A Heck of a Morning

I went out early on Sunday, March 18th (2018) to see some trains and grain elevators. I really wanted to photograph a grain elevator at sunrise. It turned out that it was overcast so there really wasn't a sunrise. No worries - the trains still move and the elevators are still there!

I decided to head toward Gregg and Harte on the CN Rivers subdivision. I was considering an overhead shot from the overpass by the Harte grain elevator. I headed out around 6:15 AM, before the sun came up.

Bloom

I drove past Portage la Prairie to Bloom, by the new G3 elevator. I saw there was a train in the 134-car loop track. I pulled off the highway to take a few photos when I noticed a green signal facing west, and a headlight in the distance to the east. I set up my tripod to capture the action.

The sun was still below the horizon, so it was long-exposure time! A 2.5 second exposure captured the gate coming down, the train in the loop track, and the green-over-red signal.

Dropping the gate

21 seconds later, here's the train smearing through the scene. See anything unusual about the signal?

Smeeeeeaarrr

Both the green and red are lit in the top signal! The long exposure captured both the green signal at the start of the photo and the red that came on after the locomotives passed the signal. By the way, the train had CN 2428 and CN 2153 leading, not that you can tell from the photo!

Once the train passed, I spent a few minutes photographing the train and elevator. The train was periodically inching forward to line up the next hatch under the spout. That must be a boring job!

CN 5730 and CN 5667 loading grain at Bloom

Gregg

The ex Manitoba Pool grain elevator at Gregg

I arrived at the Gregg grain elevator after an hour of driving. The ex Manitoba Pool grain elevator looked pretty much the same as when I saw it in May 2014. The equipment off to the side has changed - upgrades, I guess!

I took some photos of the elevator, then wandered around Gregg, photographing the nearby Kerfoot Church, the old school and an old barn. You can see those photos in my guest post on Everybody Has To Be Somewhere - a great blog.

No trains were around, so I headed west along the grid roads toward Harte.

As I drove along, I encountered a north-south railway track.

Petrel Junction

Looking toward Petrel Junction

This was the first road crossing of the CN Carberry subdivision, which branches off from the Rivers subdivision at Petrel Junction. In the photo above, you can see the Rivers sub left-right across the horizon.

The Carberry subdivision runs from here south through its namesake town, Carberry. South of the town, it takes a hard right to head west past CFB Shilo into Brandon where it meets the Cromer subdivision. This branch line serves the McCain plant in Carberry, the extensive Canexus plant in Brandon, and the spur at CFB Shilo.

Petrel

There's a little two track "yard" at Petrel just south of the road I was on. It's a pretty lonely place.

I kept driving west, and as I approached Harte, I saw an eastbound train! I found a north-south road and beat it up to a crossing to capture the approaching intermodal train.

Leaser

Long train on the lonely prairie

There's something about seeing such a big, long train on the open prairie. Even a ten-thousand foot long train looks pretty small when there's nothing around but a few gravel roads, the occasional house, and a whole lot of emptiness.

Anyway. CN 3028 was the power on the head end of this train. I assumed there would be another locomotive farther back in the train to provide a little more motive power. I know CN is pretty stingy with locomotives, but it's a lot to ask one locomotive to pull a train like this!

Note the Harte grain elevator at the far left of the photo above.

My trusty vehicle, Railfan Two

My little 2014 Honda Civic has been on a lot of these grid roads. I bought it in February 2014. Later that summer, I said to my wife, only half-jokingly, that more than half of the first 5,000 km on the car was spent on gravel roads.

Soon the mid-train locomotive came into view. I was quite excited to see that it was not a normal CN locomotive.

Not a CN locomotive!

This was one of the recent batch of locomotives leased by CN. This one is CREX 1501, an ES44AC owned by Citicorp Railmark Inc. (Citirail). It's pretty new!

CREX 1501 rolling through the crossing

Harte

Harte grain elevator

After the train passed, I continued on to Harte. There is an ex Manitoba Pool grain elevator here, and a few houses just south of the tracks.

The shots above and below are from the (rare) overpass over the tracks. I am not sure why a middle-of-nowhere place like Harte warrants an overpass where other, more major roads like highway 5 have a grade crossing over the same railway line. It's a mystery.

Guess which track is the main line and which is the siding.

There was no sign of any more trains, and my time was running out, so I headed up to nearby Oberon to visit my favourite grain elevator before starting my trip back to Winnipeg.

I did see this neat old brick house in Harte itself. It looks like it is occupied and well maintained.

Oberon

The Oberon grain elevator

Whenever I'm in the area, I always try to see Oberon. It's my favourite grain elevator in Manitoba.

I carried on down highway 5, and saw a train sitting down by the Gregg elevator... so, back to Gregg.

Gregg, Again

Cooling their heels in the siding at Gregg

CN 8830 West was sitting in the siding. "Death star" IC 1007 was the trailing unit. I like those black Illinois Central locomotives.

IC 1007 in the siding in Gregg

After about 15 minutes, another westbound train came rolling along on the main track. CN 5712 West rolled on past, pulling another couple of miles of containers, while the crew of 8830 were on the ground, giving it a careful rollby inspection.

