Halifax and the TEST Train

I'm in Halifax for the week, my first trip back to the right coast since I moved to Winnipeg this summer. After my plane landed on Sunday (November 1), I drove into the city and found myself driving to the CN Rockingham yard. Imagine that. I saw a few units at the yard office, notably including CN 9639 and the two-car TEST train. I shot this in the fading light around 5 PM.

The TEST train is CN's Track Evaluation SysTem, which does exactly what it says. They run it along the line and it reports defects in the rails.

Geoff Doane reported that it came into Halifax today as CN train 482. They ran out to Autoport on the end of the Dartmouth subdivision, then backed up to Windsor Junction, then ran to the end of the Bedford subdivision at Halterm (HOT) by the VIA station and turned on the loop track there, before testing the transfer track to Millview and backing to Rockingham.

I took video as it left at 18:50 but I'm not sure how well it will turn out. Night video is tricky and I wasn't really ready.

Also in the yard were CN 4805 and 4725, power for the locals.


At about 19:00 the power for CN 121 came up from Fairview, with CN 5710, CN 5296, CN 2249 and CN 5609. It was too dark to take photos by that time.

I didn't hang around, since I had not had supper yet and I had to check in. I did chat with a couple of AtlanticRails members, Bruce and Doug, before heading out.

I don't know how much time I will have for railfanning while in Halifax... we'll see.