Return to Tranquille

Previous posts: A Tranquille Afternoon, A Rocky Mountaineer evening, and Into the Mountains, Briefly.

On May 12th I went to the excellent Kelly's Kaboose shop after work. This model train / antique store is located in downtown Kamloops, BC. They have a great selection of model train equipment, lots of railway paperwork (my favourite!) and lots of other interesting items like signs, photos, and other railway memorabilia. I highly recommend the store. I walked away with a selection of BC railway timetables to fill out my collection.

When I stepped out of the store, I saw a Rocky Mountaineer bus unloading passengers at a nearby hotel. I hadn't really intended on seeing the Rocky this evening but hey, since I was only a couple of blocks away...

They were parked with the locomotives under the Red Bridge again. All of the passengers were gone and the staff were packing things up prior to the train heading over to the shops. A worker was walking along the train disconnecting the power lines between cars. He told me it was to speed up the switching they were going to do in the shop area once the train got over there.

In good time they pushed back and I shot the train passing the station.

Hey, if you want to do me a favour, go vote for your favourite Rocky Mountaineer photos at moments.rockymountaineer.com - mine are here and here and here and here.

I did a quick jaunt over to the Mission Flats Road area and found CP 3074 waiting at CP Benledi near the Domtar plant.

By the way - there's a nude beach in the area. ;) On a previous visit I was driving past the Domtar plant when I saw two quite naked people walking back to their cars from the park area. Not something you see in Winnipeg!

It was time to head back to Tranquille again. Passing the airport I spied a westbound freight headed by CN 8868. I quickly bagged it before continuing on.

I easily beat them to Tranquille, where they rounded the bend before the crossing.

While I was watching the train, a water bomber flew overhead, so I had to grab that too.

This is a Convair CV580 water tanker, owned by Conair Aerial Firefighting.

As the train rolled by, I noticed a CP eastbound potash train across the water.

Apologies for the photo quality - it was 2.5 km away and hazy in the heat. Lightroom CC's dehaze feature helped a bit.

Notice that the CP train is going through a little tunnel. Here's a Google satellite view of the short tunnel, which is about 80m long.

As the westbound CN train rolled by, and the eastbound CP train rolled by, a third train entered the scene - CN 5652 East, with BCOL 4616 trailing.

Here you are - three trains in one photo.

The CP freight had a pusher on the rear.

Speaking of DPUs, CN 8868 West had a mid-train DPU, CN 2200.

After all of that excitement, I was done for the night.

For my last second-last post from this Kamloops visit, I will visit the Rocky Mountaineer one more time, plus show some downtown Kamloops CP action. Read on!

A Morning in Portage la Prairie

I am normally a "lone wolf" railfan. I find my time to railfan when I can so it's difficult for me to arrange to meet up with anyone else to see trains, plus when I'm alone I get to decide where to go! So when Thomas Sajnovic messaged me to ask if I was available, I hesitated for a moment and decided "what the heck!" Tom was in town doing some training with CN and we arranged to go out on Sunday, May 3rd. I picked him up at 6 AM and we headed over to the CP yard to start.

The usual collection of old Geeps were by the shops.

CP 8231 and company in Winnipeg

CP 8231 and several other GP9s are for sale, "as is where is".

We stood and watched for a few minutes. I spotted a BNSF unit over by the now-closed Rugby Tower. I took this poor shot and then we hopped in the car to try to get a better angle. Of course, by the time we drove around, two CP locomotives had hooked onto it and were pushing it into the shop area as I tried to stop to photograph it. No picture for you!

BNSF 8235 in Winnipeg

We consoled ourselves with photographing a pair of switchers in the nice sunrise light.

Big stacks on those locomotives!

After that, we headed over to the Prairie Dog Central to get a couple of shots before proceeding to Portage la Prairie.

The PDC had all three of its diesels out.

