Meeting Place

Late in the afternoon of February 29, I was rolling down Wilkes Avenue in Winnipeg to see if there were any trains about. As it happened, I overtook a westbound freight train (CN 301) with CN 5761 on the head end. I got ahead of them and shot them coming around the bend at Carman Junction.


Note the yellow-over-red Clear to Stop signal (rule 411) on the north track.

I jumped back into my car and headed west, intending to shoot them again somewhere near Diamond. I heard that another train was coming east so I headed to Hall Road just west of the Perimeter Highway. I pulled up near the crossing and jumped out to wait for the trains.

Hall Road is a good place to shoot eastbounds because it is wide open to the west. It is not good for westbounds because there are buildings close to the tracks on the south (sun) side. You have to step pretty close to the tracks to get a shot without all the junk on the right.... not safe when a train is coming! One could always cross the tracks and shoot from the north, but then you are shooting against the sun and that only works on cloudy days.

I saw that the signal facing the eastbound container train was a single flashing yellow light. If I'm correct, this is Advance Clear to Stop (rule 415) meaning the next signal is displaying Clear to Stop. The next signal for that train would be at St. James Junction so they had a few miles before having to stop.

Very soon the container train approached. It turns out this was CN 196, with CN 2264 on the head end.


Fortunately I was close enough to get the meet with my 55-250mm lens. I stepped in to get a few shots then retreated from the crossing before the train was too close.


I took off west to get one more shot of CN 5761 before giving up. As I headed out I saw CN 2335 pushing on the end of train 196, seen in between the cars of train 301.

Here's a closeup of CN 5761 approaching Diamond.


Grubby CN 2629 was the second unit behind 5761, and they had a GP38 as a third unit, CN 4790.

Here you can see they had a red-over-green-over-red signal. This one actually is Limited-to-Clear (rule 416), because there is an "L" plate on the signal mast.

Bright Sun Shiny Day

I can see clearly now the rain is gone 
I can see all obstacles in my way 
Gone are the dark clouds that had me down It's gonna be a bright sun shiny day  - "I Can See Clearly Now", Johnny Nash


Thursday noon was a very bright, sun shiny day as you can see. I went out to shoot the Canadian and was pleased by the nice weather. First up was train 314, heading east on the north track.


Note the flag at the end of the bridge, visible in front of the junction between the two engines. There was a crew working on St. James Junction a little ways east of me, on the south track.

Soon after 314 passed my location, I saw VIA's headlights come around the corner at Portage Junction in the distance. They rolled past St. James Junction then switched over to the north track just before my location. VIA 6416 and 6444 were the power for this ordinary Canadian. I was standing on the slope leading down to route 90, trying to get a more ground-level shot than the usual height.


A passenger in one of the coaches gave me a wave as they rolled on by. Or maybe she didn't want her picture taken. I'll assume it was a wave. :)


A train is visible in the distance here... CN 192, in fact.


This was the first time I'd seen train 192. I believe it is an extra train from Prince Rupert that runs on occasion to supplement CN 198. CN 8954 and another engine were on the head end, and CN 2263 was pushing on the very end.


Here we look over the engineer's shoulder at the signals protecting St. James Junction.


The signals on the south track (right of picture) are easy. Red over red is covered by rule 439, absolute stop.

The signals for train 192 are on the north track (left of picture). The closest signal is yellow over yellow, rule 409, clear to slow. "Proceed, approaching next signal at SLOW speed." The next signal that 192 will face is red over green, rule 431, slow to clear, "Proceed, SLOW speed passing signal and through turnouts."

This tells us that 192 was going to shift over to the south track, and the confirmation of that is barely visible on the right edge of the photo, just above one of the CN trucks - a green over red indication on the south track, rule 405, "Clear signal, proceed" while the corresponding signals on the north track are red over red.

EDIT: Corrected first signal description, thank you Jeff!