Saturday, December 06, 2008

Three Hours at McGivney

Matt invited me to go up to McGivney early this morning prior to going to the Fredericton model train show. I thought this was a great idea, and hit the road at the wee hour of 05:41. Precisely 40 minutes later I was pulling up next to Matt's car.

The signals were green over red facing east and we were expecting CN 121 at any moment. We spoke for a few minutes and then we heard the rumble of approaching engines. At 06:30 CN 121 blew through with 4 engines leading 103 cars.


My video camera has a night shot mode. If you look at Matt's video, you can see a slight difference from mine, but I wouldn't say it made a huge difference. It's still dark!

After that, we retired to my car and I bored him with photo albums. ;) At about 07:30 a CN hi-railer pulled up and the crew went into the depot. Normally the MOW crew only works Monday-Friday, but new this winter CN will have 7 days/week MOW coverage. Hopefully that will keep the trains on time!

Matt knew one of the sectionmen, and they were very friendly and told us we should expect CN 305 after 09:00 and nothing after that for quite some time. A big shout out to Tim and Frank!

Sure enough, by 09:00 we were told CN 305 was past Bantalor. Matt and I set up in the field and waited, and at 09:05 they rolled past with CN 2655, 2569 and 5385 for power.


They had a very interesting load right behind 5385.

The crane is owned by Amherst Crane Rentals of Scarborough, Ontario.


I wanted to get a side shot since the sun was still low in the east, and by shooting fairly side-on the sun would not bother the video. I quite liked how it turned out with the glints off the cars.

Matt took a more oblique shot. I think his video is sharper than mine.


After 305 got the rollby inspection, the CN crew got on the rails and headed west.


Matt and I packed up, and headed for the train show. It was a good morning.

1 comment:

Saintjohnrailfan said...

Anything but boring, Steve. I enjoyed looking that those old photos from the 80's and early 90's.

I could have showed you my photos, but it wouldn't have taken long to show you my 10 photos taken over the last few months ;)