The 2014 CP Holiday Train

I saw the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train in Winnipeg last night. You might remember I saw the combined Canadian-US train in mid-November. CP 2246 was the leader then and it was the leader of the Canadian portion last night.

I arrived at the site off Molson Street just after 8:30 PM and it was already very busy there. I parked a block away and walked down to the west side of the "parking area" to video the train arriving. There was a pretty good crowd there but they thinned out as the train approached. I must say the volunteers weren't really keeping people off the tracks as well as past years. Here's the train arriving:
Once the train stopped, most people went to watch the show. I set up to photograph the tail end but I had to wait a bit for people to move before I could get the shot... the theme of the night.

For those who are interested, I locked the camera to ISO 100 to get the best quality then adjusted the shutter speed to suit. This particular photo was a 2 second exposure that ended up being f/4.5.

I changed my camera battery, as the first one succumbed to the -20C temperatures. Batteries don't last long in the cold!

After photographing this end, I walked up past the show to the head end. Here's a really bad photo of the stage... I held my camera up by the tripod to get it above the crowd, with the timer set to fire after a few seconds.

Recall that the stage folds down - this is what it looked like when it was closed in mid November:

Here's a few views of the head end.

I really need to watch out for over exposure and the above photo was a bit over exposed. You notice it at night when the number boards on the loco are too bright and become fuzzy.

I had to hop in front of the camera for a shot. Here I used a flash to light me up and you can see how it light up the "CP" wreath on the front of the locomotive.

Another view with the flash lighting up the CP on the nose.

I chatted with a few local railfans (hi Mark, Larry, Morgan) at the head end while trying to stay warm waiting for the train to leave.

I set up on the other side of the street to video the train leaving. Here's the video... sadly the battery on my camera gave up the ghost and it stopped recording midway through the train.

Here's a video taken by +Taylor Woolston on the other side of the train. I didn't even know he was there!

The train was in Portage la Prairie late this afternoon and is continuing west to Vancouver on December 18. Here's the schedule.

PS - My friend +Lauri Novak discovered that the US version of the Holiday Train was passing near her and got out to see it.  Check out this rear view!