This past Thursday I went out to shoot the Canadian, something I haven't done for what seems like a month! I parked at St. James Junction and waited. I set up my Canon S3 on the tripod to shoot video, only to find that its batteries were dead. sigh
While I was waiting, I heard the detector at mile 10 go off, so I knew something was coming from that direction. After a bit longer, I saw headlights to the west. It turned out to be CN 2525 and CN 2602 leading a shortish general freight train on the south track. Right after that, I saw VIA 1's lights come around the corner at Portage Junction to the east. I was quite concerned that I would get skunked by the freight train.
First things first, shoot the freight.
As VIA approached, it looked like they were slowing down. I was hoping they would have to stop short of the junction to change tracks after the freight went by. Here's the two trains approaching the meet.
My hopes of a VIA stop were unfounded. The Canadian rolled right on by, shielded from my view by the freight train. This was basically my view of VIA 1 passing.
I did take a couple of long-range shots of the Canadian going away, after the freight train got out of the way.
I knew there was no point in trying to chase the Canadian as it was very unlikely I would catch up to it. Oh well, you can't win them all.
I was on vacation Thursday (April 1) to look after the kids. Of course my thoughts turned to railfanning, and we were on the road by 11:15 to go shoot the Canadian. I wanted to go to Elie to shoot it by the elevator on the west side. We headed down Wilkes Avenue and then onto highway 1, seeing no trains in the meantime. We arrived at Elie and set up to wait for the Canadian. I broke out sandwiches and we had a little picnic while we waited.
Just after 12:30, I heard VIA 1 calling the signals at east Elie. I got ready and soon enough they rolled on by. This is exactly the shot I wanted. The video, not so great. It started OK but the camera had focus problems and I caught the tripod's arm with my camera's strap and yanked it to the right. Sigh.
I decided that we should proceed on to Portage la Prairie and see if we could catch the Canadian on the west side. They beat us to Portage, but I heard them call a "clear to stop" signal meaning they were stopping, so that was good for me. As we went around to the west side, I saw a CP local heading west with a single unit pushing, five Simplot boxcars, six covered hoppers, and a rider caboose on the head end. No time for photos.
As we reached the west side of Portage, I saw an eastbound CN freight (CN 312) coming into town. 312 had two units on the head end. This is why the Canadian had to stop, since the Rivers sub is single track west of Portage. We set up in a field near the mall and waited for the Canadian.
The Canadian rolled by at about 13:25. Here's the whole train, again.
After that excitement, we drove around a bit in downtown Portage until CN 199 showed up. I decided to shoot it from the CN station. It had a very interesting consist.
It had Dash-9 CN 2525 followed by four Dash-8 units... BC Rail 4610, CN 2434, CN 2416, and CN 2429. Nice to see so many Draper Taper units!
We headed home after that. Somewhere along the way I saw a westbound CN freight and shot it from a long distance away. If I had to guess, I would say it had CN 8849 and CN 2649 for power but that is just a guess. The lead unit was definitely an SD70M-2, though.
It was a good outing!
