A Fine Evening's Railfanning

Graffiti is everywhere

The sun came out Saturday afternoon, so I decided to do a little railfanning in the late afternoon / early evening. This winter has been severely lacking in sunshine, so I wanted to take advantage of the sun when it showed up.

I headed out and decided to take the Perimeter Highway around to the Trans-Canada and then look into Symington. As I approached the CP Emerson sub's crossing over the Perimeter, the lights came on. If I were like most other Winnipeg drivers, I would have gunned it through the crossing. However, I'd rather not get hit by a train (#safetyfirst) so I stopped and the gates came down.

Like any good railfan, I had my camera sitting on the passenger seat, ready for action. I lowered the passenger side window and shot the approaching northbound train.

Grab shot!

The power was unremarkable but it was nice to catch it at just the right time.

The train had a mixed bag of cars, including an empty intermodal well car and a few auto racks. I liked this graffiti:

Well done graffiti

I really don't like vandalism like this, but wow - great art.

After the train passed, I drove up to the Trans-Canada and exited. There was nothing in sight to the south on the CN Sprague sub, so I went north toward Symington. I saw a CN train was pulling up to Navin, although they had a red light so they couldn't proceed yet. As I watched, a CN truck pulled up to the signals, presumably to inspect the train when it got its chance to leave.

No turns ahead on the CN Sprague subdivision!

I waited for five or ten minutes but they weren't leaving, so I left instead. As I approached Symington I saw they were on their way. There was a DPU locomotive in the middle of the train but I didn't catch the number.

Not much was going on at the hump. I drove up to CN's Transcona yard but there was no train there, just cars, so I kept going up to the CP line and on to CEMR.

CEMR 4002 was idling away at the head of some tank cars. CEMR 4000 and 4001 were moving around in front of the shop, but the interesting stuff was behind the shop.

Two CEFX locomotives were there - CEFX 6056 and CEFX 6057. Both are SD38-2 locomotives, apparently renumbered and relettered back in June 2015. These are ex Iowa Interstate locomotives, now with a Cando logo on them.

Cando or CEFX? Who knows?

Also on the property are two Railink locos, CCGX 1808 and CCGX 1755. A little Googling showed that these locomotives were working on the Barrie-Collingwood Railway before that more or less went dormant. Apparently they sat in Utopia, ON for a few years before being picked up by CP this past May. I don't know how long they've been in Winnipeg, as I haven't been by CEMR for quite a while.

CCGX 1808 in Winnipeg

After photographing what I could see from public property, I carried on south to the CN Redditt subdivision and headed out toward Dugald. The road was... icy... so I was being careful. I arrived in Dugald and took yet another photograph of the grain elevator.

Photograph #728 of the Dugald grain elevator

One thing I did spy with my little eye was a green signal wayyyy in the distance.

Some serious cropping

That meant a train was cleared to head east out of Winnipeg.

I headed back toward Winnipeg, keeping one eye on the track to my right and at least one on the icy road. I didn't see a train until I crossed the Perimeter Highway, and then I spotted the train picking its way through the Transcona yard.

I found a safe place to turn around and got ahead of it. I decided to get a little artsy with this nicely placed shelter to frame up CN 2647 as it led the train out of Winnipeg.

Frame it up

That was the end of the day's railfanning... not a bad outing.

Thanks for reading!

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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