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

VIA Plus One

On September 20 I went out to shoot the Canadian. It had been a "long" time since I last saw VIA 1 and I wanted to correct that. When I drove out Wilkes Avenue, I could see their headlights in my side mirror so I knew I had to be quick. I parked on the shoulder near Shaftesbury Boulevard and took the shot. Fortunately they were not going terribly fast.


I also processed this as black and white with a slightly different crop, just for the heck of it. Over on Google+ I asked which people liked more and most chose the colour version.


Here's the going away shot.


Since it was so bright, I shot at 1/800s shutter speed so everything is nice and sharp. I've found in the past that I did not set the shutter speed fast enough and I would get a tiny bit of blur, especially with the fast passenger trains. I also set my camera to center focus instead of using all of the focus points, and I think it helps avoid the "focus hunt" that dooms some shots.

After the Canadian ambled past, I hopped into my car and chased them. I easily overtook them before the Perimeter and proceeded out on the gravel road. Unfortunately for me, someone had dumped some new gravel on the road and it made it treacherous to drive more than about 60 km/hr there (limit: 90) so I decided I had to take my next shot quickly. I went onto Hall Road and took video there.


After that I chased on after them but they did not stop at Diamond, so there was no catching them. I saw fellow railfan Brian S. out there, so we had a good chat about train shows, idiot railfans and Eric Gagnon's upcoming book. Soon enough, a westbound CN container train came into view so we shot that too.


CN 2676 splits the westbound signals at mile 14.4. CN 8022 was in the middle of the train and CN 2281 was on the rear.

Buh-bye!

Dirty Pig

No, this isn't a rant against police.

I saw CN 111 heading west out of Winnipeg around noon on Thursday, March 15. I was waiting for the Canadian near Diamond. I had my Canon S3 on a tripod waiting to video it, and shot a few long distance shots of the approaching freight before turning the S3 on... and having it turn itself off and complain about low batteries. Drat.

CN 2676 was the lead engine, with CN 2677 behind it. Funny to see two engines in numeric order.


This was scrawled in the dirt on the rear of CN 2676.

I guess it was an editorial comment about CN's maintenance practices.

Farther down the train, CN 2663 was the first DPU engine.


Oddly enough, there was a second DPU engine right behind 2663, ex-BC Rail engine BCOL 4645, yet another Dash-9. Four in one train!


I was interested to hear that they were detouring! They told the RTC that they were detouring through Dauphin (rather than going through Melville SK) and the RTC said they would pick up their pilot in Portage la Prairie. They need a pilot when the crew is unfamiliar with the territory, much like ships need pilots to enter unknown harbours.

CN had a 22-car derailment on the Rivers subdivision about 40km east of Melville at about 03:30 Thursday morning. VIA 1 and 2 were delayed so I never saw VIA 1 on Thursday.

Clayton Chaloner reported that he saw CN 101, CN 401, CN 111 and two others detour before the derailment was cleared. Canada Newswire reported that the TSB was sent. The Regina Leader-Post reported that the derailment site was clear by 6 PM Thursday and that the derailed cars were empty tank cars. 40km east of Melville is around Bangor or Atwater on the CN Rivers subdivision.

EDIT: Corrected engine type of BCOL 4645. Thanks Zartok!

A CN 101 Quickie

I tried to shoot the Canadian at lunch today, but again she did not show up. I wonder what is going on with VIA?

In its place, CN 101 rolled through at a decent clip. It was all Dash-9 engines this time around, with CN 2675 on the head end, CN 2676 mid train and CN 2662 on the tail end.



The female conductor in 2675 gave me a nice wave as they passed.



Note the red lights on CN 2662. The red light above the right ditch light was added after 2008, presumably after the unit was equipped to serve as a distributed power unit (DPU). I'm guessing the other red light in the body was added at the same time.