Another Skunk

I often have pretty good luck with train meets. It comes from a little advance notice from signal lights or a scanner, or just dumb luck, but usually I can photograph the meet.

However, on June 28 I did not have that luck.

You may remember that I shot VIA Rail's Canadian. Afterward I waited around a bit because I knew that CN 112 was coming the other way from Diamond. I waited at one of my favourite spots near Carman Junction (here) and soon enough there were headlights visible... to the east!?

It turns out that CN 347 was following VIA 1 out of town on the south track. I watched 347 approach, and then I saw CN 112's headlights to the west. I was wondering where the meet would be, but soon it became obvious that CN 347 would reach me first and block my shot of 112. Drat!

Here's CN 5747 leading train 347.


Notice how bright and clean CN 5747 was... in contrast to dull-looking CN 2114 behind it. Maybe CN 5747 was repainted recently.

Just like that, they were in the way. I didn't even know what power CN 112 had until I was able to glimpse the power through some empty centerbeam flat cars. Fortunately there were a lot of empties.


Here's the video. CN 112 shows up at about 1:40 in the video.


I guess it's true... you can't win them all.

Busy Day

Thursday, July 12 was a busy busy railfanning day. It started at noon when I went out to shoot the Canadian. I went down to my new favourite spot by Carman Junction around mile 8.3 and set up. Soon I realized that there was a CN freight coming east. I was hoping it would not skunk me like a certain previous time, but fortunately it was on the north track. CN 2592 led CN 2609 and a medium-sized intermodal train. I believe it was CN 102.


As the train rolled on past me, I saw a set of headlights in the far distance to the east. Here comes VIA!


The end of the CN train passed and shortly after that, VIA 6413 came around the curve.


Now... here's a funny little picture from the same time. Guess what happened? (answer at bottom of post)


I took a video of the two trains.


After work, I traveled out toward the CN Rivers subdivision again. I saw a container train rolling over route 90, and it turned out to be CN 199. I gave chase, although I figured I would not catch up to it.They met an eastbound train and I caught a glimpse of the head end at Shaftesbury Boulevard as I waited for the light to change.

I continued on westward and 199 got away, but I heard them get a rollby inspection from a train. Curious, I kept going west of Diamond and found CN 112 stopped on the north track. They were waiting for a green light. Here they had just received their light, turned their headlights on, and were preparing to head out.


I took some shots as the head end passed, then jumped in my car and gave chase. It was quite easy to pace them at the start, as they were still pulling hard to get moving. I fired some shots out my side window and ended up with a half-decent pacing shot.


I then pulled up to Hall Road to take video. I thought I had plenty of time but in fact I was a bit rushed and missed a bit of horn noise at the start.


All very exciting, but there was one more train to see! CN 106 was still to come into Winnipeg. Here they are near Diamond.


Here's the video from the same location.


That was quite enough for me, so I headed for home. But wait! There's more... when crossing the CN Letellier subdivision, I saw CN 532 rolling south, so I took a quick exit and shot them as they approached the Perimeter Highway. CN 5532 on 532... love it.


I have no idea why the door was open, except perhaps to provide some cooling for the crew.


Answer to why the VIA photo was so dark: My camera was set to meter on a single point (the center of the lens) and I had pointed it at the headlight. The camera metered for the headlight and so the shot was very underexposed. I like the effect!

July 2

Here's a few photos from July 2. This was a holiday here so after hanging around the house for a while, I loaded the kids up and went out to shoot trains. I headed toward CN's Symington Yard but was distracted by CN 103 rolling into the yard from the CN Sprague subdivision. I shot them just north of the Perimeter near Tinkertown. I didn't have much time to set up and I wanted to try a pan shot. This is the best of them.


Continuing on, I passed the yard and headed up to Transcona. CN 114 was rolling through on the main line, passing CN 112 that was sitting in the siding being refueled. 112 had CN 8899 on the head end.

You can see the grain facility on the left and the Fort Garry hotel in the far distance.

Here's CN 114 passing CN 112.

I really wish I have a better telephoto lens! To be fair, this is shot from a bit over half a kilometre away...

I took another shot as they drew closer.


I decided to chase the train. We headed east along the Dugald Road and were able to get ahead of it. I debated with myself whether I would try a grain elevator shot in Dugald but when I saw a nice field of canola, I knew I wanted to shoot the train with the canola in the foreground. Here it is.


I heard that CN 112 was getting ready to roll, so I took a few photos of it but did not wait around. I wanted to see some CP action. I headed north. All was quiet on CP so I had a quick look at the CEMR yard. I saw that CP 1532 and CP 1594 were parked in the CP North Transcona yard, and CEMR had engine 4000 in front of their shops... but more interesting was CCGX 4010 as viewed through their fence.


