CN Outside Winnipeg

Typically when I am in Winnipeg, I spend a morning on the CN mainline between highway 90 and highway 42 (aka Kenaston and Pembina). It's OK but I wanted something a little more "wide open" this time, so on August 24 I went west, young man, to the intersection of the Perimeter (the Trans-Canada Highway) and Wilkes Avenue (here).

I arrived there and had a quick look east and west, and an eastbound train was upon me almost before I knew it. CN 5768 and 5276 led a long container train with 144 platforms.


I did a bit of looking east, not finding any good locations, so I went west up Wilkes to highway 334 (Harris Road) near the diamond where CN and CP cross. Here I found some wide-open fields, perfect for what I was looking for. The only problem with this location is that the tracks run almost perfectly east-west, so for morning shots like I was taking the sun is problematic. Westbound trains are coming out of the sun, and eastbound trains get the sun on the nose and not much on the sides.

The next train I saw was eastbound unit train #772 at 09:02, with CN 5637 and 5763 leading 102 CN open-top cars.



Note the stylized P on the side of CN 196526.

Not long after that, another eastbound pounded the diamond at 09:17 with CN 2532 and 2536 pulling another unit train (106 cars), this time grain cars, I believe.



I moved up to the diamond itself after that train, looking for a different angle and wanting to incorporate some signals into my shots.

The next few trains were all westbounds. As one of the CN conductors said on the radio, "Looks like we got ourselves a CONVOY!"

--continued in part 2--

EDIT: Added train number.