Clever Title Here

I was out for an extended lunch break on Thursday (September 22) and I saw a few trains. My intended target was the Canadian and she did not disappoint.

There is crossing work going on at the Shaftesbury crossing off Wilkes Avenue, just west of the former Winnipeg Intermodal Terminal. This is related to the new IKEA store and I think they are widening the crossing to put an extra lane there to handle IKEA traffic. The crossing is closed to northbound traffic while they do the work, which is good for railfans because trains must call in to the foreman to get permission to pass their red flags. This means we get advance warning on the scanner and the trains run a little slower through there.

I set up just west of the crossing to shoot the Canadian, and it was through on time with VIA 6425 leading.

The standard "going away" shot...

I chased them west down Wilkes, barely pacing them as they were going the maximum 55 MPH. I heard them call "Clear to Limited" for the Diamond signal, meaning they would have to slow down at Diamond. I hurtled down the gravel portion of the road and slowly caught up to the head end. It would have made a great pacing video if there was someone in the passenger seat to film it! They crossed over from the north track to the south track at Diamond - hence the Limited speed.

Unfortunately once they crossed over, the engineer put the pedal to the metal and they pulled away. Still, it was fun to chase them.

I returned east to Wilkes and waited for more trains to come. From the scanner traffic I could tell that CN 199 and CN 852 would be passing by soon. CN 199 was first with CN 2629 and CN 2429.

I really need to clean my lens!

Next, CN 852 came along with CN 5659 leading and ex-BNSF Dash-8 CN 2194 trailing. CN 2194 was originally ATSF (Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe) 859, which became BNSF 859. CN purchased it and a number of Dash-8s recently. This is my first sighting of an ex-BNSF Dash-8. You may recall I've seen a few of the ex-UP units.

That was all I waited around for. It was clear there would be no more trains for a while.

Later in the afternoon, I headed home along Wilkes and stumbled across CN 114. They had just met CN 117 at Diamond and were rolling into Winnipeg. It was odd to see non-container traffic on 114.


That was it for the day... now if only I had a clever title for this post.

Morning Trains

I spent some time in the morning of July 27 near Diamond, just west of Winnipeg. I've been there a lot recently because I like the area. It's wide open so there is little to get between my lens and the train. Also, there is not much car traffic out there. Finally, the train crews have to call the signals approaching Diamond so I hear them on the scanner well before I see them.

The first train I saw was CN 112, with CN 8911 on the head end and CN 8814 pushing on the rear. The top photo shows them passing the east-facing signals just east of the CN-CP diamond.



Right after the train passed, I ran up to the private crossing to shoot CN 8814 going away. Note the lit red marker lights.



About half an hour later, train CN 782 came along. This featured two Dash-8 units, CN 2429 and CN 2432. For this one, I shot from the north side of the tracks for a different perspective. Since it was cloudy, the sun was not an issue.


After about another half an hour, a westbound train came, CN 111 featuring CN 8904 and CN 8856 on the head end and IC 2715 as a DPU engine.


About an hour later, I headed east on Wilkes Avenue but stumbled across this westbound freight train. Three Dash-9 engines were the power: CN 2650, CN 2503 and CN 2671.


But wait... there's more! I also shot an eastbound freight just west of St. James Junction. This one had ex-BC Rail Dash-8 BCOL 4643 leading, with SD75I CN 5792 trailing.


Five trains in just over 2 hours was good enough for me!