Side by each

I didn't hang around to watch 8830 leave... time was running out for me.

I headed south on highway 5 to the Trans-Canada Highway, then east toward Winnipeg.

The CP line along the Trans-Canada is usually a disappointment... it sure was when I headed west earlier in the morning, but on the way back, it produced one train.

Near Austin

A really bad photo of CP 9772 West

Unfortunately, they were coming out of the mid-morning sun and I was on the wrong side of the tracks. I pulled over and grabbed a few shots, expecting them to be pretty awful. Look at that sky!

CP 9772 was the lead unit, with UP 7889 in second position and CP 8792 well back in the train. The going away shot was just as bad.

Oh well.

As I approached Winnipeg, I left the highway to travel along the road paralleling the CN main line from about mile 18 to mile 10 of the CN Rivers subdivision. One last chance to get more trains... and CN didn't disappoint.

Another Leaser

Wrapping around the curve

The Rivers sub is pretty straight, but there is a curve around mile 16 that is a favourite for railfans. I caught up to this eastbound and shot it coming around the bend. Cowl unit CN 2421 was leading, but what was that behind it?

GECX 9144 up close and personal

It was GECX 9144, an ex CSX Dash-8. Another leaser... and a lot older than the first one I saw that morning. It was originally built for Conrail as CR 6244 in June 1994. It became CSX 7379 and recently joined the GE rental fleet.

The train was plodding along, so I was able to get ahead of it for a few more shots... and a video.

Clearly ex CSX

Here's the video of the train pounding the diamond at CN Diamond.

That was the end of my railfanning... a great morning of trains and grain elevators.

Speaking of trains and grain elevators, Eric Gagnon's two new books are well under way. Follow their progress at https://trainsandgrains.blogspot.ca/

BNSF Runthroughs

I mentioned in a previous post that I saw a BNSF engine on the Canadian side of the border at Emerson, Manitoba, and that BNSF has started running power through into Manitoba. I'm going to talk a bit more about that now.

BNSF Manitoba services a number of industries in Winnipeg. One of their major industries is the Paterson elevator at Lilyfield, at the northwest corner of Winnipeg, off Inkster Boulevard. I mentioned this before.


Here's a Google Map view of the area.
The "racetrack" in the middle is the loop track serving the concrete Paterson elevator. It is reachable by CN from mile 11.0 of the Oak Point subdivision (shared with the nearby Prairie Dog Central at this point) and by CP from mile 8.3 of the Carberry subdivision. The odd thing is that BNSF Manitoba has the contract to serve the elevator.

What has happened in the past is that CN brings the traffic up to the Fort Rouge yard on CN 533, then either CN takes it from there to Lilyfield using running rights over CP, or BNSF Manitoba takes it from Fort Rouge to hand off to CP who takes it the rest of the way.

What is happening now is that BNSF is occasionally running unit grain trains with their locomotives on the train to Noyes, Minnesota. There it is picked up by CN crews and run up the CN Letellier subdivison as CN 533, onto the CN Rivers subdivision/CN Reddit subdivision to Symington Yard. There the engines are put on the other end and it proceeds to the Paddington interchange in St. Boniface onto CP track, through the CP yard and the CP Carberry subdivision to the CN Oak Point subdivision. It is run by CN crews in Manitoba the entire way. Thanks to Mark Perry for the information.

On Saturday I was heading west on the Bishop Grandin Boulevard when I spotted a train (CN 533) heading slowly north on the CN Letellier subdivision. I took Pembina Highway north to try to get ahead of the train. I went all the way up to Portage Junction before I spotted the power - 4 BNSF engines! A quick exit onto Jubilee to Osborne did the trick, and I was able to get to the area near the new rapid transit bus station before they did. After less than a minute, BNSF 7630 led the parade.

The engineer was kind enough to open his window to stick his arm out and give me a wave. I appreciate that!

Next was BNSF 5498. I saw this unit in Grand Forks back in 2010.


The third engine was BNSF 1007, with graffiti on the side. It's very rare to see an operating engine with graffiti.


Bringing up the rear of the consist was BNSF 4856. You can see the bus station to the right.


TaylorOver9001 filmed the same train just south of Portage Junction.

A BNSF unit train was first spotted on February 4 (photo in Morris, Manitoba). Another BNSF engine was spotted on February 12 just outside Winnipeg.

I understand there is a possibility that BNSF Winnipeg crews could be operating these unit trains in the future. In December 2013 the Canadian Transportation Agency ruled on an application for interswitching by Richardson International for their Red River South elevator outside Letellier, MB, based on a 1912 agreement between the Midland Railway and the Canadian Northern, predecessors to BNSF Manitoba and CN respectively. CN was ordered to interswitch traffic for the elevator at Emerson. I don't fully understand the ramifications except that interswitching rates are regulated and are lower than commercial rates, so CN would be paid less. CN has appealed.

I would love to read the details of the 1912 agreement. The CTA ruling has some interesting quotes which seem to imply that BNSF could haul directly from the Red River South elevator into North Dakota but could not do local switching along the route, nor bring traffic from that elevator to Winnipeg. Maybe it's good that I am not a lawyer.