Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Winnipeg 360 (Part 1)

You may have gathered that Winnipeg has a lot of railway tracks. I thought I'd give a quick tour of the railway lines radiating out from Winnipeg. There are so many lines that I have broken them into two parts.

Imagine you're driving on the Trans-Canada Highway from the east. If you didn't want to go into Winnipeg, you would get onto Highway 101, the Perimeter Highway going west around the south end of Winnipeg.

1. The first rail line you would encounter would be the overpass here as you exit highway 1 and get onto highway 101. This is CN's Sprague subdivision.

2. Continuing on highway 101 southwestward, you would encounter a level crossing here, which is CP's Emerson subdivision heading almost due south to the border with North Dakota.


3. After crossing the tracks, you would pass a few exits before coming to the Pembina Highway overpass, which also crosses over CN's Letellier subdivision, which also goes to North Dakota.

4. After this, the Perimeter Highway turns west and crosses CP's La Riviere subdivision (pronounced lare-iveer) here at grade. There is a gas plant right on the highway that sees a lot of tank car traffic.


5. The road turns north and crosses the CEMR Carman subdivison at grade here.


6. CEMR's crossing is in sight of the Wilkes Avenue overpass, which crosses the two-track CN Rivers subdivision here.

Typically you would then exit a little north and continue west through Headingley on your way to Portage la Prairie and beyond.

In summary, you would cross CN Sprague, CP Emerson, CN Letellier, CP La Riviere, CEMR Carman, and CN Rivers.

In part 2 we will continue the 360 degree circuit of Winnipeg from here. We're not quite halfway around.

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