14 Miles and 5 Trains

Last time, Thomas Sajnovic and I were in Portage la Prairie in the morning of May 3. We had just decided to head back to Winnipeg via the Trans-Canada Highway, and therefore have a CN railfan opportunity.

We headed east, and I had to stop in Oakville to check out the grain elevator... again.

Onward... we ducked into Elie so I could show him the station-turned-house there. A train was heading west through town as we approached the crossing. Missed it by that much!

Onward again... we approached Headingley and I decided to cut up White Plains Road to rejoin the CN Rivers subdivision at mile 20. I was hoping that driving alongside 10 miles of CN two-track main line would yield a train or two. We weren't disappointed!

Almost immediately we spotted a headlight to the east. We stopped and nabbed this four-engine train led by CN 2676.

Note the old ties alongside the track, courtesy of the track replacement CN is doing along the Rivers sub this spring.

Proceeding a little further east, we came across an eastbound train stopped short of Diamond, on the south track. It turned out to be our friend CN 2679, seen in Portage la Prairie earlier that morning! After two hours they had managed to travel 40 miles...

Sadly they were destined to wait a while longer. The next westbound train to pass them (after CN 2676, above) was a train led by some interesting power.

CN 5303, looking pretty shabby, led shiny CN 5261 and a mixed freight train. 5261 is shiny because it was one of the locomotives in CN's recent propane-powered test.

The crew of 2679 were on the ground for the rollby inspection.

I decided to slow things down to show which train was actually moving...

A shutter speed of 1/25s blurred things nicely. I think I was using my monopod (more on that in another post) to keep things steady.

After that, we proceeded east while CN 2679 simmered away. Between Hall Road and the Perimeter I spotted another westbound, so a quick U-turn brought us back to Hall Road to catch CN 5641 and CN 2237 pass one of John Deere's finest.

We were feeling pretty good about the Rivers sub at this point!

I spied what I thought was another headlight to the east, and sure enough, we were fortunate to catch just one more train, east of Carman Junction.

CN 2674 and IC 2714 were on the head end, and CN 2531 was pushing on the rear.

"The End"

Thanks to Thomas Sajnovic for the great company! And thanks to CN and CP for sending out the good trains! ;)

Back to A Morning in Portage la Prairie

Backgrounds

I received my scans back from ScanCafe yesterday, so expect a batch of old photos to start appearing here soon.

I am starting to rename the files with meaningful names, and I noticed something interesting in the background of this otherwise normal slide of CN 2531 in Moncton (by Greg Brewer).

Notice the passenger cars in the background? Here's the relevant part of the slide:

The scan didn't quite work out for this slide. The cars really don't have a big bend in them!

I thought, "yellow cars, yellow cars, I've seen those before."

Then I remembered - a couple of the Salem & Hillsborough passenger cars were painted yellow when they were received. Here's a bad scan of an Al Howland picture:

This makes a lot of sense, because Greg's slide was shot on June 17, 1984, just prior to the start up of operations for the Salem & Hillsborough Railway.

Moral: Keep an eye on the backgrounds!

Winnipeg Railfanning, Part 1

Head on view of CP 1597

I hope everyone had a good holiday! For those who celebrate Christmas, I hope Santa was generous. I found a model train car under the tree to help build my fleet.

On Boxing Day I set out to do a few hours of railfanning around the Winnipeg area. I took my mother and sister to the airport then went to the CP yards downtown to see what power was around. At the CP Weston shops at 08:50 I saw the following units: 5707, 3117, 9153, 5998, 5940, 8778, 8815, 5988, 3119, 6055, 9760, 8521 and CEFX 117. There was a container train shunting in front of the yard so I couldn't get any decent pictures.

I went to the Arlington Street bridge and took some shots from there. CP 1597, 1506 were shunting, as were CP 6065 and 1622.


At the fuel stands I saw CP 1562, 1532, 6616, 6609 and several other units. It was a little cold standing on that bridge!

I went to the east end of the yard and found CEFX 1041 and CP 9511 shut down at the end of a train at 09:35. CP 8726 was heading up another train there.

CEFX 1041 and CP 9511

From there I took a quick look at the Greater Winnipeg Water District (GWWD) railway yard and saw GWWD 201 shut down, with the hulks of CP 8016 and 8018 nearby.

On to CN's Symington hump yard, where I found hump set CN 7511, 501, 504, 7528 (two GP38s with two slugs in the middle) and another set working the hump at 10:15.

Two Geeps, two slugs

There were two sets of power at the intermodal terminal, one led by CN 2531 and 5360, and the other by weathered CN 5367.

I noticed a few odd cars at the foot of the hump. One was GO Transit car 2647, and the other was a Loram unit LMIX 601. There were also a few pressure vessels on flatcars behind the Loram unit. I guess they were on the "do not hump" line.

GO Transit 2647 in Winnipeg

LMIX 601 in Winnipeg

I heard CN train 840 get permission to leave the yard, and I quickly deduced they were heading east toward the Perimeter Highway, so I went down by CN Navin and parked by the Tinkertown amusement park. Great place to take the kids, by the way. As is typical on the Prairies, I saw the train long before it was close enough to take pictures.

CN 840 arriving in Winnipeg

CN 2531 and 5360 rolled by at 10:39 with a long grain train.



From there, I moved to the CN main line along Wilkes Avenue, but that will wait until my next post.

UPDATE: Someone asked on the CanPassRail mailing list why GO 2647 was in Winnipeg. The answer: "A friend of mine from the CN has come up w/ the answer, & even more. Go Transit is receiving new Bi Levels from Bombardier in Thunder Bay. They are being taken to Winnipeg Symington Yard. 2647, & 2648 are going out on Train #302 tonight (Symington-MacMillian Yard). 2646 Is Currently at Mac yard, 2645 Arr. Mac Yard Dec 23, 2644 arr. Mac Yard Dec 14, Arr Mimico Dec 17, 2642, 2643 Not on the CN System as of yet. I'm sure in the next few weeks prob more GO Coaches will be arriving at Symington Yard."

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