14 Miles and 5 Trains

Last time, Thomas Sajnovic and I were in Portage la Prairie in the morning of May 3. We had just decided to head back to Winnipeg via the Trans-Canada Highway, and therefore have a CN railfan opportunity.

We headed east, and I had to stop in Oakville to check out the grain elevator... again.

Onward... we ducked into Elie so I could show him the station-turned-house there. A train was heading west through town as we approached the crossing. Missed it by that much!

Onward again... we approached Headingley and I decided to cut up White Plains Road to rejoin the CN Rivers subdivision at mile 20. I was hoping that driving alongside 10 miles of CN two-track main line would yield a train or two. We weren't disappointed!

Almost immediately we spotted a headlight to the east. We stopped and nabbed this four-engine train led by CN 2676.

Note the old ties alongside the track, courtesy of the track replacement CN is doing along the Rivers sub this spring.

Proceeding a little further east, we came across an eastbound train stopped short of Diamond, on the south track. It turned out to be our friend CN 2679, seen in Portage la Prairie earlier that morning! After two hours they had managed to travel 40 miles...

Sadly they were destined to wait a while longer. The next westbound train to pass them (after CN 2676, above) was a train led by some interesting power.

CN 5303, looking pretty shabby, led shiny CN 5261 and a mixed freight train. 5261 is shiny because it was one of the locomotives in CN's recent propane-powered test.

The crew of 2679 were on the ground for the rollby inspection.

I decided to slow things down to show which train was actually moving...

A shutter speed of 1/25s blurred things nicely. I think I was using my monopod (more on that in another post) to keep things steady.

After that, we proceeded east while CN 2679 simmered away. Between Hall Road and the Perimeter I spotted another westbound, so a quick U-turn brought us back to Hall Road to catch CN 5641 and CN 2237 pass one of John Deere's finest.

We were feeling pretty good about the Rivers sub at this point!

I spied what I thought was another headlight to the east, and sure enough, we were fortunate to catch just one more train, east of Carman Junction.

CN 2674 and IC 2714 were on the head end, and CN 2531 was pushing on the rear.

"The End"

Thanks to Thomas Sajnovic for the great company! And thanks to CN and CP for sending out the good trains! ;)

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