Meeting Place

Late in the afternoon of February 29, I was rolling down Wilkes Avenue in Winnipeg to see if there were any trains about. As it happened, I overtook a westbound freight train (CN 301) with CN 5761 on the head end. I got ahead of them and shot them coming around the bend at Carman Junction.


Note the yellow-over-red Clear to Stop signal (rule 411) on the north track.

I jumped back into my car and headed west, intending to shoot them again somewhere near Diamond. I heard that another train was coming east so I headed to Hall Road just west of the Perimeter Highway. I pulled up near the crossing and jumped out to wait for the trains.

Hall Road is a good place to shoot eastbounds because it is wide open to the west. It is not good for westbounds because there are buildings close to the tracks on the south (sun) side. You have to step pretty close to the tracks to get a shot without all the junk on the right.... not safe when a train is coming! One could always cross the tracks and shoot from the north, but then you are shooting against the sun and that only works on cloudy days.

I saw that the signal facing the eastbound container train was a single flashing yellow light. If I'm correct, this is Advance Clear to Stop (rule 415) meaning the next signal is displaying Clear to Stop. The next signal for that train would be at St. James Junction so they had a few miles before having to stop.

Very soon the container train approached. It turns out this was CN 196, with CN 2264 on the head end.


Fortunately I was close enough to get the meet with my 55-250mm lens. I stepped in to get a few shots then retreated from the crossing before the train was too close.


I took off west to get one more shot of CN 5761 before giving up. As I headed out I saw CN 2335 pushing on the end of train 196, seen in between the cars of train 301.

Here's a closeup of CN 5761 approaching Diamond.


Grubby CN 2629 was the second unit behind 5761, and they had a GP38 as a third unit, CN 4790.

Here you can see they had a red-over-green-over-red signal. This one actually is Limited-to-Clear (rule 416), because there is an "L" plate on the signal mast.