Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th was... interesting.

I went out to the CN Symington area in the afternoon to see what was going on. CN 8896 was putting train 346 together.


It seemed clear that CN 346 was going to have a DPU engine. This appears to be fairly normal for 346. Out of the eight CN 346s I've seen, four have been DPU.

CN 8961 and blue BCOL 4646 were in the intermodal area of the yard... surrounded by poles, so no photos.

I heard CN 190 was ready to leave Transcona yard, so I headed up there. On the way I thought I would try to catch it crossing the Floodway. You may remember I got a blah shot at Dugald because I couldn't get to the Floodway in time. In this case CN 190 was just starting, so I hoped I could get there before they got up to speed.

I drove down Dugald Road, crossed the Floodway, and then made a quick U-turn at Deacon Road to get on the right side of the road. I drove up to the Floodway again and parked off the road, then hiked across toward the bridge. I heard CN 190 blowing for the first crossing (Ravenhurst Street) so I was on time.

I fired off a few shots with my long lens as they crossed the Perimeter and then changed lenses "on the fly" to my wide angle lens.


I was pleased with the light and the sky... isn't it purty?


The engineer gave me a nice wave as CN 8906 and CN 5737 pulled past me.


I watched the train roll by, then headed back to Symington. I could see that CN 346 was ready to roll out.

As I watched, CN 2341 brought a train off the Sprague subdivision by itself. I did some heavy editing to the backlit photo to bring you this:


I noted one of the humpyard sets was CN 7530 / CN 517 / CN 501 / CN 7511.

I took off southward to shoot CN 346 "on the road". I wanted to get them at speed, so I went a few miles south to a crossing at mile 139.86 on the Sprague subdivision. That's about 5.3 miles from Navin at the end of Symington Yard, and a mile or so short of Lorette siding.


As I said, CN 346 had CN 8896 on the head end. The second engine was CN 2221 and the DPU engine was CN 2203.

After they rolled by, Friday the 13th struck and my car wouldn't start! I've had that problem once or twice before. After sitting there cursing for about 5 minutes, I did get it to start and off I went. Hopefully that won't happen again anytime soon!

A Subway Sandwich

On Saturday, December 3, I was driving around Winnipeg just after noon, looking for trains. I first drove around CP's yard downtown, finding a few engines here and there but nothing too interesting. The most interesting unit was CP 5911, an SD40-2 bearing a full height multimark.


Stifling a yawn, I drove down to Main Street... and spied a Park car sticking out of the VIA Rail station. This surprised me, because it was 12:40 and the Canadian should have left at noon. I decided to head over to CN Subway quickly to catch the Canadian.

Subway is at the north end of the CN Fort Rouge yard, and is accessible to railfans from the Co-Op gas station parking lot on Osborne Street just south of the CN overpass over Osborne.

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I waited for the Canadian, but the first piece of "bread" in this Subway "sandwich" was CN 190, with Dash-9 engines CN 2638 and IC 2713. They rolled by at 12:55.


I waited... and waited... and finally the "meat" of the sandwich was delivered. VIA 6417 and VIA 6432 lead the Canadian past the under-construction BRT station over Osborne at 13:15, on the north track.


I shot the Canadian, and as I was getting into my car to leave, I heard the hum of approaching engines. The other piece of "bread" was CN 199, pursuing the Canadian but on the south track. Dash-9s IC 2719 and CN 2680 were the engines on the head end at 13:19.


By that time I had my "fill" of trains, so I headed out... until the evening's CP Holiday Train at least!

PS - I suppose I could have titled this post YAD9 for "Yet Another Dash 9" but it wasn't very clever.