CEMR Car Storage Train

I was heading up the Perimeter Highway late Saturday afternoon when I noticed a CEMR train had just cleared the highway, heading northeast to Carman Junction. I exited at Wilkes Avenue and easily beat them to the Junction. I knew they would have to call the CN RTC for their track warrant. I took a few shots as they approached the junction in the fading light. Ex-CN SD40 ANY 5232 was leading GP9s CEMR 4001 and 4000 and a lot of potash cars.

I waited at the crossing on Wilkes for a while until they finally got going, and took this video with my Canon T1i.

They stopped briefly, for the conductor to dismount and line the switch for the spur track. The train then proceeded onto the mainline and the conductor waited for the entire train to clear before relining the switch for the mainline.

I knew it was going to be a long walk for the conductor in the cold, so I pulled up beside him and offered to give him a lift to the head end. He accepted and hopped in the car, calling the engineer to let him know and to cancel the cab they had ordered. The train continued east at a slow pace.

While I was overtaking the train, he told me that they were pulling all the stored potash cars out of their 600 car storage area south of Carman. Apparently PCS has a big order to fill so they had to get these 100 cars to CN by 6 PM so they could be taken to Melville, Saskatchewan.

I dropped him off at Shaftesbury Boulevard, where he boarded the engines, and I made my way quickly to St. James Junction to shoot the train one more time. You can see that the light was really getting iffy.

I didn't record the entire train because the low battery indicator was blinking and I didn't want the camera to die mid-video. It was OK with my old Sony because it was tape and it would survive, but with these new-fangled SD cards I'm not sure if the camera would be able to close out the MOV file before dying. Why take the chance?

It was nice to see the CEMR again!