The Prairie Dog Central fleet

BNSF 1685 is the last Burlington Northern Manitoba Limited locomotive (ex BNML 2). It was donated to the PDC in July 2010. The green loco is 4138 which has been with the PDC for quite a while. The new arrival is 5232, the striped locomotive on the right.

Ex CN, ex CCGX 5232

Long time readers of the blog will recognize this as ex CCGX 5232, which worked for the Central Manitoba Railway (CEMR) for several years. I first spotted 5232 in September 2009 when she was still lettered as ANY 5232, ex Athabasca Northern. I've written about 5232 many times.

A volunteer who was around at this early hour told me that 5232 was acquired to work on the PDC's car storage business. This six axle power will pull a lot more than the Geeps!

The volunteer - sorry, I can't recall his name - invited us to have a look at #3, the PDC's steam engine. It was still warm from a run the previous night.

Being in the shade, it was a little difficult to photograph. I did the best I could.

A couple of CP westbound trains rolled by while we were chatting. 

Once we were done at the PDC, we hit the road for Meadows and beyond. I had to pause briefly at Meadows to shoot yet another photo of the grain elevator...

Then we carried on to Marquette - no grain elevator there any more, of course - and on toward Portage la Prairie. While traveling the back roads near Poplar Point, I spotted this grain elevator at a (Mennonite?) colony.

I spotted this nice barn near there too.

Anyway, we finally made it to Portage la Prairie. Tom spotted a rail grinder moving on the CP tracks, so we made our way over there and found LIMX 3411 tying up.

Sadly LIMX 3411 derailmed in Portage the day after we saw it.

While admiring this magnificent piece of equipment, I spotted movement on the CP... and I spotted yellow UP engines! We sprinted for the tracks to capture UP 3556 and UP 3645 leading CP 9562 and a grain train.

While we were admiring that train, Tom spotted movement on the CN side, so over we went! This was CN 2679 leading an intermodal train east.

CN 8877 was about 3/4 of the train back, providing DPU power.

That's the best part of railfanning Portage - action on both tracks!

That train finished going past us at 09:02. We decided to go see the CP station. After we arrived there, we spotted a westbound train on the CN at 09:15. CN 2200 led 8838 and 8901 past the station.

The station is looking good! A big shout out to everyone working to restore the station.

I like the ex Manitoba Hydro locomotive.

I'm guessing it was nicknamed "Snoopy".

CP 3111 was the resident switcher in the CP yard.

After those three trains in Portage, there was a lull. We decided to head back to Winnipeg via the Trans-Canada, which meant there was a potential for CN action... and there was! To be continued...

Other Portage la Prairie posts

Portage Junction Tuesday

I wanted to shoot the Hudson Bay VIA 693 on Tuesday, but I was bored with the usual Wilkes Avenue shots. I decided to head to Portage Junction by Fort Rouge to get a different angle.

Workers are hard at work on the Southwest Rapid Transit Corridor and much has changed in Fort Rouge. One beneficial thing for railfans is that they have built a large mound of earth near the Junction that is great to stand on to shoot trains. Previously it was hard to get a shot over the fence separating the tracks from the rest of the area, but now you can stand on the hill and easily shoot over the fence.

The Winnipeg Free Press just released an article about the corridor and it looks like the photographer was standing on the same mound.

First up was a westbound container train. I didn't catch the number but it was headed by CN 2283 and BCOL 4653.


I understood that CN 112 and VIA 693 were both going to pass the location around the same time, and I was concerned that the freight train would block my view of the VIA train. Fortunately, VIA came just before CN 112 did.

I like the composition of this photo but the focus is soft.


Here comes VIA 6452!


They went around the bend at Portage Junction to meet CN 112, who was coming east on the south track.


CN 112 had CN 2200 on the head end.


CN 2260 was pushing hard on the tail end. There were no other engines on the train.


Look, I even included the Tim Hortons sign in the shot. Now you know it's Canadian!