After my little trip to Grafton, North Dakota, I returned to Grand Forks and spent an hour looking around. My first stop was North Washington Street and the industrial locomotives at Gavilon Grain. I photographed these back in April 2011 and I won't repeat the photos here - the Con Agra GP7 and the Peavey SW7 are both still there and look the same.
Next I went to the North Dakota Mill, a massive facility. Fortunately I spotted a BNSF locomotive working there. BNSF 2256 was switching on the north end of the facility. I believe this was being operated via remote control by the gentleman pictured above, cleaning out switch points. The wind was blowing pretty hard and there was a lot of blowing snow.
BNSF 2256 at North Dakota Mills
I took a little video of the locomotive running light over a crossing.
I saw BNSF 2256 in Grand Forks back in 2011. After that, I headed south down Washington to BNSF's yard.
BNSF 3004 was working in the yard in the background. BNSF 1546 and BNSF 2834 were parked near the main building. The main excitement for me, though, was a trio of foreign power.
CEFX 6006
SOO! Well, not any more, but clearly it was a SOO engine.
PRLX 8136
Clearly an ex BN unit!
CSX 7541
Finally, a non-patched engine!
Those were fun to see in a BNSF yard.
There was one locomotive over by the turntable, BNSF 4606, surrounded by some maintenance-of-way equipment.
BNSF 4606
I spotted a pair of Burlington Northern snowplows - BN 972501 and 972510, both of which I spotted back in April 2011.
I was almost out of time, so I headed west on Gateway Drive to get back to the interstate. I noticed a train was heading out of the yard so I resolved to grab it before heading back to the hotel. I got ahead of it, and after a bit of driving to find a safe place to park, I ran back to the tracks. Fortunately the train was heading directly west, rather than going south toward Fargo!
A bit of blowing snow...
I was surprised to see BNSF 3134 and BNSF 2259, the very same locomotives I saw in Drayton on the previous day. The weather wasn't so nice this day!
BNSF 3134 in the snow
They rolled on past me, with a wave from the engineer. Let's just say visibility was restricted...
Grain cars in the snow
On Monday (Louis Riel Day) we headed back north to the US border. At Drayton I photographed BNSF 4382, BNSF 5679 and BNSF 4438. We crossed the border and I kept an eye out for CN 532/533. There was nothing at Emerson but as we drove through the blowing snow, I kept looking and eventually I spotted a train just south of Morris. I pulled over, hoping to get a great action shot in the blowing snow... only to realize they weren't moving. I drove closer and found CN 2640 and CN 2508 with a medium sized train.
CN 2640 parked south of Morris, MB
I don't think there was a crew on board.
That was the end of our Grand Forks adventure. Thanks for reading!
Thursday, March 14 was "PI day" (3.14). I went out at noon to try to get the Canadian at Portage Junction in Winnipeg. I saw CN 7044 and CN 1435 working Fort Rouge yard. They were likely the "local" train gathering cars before working the Fort Garry area.
CN 7044 is equipped for remote control and the crew were using that while shunting. While I was watching them, CN 2256 came rolling up on the south track at the head of CN train 199. They stopped with 2256 halfway around the curve at Portage Junction.
I realized this was going to block my view of the Canadian, now imminent, so I went to my car and headed over to Waverley Street to get them there. I was about a minute ahead of VIA 1 and got the shots.
Kokanee Park was on the rear of the Canadian.
I saw them pass through St. James Junction and there was a CN train stopped on the south track near the golf dome. The headlight was not on, indicating the train was unoccupied.
CN 199 was going to be there a while, I guess, as the engineer was out enjoying the view from the "front deck".
I went over to see the parked train. It had CN 8844 and CN 8012 ahead of this engine, faded CN 4761.
That was all the trains I saw on PI Day. I guess one could say I saw 3.14 trains if you count the GP9/GMD1 combination as 0.14. ;)
After complaining about "blah" shots, I am going to follow up with a few much nicer shots. Monday noon, I went looking for the Canadian up on Wilkes Avenue. I decided to shoot from near the top of the overpass to get a little height and a change in angle. What do you think?
The Canadian was a few minutes late, but had a bonus of two cars dead heading behind VIA 6411 and VIA 6408... diner Imperial and Assiniboine Park.
I spun around for the "going away" shot and framed the Canadian under the overpass.
I turned around and there were headlights approaching on the south track. It turned out to be CN 101, led by single engine CN 2254.
One more engine was about 1/3 of the way back in the train, CN 2256.
That was all very exciting, but where are the good shots?
I headed toward home, and as I crossed the CP La Riviere subdivision on the Perimeter Highway, I saw a string of grain cars headed south. I took the exit and chased the train. It was easy to catch up to it, as I believe the speed limit is a mere 15 MPH here and the limit on the highway parallel to the tracks is 100 km/hr. I saw SD90 CP 9109 and SD40-2 CP 5764 were hauling just over a hundred grain cars.
