Negotiations and Love Songs

It's a great album.

We had a little family trip to Saskatchewan back at the end of August / beginning of September, 2012. I negotiated a few hours of railfanning on the morning of September 2, so I hit the road at sunrise to get as much railfanning as I could in before my time was up. The sunrise was so awesome that I didn't even reach the end of the driveway before I started taking pictures.

Anyway, I finally did get moving. We were staying in Pense, SK just west of Regina.

Pense, SK

After photographing the grain elevator (again), I decided to head west to Moose Jaw and see what was up in the yard. I didn't see anything moving on the line and I started circling the yard, shooting as I went.

There was the usual collection of SD40-2s, AC4400CWs, and so forth, as well as long-time resident SW1200 CP 1251.


You can view all the engines I saw in Moose Jaw here.

On the west side of the shop buildings, CP 1536 and CP 1554 were shunting some tank cars whilst a CP freight was sitting in the yard.


There was quite a collection of locomotives parked on the west side of the shops. I believe this is where locomotives go to die... or at least wait for repair.

I photographed this odd Viterra elevator in Moose Jaw. I assume the giant concrete structure was built after the wooden annex but I really don't know.

I left the immediate downtown area and started spiraling out, in search of elevators and anything else I hadn't photographed before. I found this Viterra concrete monstrosity west of town.

I found a place where a CP line crosses over CN.

The crossing is mile 42.02 on the CN Central Butte subdivision.

Note the Cargill grain elevator in the distance. That's where the CN line goes, and ends. The CP line is the CP Outlook subdivision.

I started to head back to Pense after that. I had a bit of time and remembered that the Canadian Trackside Guide mentioned a caboose at Pasqua, so I took the time to stop there. Pasqua is where the CP Weyburn subdivision diverges from the CP Indian Head subdivision and heads southeast to the US border.

I found the caboose easily enough - together with a decrepit train station.

I'd say the caboose was in better shape than the station appeared to be. The station is not original to Pasqua but was moved there quite a few years ago.

The caboose is clearly ex-CN as the "wet noodle" is visible under the cupola.

There was another caboose in Pasqua... a maintenance-of-way crummy.

CP 434646 and cars were parked on the beginning of the Weyburn subdivision.

PS - Here's quite a few photos of the near ghost town of Pasqua, by Mike Stobbs.

A Visit to the CP Winnipeg Yards

I had a couple of hours to kill Sunday afternoon (Feb 21). Of course my mind turned to railfanning. I decided to go see what was up in CP's yards downtown, since I see a lot more CN in my travels than CP.

I first went to see the shops, visible from the field off Gallagher Street off Logan Avenue. There were quite a few locomotives there, but the most notable was old SW1200 CP 1251. I didn't see much of it as it was behind the CP 1127-3027 set. Olympic CP 8864 was there as well.

While I was watching, a switching crew brought old friend CP 5756 and a string of freight cars past.


Soon enough, a container train rolled in from the north side of the yard with CP 9566, CP 9592, and shiny blue CEFX 3184 (an ex-BN SD40-2) for power. I had a good look at them before CP 5756 came back with their cars to block the view.


After that, I drove over to the Arlington Street bridge and took a walk on the east side to shoot some of the power at the fuel stand. There were a few pairs of switchers working the yard, including a few SOO units - sadly repainted to CP red. I like the white SOO scheme.

Of course, the usual crowd of pigeons was around. Strange to see them on autoracks... normally they are on the grain cars.


A couple of switcher pairs rolled under the bridge and I scrambled to shoot them. I haven't processed that video yet but they will be up on my YouTube account soon.

As always, you can go to my railway database to see the complete list of engines I saw on Sunday.