Four Days in April, Part 2

CN 2315 meeting CN 2666

In a span of about a week in April, I made a point of getting out and photographing trains. I ended up shooting trains on April 14, 16, 17, 18 and 19, and I am going to share each outing in a separate post.

Monday, April 16th

I had an hour or so to spend railfanning on Monday afternoon, so I went over to the southeast corner of Winnipeg next to the Tinkertown Family Fun Park. CN calls this "Navin" and it's the end of the CN Sprague subdivision, which runs from Rainy River, Ontario through the United States and through Manitoba to Winnipeg.

As I approached the area, I noticed a train was coming into Winnipeg from the east. I drove to Navin to catch it coming into the CN yard.

The track has a few little curves as it comes into Winnipeg, so I elected to photograph it approaching one of those bends as it passed under the Perimeter Highway.

Leading lines

This was taken with my 70-200mm lens (what I call my "long" lens due to its reach) and I cropped it in a bit. I decided to process it this way, because I felt the high contrast of the image was well suited for black and white. I liked the leading lines of the rails.

After I took the shot, I stepped across the tracks (at the crossing) to photograph it from the "sun" side. That was one reason why I shot it from such a distance - I wanted to allow enough time for me to cross safely, before the lights started flashing and the gates started coming down. I like to take good photographs but I like living a lot more!

CN 2315 and a black snake

Still using the "long" lens, I took several photographs as it approached the crossing. I'm not sure which one I like better.

WEST - Perimeter Highway

Note the snow on the nose of CN 2315! It was a lovely day in Winnipeg. We've been fortunate that the majority of snow missed us; Ontario was suffering through some snow while we had blue skies and no snow. This train would have come from Ontario and I guess it didn't linger in sidings long enough to melt the snow.

I scooted down closer to the yard to shoot them again, because I wanted a better shot of that third unit, a leaser.

When I got to the south end of Symington Yard, CN 2666 was waiting to leave.

CN 2666 and company waiting to leave

CN 2666 East was on the closest track to me, and CN 2315 West went by on the farthest track. The two middle tracks are pullback tracks for the hump yard.

Here's that lease locomotive - GECX 9473.

GECX 9473, an ex Union Pacific locomotive

The outgoing train, CN 2666 East, had CN 2202 in second position. It must have been a bit toasty in that locomotive at one point!

Mmmmm... toasty

I returned to that area in the evening, and took this iPhone shot of one of the humpyard sets.

Puff puff

The set was sitting there, and GTW 5943 was periodically revving up and letting out a little puff of smoke. Odd.

That was April 16! Stay tuned for April 17 with some sunset photos.

READ NEXT or go back to first in the series

PS I added a few items to my Amazon shop if you'd like to check it out!

August 1

On August 1 I had some good luck catching trains. I headed out to work earlier than usual in the morning so I could see if any trains came by. I went out to Diamond and parked. The first train came along at 7:23 AM, CN 302.


Nice light on the nose of this eastbound train.
The engineer gave me a nice two-finger wave as he passed by.


CN 302 was met by CN 403, which came by my location 20 minutes later. I shot them coming through the signals at Diamond. As you can see, it is challenging to shoot a westbound train early in the morning!


Note the interesting cargo on one of the flatcars. Progressive Waste Solutions owns BFI and a couple of other waste disposal companies.



The video works better than the still photo, I think.


Here's my video camera, duly recording the train going by. My scanner is on the ground under the tripod.


On my way along Wilkes Avenue, I saw CCGX 5232 and CEMR 4001 parked with a short train at the end of the Carman subdivision. I'm pretty sure that train sat there idling for a whole day before it finally carried on to CEMR's yard.

Later in the day, I went home via Wilkes Avenue and I managed to catch CN 314 at Hall Road just west of the Perimeter Highway, pretty much exactly where I shot the previous train.




I knew CN 314 was being followed by CN 114, so I went a bit west to Diamond to get 114. I was surprised to see how much "junk" was on the head end of this supposedly intermodal train.



You can see I was pretty near the CP tracks crossing CN at Diamond. I didn't have time to record the entire train but I captured the "gist" of it.

What a fun day!

CN 106 Meets The Canadian

I was out at noon on Monday to shoot the Canadian and I happened to catch a meet. As I arrived, I noticed an eastbound container train rolling along on the north track. I had a notion that I might be able to catch the meet, so I headed east toward Carman Junction. Sure enough, I saw headlights to the east that I figured was the Canadian. I parked near Carman Junction and hopped out to shoot. VIA got to me first.


You can see the "left" engineer was on the radio. It was a short Canadian with two engines and only one coach. Complete consist. Kokanee Park brought up the markers.


As they went around the bend west of Carman Junction on the south track, CN 106 passed them on the north track.


CN 2202 and CN 2669 were the power on this long container train.


It was nice to get the meet!