I set up just south of the grain elevator in La Salle and waited for the train. The benefit of such a slow train is that you get to take a lot of shots as the train passes the elevator! This was my favourite.
Once the head end passed, I jumped into the car and got ahead of them for one more series of shots outside the town. The sun was dancing in and out of view but I was lucky to get a few with some sun on the engine.
I was very pleased with my CP shots. It was well worth the 15 minutes it took to chase and shoot the train!
On April 16 I was over around CN Symington and shot a few trains. As I approached the area on the Perimeter Highway I could see that a freight train was pulling out of the yard to head south on the Sprague subdivision. I wanted to shoot them on the Floodway bridge so I took the Kenora exit and parked just north of the Floodway.
As it turns out, the lead unit was CN 8000.
The Floodway is open and working hard to keep the Red River away from Winnipeg.
Contrast that with this shot of the Floodway from September 2010.
I imagine the Floodway is even more full now. I plan on going out this weekend to see how high the flood waters are.
The train was going fairly slowly so I headed south on the highway to get another shot. I didn't want to get it at Deacon's Corner because I would be rushing the shot, so I took the next crossing after that and waited.
By the time the train reached me, it had picked up some speed. These red winged blackbirds weren't sticking around to watch the train!
A nice wave from the conductor, then they were on their way. "Clear signal at Lorette."
Continued from part 1. We stayed in Grand Forks until noon on Monday. I woke up before sunrise and headed out to see what I could shoot in the few hours allotted to me. Railfanning involves a lot of negotiation at times!
BNSF 2271 and 2327 were sitting at the west end of the yard with a mixed train in tow. Soon a train headed by BNSF 9147 and BNSF 9138 pulled up beside them. I think they were arriving from the east, because I saw those two units later by the roundhouse.
At the time I thought 9147 was going to head out, so I relocated to the wye just west of US 29. I didn't know whether they would take the wye track to go south or go straight west. I had a lot of indecision, but eventually parked at Amtrak and resolved to wait and see. Soon I heard a horn blowing for crossings, and ran over to see that the train was taking the wye. I hastily planted my tripod (with the Canon S3 on it for video) and grabbed a few shots with my T1i. The problem was that I still had the long lens on it so I couldn't get any wide angle shots.
BNSF 2086 (GP38-2) and BNSF 3207 (GP50) took a train south to Fargo.
I soon heard more horns, and BNSF 9840 (SD70MAC), BNSF 6396 (ES44AC), and BNSF 6065 (ES44AC) took a long empty coal train south to Fargo. I didn't get any video of this, alas.
I went to the east end of the yard and found quite a few units parked near the roundhouse. BNSF 3126 was still parked in the same place I saw it the day before, but this time it was joined by BNSF 2256 (GP38-2).
BNSF 8178 and 8154, both SD60M engines in Burlington Northern green, were visible in the back.
BNSF 4106 and 4191, also seen the day before, were parked but looking like they were getting ready to go.
Other units visible were BNSF 5639 (AC4400CW), BNSF 6205 (SD39), BNSF 5256 (Dash 9-44CW) and BNSF 8225 (SD75M). Off in the distance I saw two small switcher units switching, BNSF 3703 and xx34. 3703 is an MP15, definitely the first of that type I've seen.
After cataloging the units visible, I headed north on Washington Street to see if I could find some grain elevators. I did... and a few industrial units too!
I went up to St. James Junction to shoot the Canadian today, and as often happens, I got a bonus train.
When I arrived at the Junction, I saw BNSF was waiting to leave their yard. The caboose was on the head end of a series of cars, and the power was somewhere at the other end. They were close enough to Taylor Avenue to trigger the crossing bells, so their ringing provided a background to my train watching.
A CN westbound freight rolled by at 12:15 on the south track. CN 2256 and 5648 headed up a set of empty centerbeam flats, followed by a long string of container cars.
Anyway, enough nostalgia. The Canadian came along at 12:26, close to 15 minutes late. The complete consist: five-eyed VIA 6418, VIA 6404, VIA 8605, VIA 8117, VIA 8502, VIA 8414 Palliser, VIA 8326 Franklin Manor, VIA 8338 Rogers Manor, VIA 8336 Monck Manor, VIA 8219 Chateau Montcalm, VIA 8710 Prince Albert Park.
After the Canadian passed, BNSF did not seem like they were going to head out anytime soon, so that was the end of train watching for me.
I saw a strange sight just before supper on Friday (Oct 23). I saw a CN westbound beside the Perimeter Highway on Wilkes Avenue, with ordinary units CN 2256 and 2682 leading... but they had GP9 7243 and slug 203 trailing!
