Going For A Spin

Here's a great Greg Brewer slide from November 3, 1984.

CN 2519 is taking a spin on the turntable in CN's Island Yard in Saint John, NB. It looks like Greg was shooting facing east, just south of the yard.

You can see where the turntable was, on this car control manual page.


CN 2519 was built in 1973 as an M-420(W) (W for wide) and was put into class MR-20a by CN. In 1986-87 it had its weight and fuel capacity reduced to enable it to run on branch lines. I believe those were reversed in late 1994.

CN Lines says it was leased to RaiLink of Southern Ontario in 1997, and retired from CN on February 13, 1998. It was sold to the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad in New Hampshire in 1998, and sold again the Southern Railroad of New Jersey in early 2004. The site referenced still has it and two other ex-CN M420s on the roster.

Anyone know when the turntable was removed from the Island Yard? There is no trace of it now. Locomotives are turned on the nearby wye, just as the Acadian passenger train was when it was in operation.

Rainy Day Meet

On my way from Moncton to Halifax airport on Friday, I decided to stop and shoot VIA 14, the eastbound Ocean, at Amherst. I had thought about Aulac, but the pouring rain dissuaded me from that. I set up at Amherst across from the station and waited.

At 13:07 VIA 6400 and 6424 rolled up to the station, towing a Renaissance train.

The complete consist was VIA 6400, 6424, 7011, 7223, 7230, 7312, 7402, 7308, 7509, 7501, 7525, and 7512.
After dealing with the passengers, the Ocean backed up out of sight around the corner. Soon enough, they crawled up the siding past the station and went up to the east end of the siding to wait for CN 407. Here they are just after they passed the station.

I relocated to get a shot of the Ocean meeting CN 407. At 13:33 CN 2519 appeared on the main line and rolled past the impatient VIA train. CN 2680 was the second unit on 407. You can see the Ocean to the right in this shot.

I saw 2519 in Winnipeg on August 16 of this year. Oddly enough, it was raining then too.

I didn't have time to look for VIA 15. No doubt they met VIA 14 somewhere like Folly Lake rather than the usual Belmont siding outside Truro.