I'm no expert but I kinda think this is the end of CCGX 4010.


I last saw her in action just about two years ago:


I returned to the Day Street crossing of CP and saw headlights in the distance to the east. I parked and waited for the train.. and waited.. and waited. It was approaching but taking its sweet old time getting there. Finally it revealed itself to be CP 8761.


That was it for the day. I guess that was enough!

Just in Time

I went out to shoot the Canadian on May 10. VIA has been leaving before noon these days and I knew I was cutting it close. I decided to head west of Kenaston Boulevard and as I turned off Kenaston, I saw VIA 1 rolling along beside me. I got to Shaftesbury Boulevard before them but the light was red. I shot VIA 6410 passing me as I waited at the light.

They met CN 106 coming the other way with CN 8902 and CN 8920! I hit the accelerator and tried to catch up to VIA. Fortunately the Canadian was not going at full track speed and I got ahead of them by Carman Junction, where I hopped out to grab a quick shot of them.

The customary going-away shot, of course...


I got back in my car and pursued, hoping that they would get a stop signal at Diamond. As it turns out, they did not, but they met another train coming east. This was CN 112. I grabbed a few shots of the train as it approached.


I then turned around and headed back east to get far enough ahead that I could shoot video. I slapped the Canon S3 on the ground with my GorillaPod as the tripod, then put the circular polarizer on my Canon T1i and shot CN 8869.


That circular polarizer really makes the colours pop, doesn't it? Compare that to the previous shot of 8869 above and you'll see what a different a polarizer makes on a bright sunny day.

CN 8023 was the trailing unit.


Here's the video. I like the GorillaPod as it is easy to set up and being low to the ground, it gives a different perspective. Its size makes it easy to bring along. If you ever decide to get one, make sure you get the correct type for your camera. The smaller / cheaper GorillaPods will not support the weight of an SLR without tipping over, and are made for compact "point and shoot" cameras.

Clusterf... pack?

I went out at Thursday noon to try to shoot the Canadian near my favourite spot, Diamond. Just after noon I saw my first train, an eastbound intermodal with CN 2679 and CN 2436.



I headed west to set up near Diamond, only to find a container train parked there. It was CN 199, stopped at a red signal on the south track just east of Diamond. The train had CN 8023 and CN 8956 and was completely blocking highway 334 / Hogue Road.



I was a little concerned about seeing the Canadian with the freight in the way, so I waited at the head end for VIA... and waited.  After a bit, the conductor cut the train at the crossing and the head end pulled forward a bit  to clear the crossing. They completed that... and then they got the green light. I'm sure that was frustrating for them. They stuck the train together and took off.

I headed back east, hoping to see the Canadian even though I had not heard anything about it on the scanner. Instead I stumbled across CN 803 heading toward Diamond. They had CN 2236 as the sole power on this train.



I understood they were going to meet CN 112 so I tried to get the meet as close as I could.



CN 112 had CN 8915 and CN 2449. They weren't going very fast so I jumped in the car and got ahead of them before the Perimeter, then shot them there.



By then I was tired of waiting for the Canadian, so I resolved to head out. On my way east on Wilkes I saw one more train, so I took the shot. I don't know the train number but it had CN 2623 and BCOL 4609 on it. I guess I missed that meet with CN 112.



All of these trains were sighted in 40 minutes. I never did see the Canadian. I heard it left about an hour late, without a Park car on the tail end. Obviously they had some kind of issue with it and had to set it off.

A Busy CN Day

August 16 was a busy day of CN watching for me. I started in the morning by driving to Wilkes Avenue by the Perimeter Highway, a little before 8 AM. An east-facing container train was parked on the north track on top of the hotbox detector at mile 10. I went to the head end and saw CN 8910 was the sole power there. This turned out to be CN train #112.

Incidentally, this is my first HDR photo. I took three shots at different exposures and used FDRTools Basic to blend them together. I'll talk more about HDR at another time.

As I was taking shots of 8910, I saw a headlight to the west. After a few minutes, one of the crew from 8910 dismounted to do a rollby inspection. Dual SD75I engines CN 5795 and CN 5688 at the head of train #404 rolled by on the south track. I didn't get a really good shot of the actual passing move but here's train #404. Remember that engine number CN 5795.


Satisfied, I started walking back to my car. As I walked across the tracks at the Charleswood Road crossing, I saw another headlight to the west. I trotted back and took a position to record this new train. I forgot to record this train #. I think it was a 7xx series train. It had SD75I CN 5705 and Dash-8 CN 2407 for power.


That was all that I could see for the time being. I heard of some kind of "traffic tie-up" around Fort Rouge but I wasn't going to go investigate. I headed east on Wilkes, only to find the CEMR train sitting at the end of their track at Carman Junction.

They clearly weren't going anywhere, so I grabbed a few shots and continued on.

