often fairly heavy. We played DVDs and waited... and waited...

Finally my scanner squawked on the EOT channel at 15:59. A few seconds later, I heard the train blow for the highway crossing around the corner. I set the video camera on the tripod and started taping. I grabbed one quick still shot before concentrating on taping.

The consist was 2318, 2610 and 2317 with 41 cars, a mix of empty centerbeam flats, boxcars, tank cars, auto racks, wood chip cars and two doublestack cars on the end.

They rolled on by, and we gave chase. They beat us to the next road crossing, and through Tracy we were neck and neck. I passed them on the 80 km/h stretch and zipped into Fredericton Junction and parked on the far side of the station. I hopped out and taped them handheld as they rolled on by.


The conductor gave a nice wave as they went by. I always feel bad that I can't wave back, but I had two hands on the video camera and I didn't want to shake the picture. Next time.

EDIT: Corrected second engine number.