Banff

On August 8, when I was waiting for the Rocky Mountaineer, I took the time to shoot some photos around the Banff train station.

Here are the Rocky Mountaineer passengers milling about, waiting for their train.

Farther down are the two resident snowplows, CP 400762 and CP 400840.

CP 400840 is a grand old plow, built in February 1926 and "RCD" (reconditioned?) in August 1978. Its friction bearing trucks were repacked in October 1997 according to the stenciling on the side. With those bearings it cannot be interchanged, but that's no big deal. Why would you ever interchange a snowplow with another railway?

I like the stenciling on the crew door: "NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT ON BUSINESS". What, this isn't the party plow?

You would think CP 400762 is a newer plow, given that it has roller bearing trucks. But no, it was built in March 1911. It does look freshly repainted.

The train station itself is pretty impressive on the outside. I wish the light was better when I was there.

Finally, here are two of CP's vacuum trucks, dedicated to sucking up all the spilled grain from leaking grain cars. I read recently that CP has been refurbishing their grain cars to fix the bottom hatches. Hopefully this will reduce the amount of leakage and prevent feeding animals from being killed on the tracks.