I saw one more train! CN #115 was waiting just east of Shaftesbury Boulevard. CN 8811 and CN 8005 started rolling after a few minutes, so I shot them as they passed.

I heard CN #112 finally getting permission to continue on at this point, so 115 and 112 probably met somewhere near Carman Junction.

That was it for the morning... four CN and one CEMR trains in an hour. Not bad.

But wait! There's more! If you keep reading...

On my way home, I headed out via Wilkes and saw CN #301 heading out. It had a single engine for power... the same CN 5795 that came into Winnipeg on train #404. I first shot the train at Carman Junction. Note the signals behind the engine.


I chased west and shot video train 301 a few km east of Diamond. Check the video out... especially the end of the train!


Yes, that is the Herzog multipurpose machine HZGX 185 that I saw back in February.

I think this must be approaching some kind of record for largest # of cars pulled by a single engine on a road freight... 134 cars plus the Herzog set.

Morning Trains

I spent some time in the morning of July 27 near Diamond, just west of Winnipeg. I've been there a lot recently because I like the area. It's wide open so there is little to get between my lens and the train. Also, there is not much car traffic out there. Finally, the train crews have to call the signals approaching Diamond so I hear them on the scanner well before I see them.

The first train I saw was CN 112, with CN 8911 on the head end and CN 8814 pushing on the rear. The top photo shows them passing the east-facing signals just east of the CN-CP diamond.



Right after the train passed, I ran up to the private crossing to shoot CN 8814 going away. Note the lit red marker lights.



About half an hour later, train CN 782 came along. This featured two Dash-8 units, CN 2429 and CN 2432. For this one, I shot from the north side of the tracks for a different perspective. Since it was cloudy, the sun was not an issue.


After about another half an hour, a westbound train came, CN 111 featuring CN 8904 and CN 8856 on the head end and IC 2715 as a DPU engine.


About an hour later, I headed east on Wilkes Avenue but stumbled across this westbound freight train. Three Dash-9 engines were the power: CN 2650, CN 2503 and CN 2671.


But wait... there's more! I also shot an eastbound freight just west of St. James Junction. This one had ex-BC Rail Dash-8 BCOL 4643 leading, with SD75I CN 5792 trailing.


Five trains in just over 2 hours was good enough for me!

CN on Wednesday

I headed home from work Wednesday afternoon, taking the long way along Wilkes to see if I could catch a CN train on the way. As it happens I saw lights in the distance just as I was about to take the Perimeter Highway. It was CN 112 on its way into Winnipeg, with GE ES44DC engine CN 2307 on the point.


The train was all containers, with this CN platform full of wheels.


Surprisingly the only two engines on this long container train were 2307 on the head end and CN 8849 pushing hard on the rear.


Little did I know that VIA 2 was coming. I did hear something about "VIA 2" on the scanner but I thought I misheard it as "CN 1 1 2". In any case I didn't have time to wait around.

Later that day, I went to the Winnipeg slide night. I enjoyed all the presentations, and delivered my own presentation on NB Southern. On my way back home, I noted lights to the east when I crossed the tracks on Shaftesbury Boulevard. I drove west a bit to find a quiet crossing and waited for the train to come. I wanted to try my 50mm lens in the dark. It is quite sensitive to light so I figured it would perform better than the wide angle lens.

As I tweeted, the train (CN 115) had CN 8811 leading, and was 10,702 feet with 156 cars.

The video is shaky, due to the lens' lack of image stabilization, my hand-holding and my shivering! Still, I think the lens is good for night shooting. Next time I'll stand back a bit and put the camera on the tripod.

A GE Kind of Day

I went up to Wilkes Avenue in Winnipeg to shoot the Hudson Bay on Tuesday. I did that, but first I saw a few CN trains... coincidentally with a preponderance of GE ES44DC engines.

First up was CN 304, shot just about at mile 10 on the CN Rivers subdivision. GE ES44DC CN 2221 led ex-BC Rail unit BCOL 4647 and a mixed bag of mostly paper products on the north track.


They passed CN 105, coming west on the south track. 105 was going slow because of track congestion further west. Of course 105 had an ES44DC on the point, CN 2275, but it had an ex-UP Dash 8 trailing, CN 2106.




I drove off before all 11,036 feet of train 105 rolled by. I drove around a bit looking for a nice spot to shoot VIA, and I was surprised to see eastbound headlights when I neared Carman Junction. This was a bit of a grab shot with no time to set the video camera up.

Naturally the leader of this train (CN 112) was a GE ES44DC, CN 2280, and the trailing unit was also a GE, CN 2307, running elephant-style.

After that, I did shoot the Hudson Bay and then headed out. That was enough GE for one day!

EDIT: Corrected second unit on train 304... it was not 4643, it was 4647.