First off, here's a train parked on the north track of the CN Rivers subdivision around mile 10.5 on January 25th. For that matter, it was there on the 26th too.
Why? Well... there was this little wee derailment on CN at Fabyan a little west of Wainwright, Alberta. 17 cars fell off a high bridge and closed the mainline for several days. During this time, CN sent some traffic over their north line and also over CP. They also parked a number of trains in anticipation of the line opening. VIA turned the Canadian at Edmonton and Winnipeg and either flew or bussed the passengers in between.
This train had CN 8938 and ex-BNSF CN 2152 on the head end.
Back a ways was CN 2227 and CN 8861 as DPU engines, idling away. 2227 was smoking away. I wonder how much fuel was burned by this train as it sat there, idling.
If I had to guess, I'd say this was CN 347 but it's just a guess.
The Fabyan bridge is here. It's quite an impressive structure. I mean, it's no Salmon River but it's big enough.
The bridge was reopened at 05:40 on Friday January 27 and the traffic started flowing again.
2 comments:
Steve,
I was to depart on VIA # 2, from Edmonton January 25th. I received an e-mail from VIA on the 24th indicating the disruption to service, between Edmonton and Winnipeg.
VIA offered passengers to stay on board the train in Edmonton the evening of the 25th and be flown the next morning to Winnipeg, to continue the train journey east.
Since I was visiting family and had flexibility with time, I rebooked to leave Edmonton on January 30th, at 2345 hrs. # 2 was late into Edmonton, thus the train departed 0120 hrs January 31st.
I was awake prior to the train crossing the Fabyan bridge......actually the train waited for a length of time west of the bridge before moving east. I thought I could discern a covered hopper in the valley below the bridge......the night light was quite clear.
As to compare with the Salmon River N.B. trestle, the Fabyan is about 200 feet high which matches Salmon River, but in length, with the Salmon River's approixmate 4800feet, is shorter.
I should also mention, on the headend of VIA # 2 which I travelled, there were two bi-level domes from the Rocky Moutaineer......located between the Units in the train consist. I understand there were heading east to Montreal for maintenence purposes. I took several pictures of the cars during the trip and will download soon.
Thanks Brian for commenting. I'm glad you had the flexibility to rebook. One of these days I am going to have to ride the Canadian.
I rarely catch VIA 2 since it arrives at night in Winnipeg, but I have seen some RMR cars on VIA 1 going back home. Were the Rocky Mountaineer cars in their new paint or were they perhaps going east for repainting?
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