On August 1 I had some good luck catching trains. I headed out to work earlier than usual in the morning so I could see if any trains came by. I went out to Diamond and parked. The first train came along at 7:23 AM, CN 302.
Nice light on the nose of this eastbound train.
The engineer gave me a nice two-finger wave as he passed by.
CN 302 was met by CN 403, which came by my location 20 minutes later. I shot them coming through the signals at Diamond. As you can see, it is challenging to shoot a westbound train early in the morning!
Note the interesting cargo on one of the flatcars. Progressive Waste Solutions owns BFI and a couple of other waste disposal companies.
The video works better than the still photo, I think.
Here's my video camera, duly recording the train going by. My scanner is on the ground under the tripod.
On my way along Wilkes Avenue, I saw CCGX 5232 and CEMR 4001 parked with a short train at the end of the Carman subdivision. I'm pretty sure that train sat there idling for a whole day before it finally carried on to CEMR's yard.
Later in the day, I went home via Wilkes Avenue and I managed to catch CN 314 at Hall Road just west of the Perimeter Highway, pretty much exactly where I shot the previous train.
I knew CN 314 was being followed by CN 114, so I went a bit west to Diamond to get 114. I was surprised to see how much "junk" was on the head end of this supposedly intermodal train.
You can see I was pretty near the CP tracks crossing CN at Diamond. I didn't have time to record the entire train but I captured the "gist" of it.
I certainly had a mixed day Sunday when visiting Portage.
I set out from Winnipeg around 7:30 AM and headed west on the Trans-Canada Highway. CN was quiet and there was nothing to hear or see on the way. I reached Portage and went in to see the downtown. The signal lights were all showing red, indicating no traffic on CN nor CP, so I took some photographs for my model train layout. I was particularly interested in the West Tower area where the CP Carberry, CN Rivers, and CN Gladstone subdivisions meet. I was amused to see that some pigeons were warming themselves on the switch heaters on the CN Rivers sub.
Finally I heard some discussions on the CN RTC channel that seemed to indicate that a train was switching at Bloom, west of Portage. I headed out of Portage that way, only to encounter CN train 304 heading east into Portage. Drat! I knew I wasn't able to catch up to it inside Portage, so I drove around the city intending to catch it on the other side as it left East Tower. However, there is no place to exit the highway on that side, so I kept on driving.. and driving.. until I reached Newton. CN calls this Nattress, mile 50.4. I set up at the crossing of highway 331, and I didn't have to wait long until CN 304 blew through.
CN 8922 was leading and ex-UP unit CN 2100 was trailing.
I should have turned the video camera a bit to the left.
After they passed, I drove back into Portage. I decided to go shoot the grain elevator at CP Tucker just east of Portage. While there, I heard CP 8877 West tell the RTC that they set off the WILD* and had to set off a car. Since I could hear them, they were nearby... but where? My handy dandy Trackside Guide told me that the WILD is at mile 44.8, east of Portage, so they were coming my way! I set up and waited only a few minutes before their headlight came in view.
I figured I could easily beat them to the other side of Portage, so I drove around Portage (again) and turned south on highway 305 to the CP crossing. They soon came into view.
They pulled up to the switch, and the conductor dismounted to get things ready to set off the bad order car. As there were already cars in the siding, they had to get them ready to move so they could shove them back. Of course, the derail and the switch had to be taken care of too.
The train pulled ahead over the crossing.
I believe the bad car was about the 65th car, so they would have had to pull until that car was next to the conductor. He would then cut off the rest of the train and leave it there, then the train would pull ahead until they were clear of the switch. The conductor would line the switch for the siding (having taken care of the derail already and released the handbrakes on the cars already in the siding), then the train would shove into the siding until the bad car was fully in the siding. Then, cut off the bad car, pull ahead, reline the switch, and join the train back together again.
That solved the mystery of what was just west of Simplot - a siding.
Anyway, I didn't stick around for that operation. I went across the highway to CN Bloom and took some photos there, while CN 314 was still switching. I noticed that the tail end of 314's consist had this car.
Then I headed north on highway 16 to see the elevator near Macdonald. I took a quick peek in the town of Macdonald itself, and found a little MOW** train there. It had a gondola, CP caboose 420991, and some kind of MOW contraption that looked like it would be used to help lay welded rail.
Time was running short for me, so I zipped up to the elevator north of Macdonald. It's a Pioneer elevator at "Dundonald". The leased GP15 was there and I snapped a bunch of pictures.
On my way back down highway 16, I saw CN 302 was passing 314 at Bloom, so I set up for video and took some more shots.
I was out of time, so I wasn't able to shoot the Simplot facility. Next time.
I headed toward Winnipeg, gradually getting ahead of CN 302 as they had to stop at Nattress for CN 115 to go by. I saw 302 a bit behind me as I approached Elie, and suddenly I noticed VIA's Hudson Bay coming the other way. A track speed meet! I pulled over to the side of the road and took a series of photos as they passed each other. Fantastic.
As I crossed over the CN mainline at Wilkes Avenue, I saw the lights of CN 302 in the far distance.
But...
You'll notice I haven't included any pictures of the elevator, the GP15, CN 302, or the meet at Elie. Unfortunately, sometime at Macdonald, I bumped the selector wheel on my camera and changed it from Tv (Shutter speed priority) to Av (aperture priority). This meant that all my photos were tremendously overexposed and ended up pure white. Imagine my disappointment when I looked at them at home!
Moral of the story: LOOK at the photos you've just taken. I reallly dislike chimping, but I guess there has to be a happy medium between looking at every shot and doing what I did. Sigh.
Enjoy the shots I did get! :)
* WILD = Wheel Impact Load Detector. It measures the force that the wheels put on the rails, and is basically looking for flat or damaged wheels.
** MOW = Maintenance Of Way.
Thanks to a tip about VIA 692 having a refurbished unit trailing, I decided to head out Saturday afternoon (Nov. 20) to shoot it. As I was getting ready, I heard the RTC say that there would be FOUR eastbounds in a row shortly after 3 PM. I tossed the kids in the car and headed to Wilkes Avenue. Couldn't miss that!
When I arrived, an eastbound was rolling past on the north track. I tried to get ahead of it to shoot the 2 units, only to find a westbound coming on the south track. I turned around and chased that toward Diamond but couldn't catch it. It was CN #837 with CN 2637 and 2511? trailing.
As CN 837 approached Diamond, I saw an eastbound train on the other side of the diamond coming on the north track. I stopped to wait for 837 to pass so I could shoot the eastbound... CN #302 with IC 2716 and CN 5563.
After that madness, things settled down for a few minutes. I heard 837 get a rollby from another train, so another eastbound was coming. It turned out to be CN #304 on the north track. I saw the multitude of ditch lights on the lead unit and couldn't figure out what it was, until it came closer and I saw it was BCOL 4607 with CN 2450 trailing. Four ditch lights!?
Soon enough, the next eastbound came along. They slowed as they approached Diamond because they had a Clear to Stop indication, which turned Clear soon enough. I guess things were starting to back up farther east. This was CN #114 with CN 2504 and BCOL 4603 on the south track.
Almost on the heels of 114 came VIA 692 on the north track. They stopped at Diamond, then stopped again at Carman Junction, so I shot them in both places. 692 had VIA 6438 and 6437 with the usual five cars.
After those six trains, the kids and I had had enough and we left. Not a bad afternoon! List of sightings and times
I was in Portage la Prairie today. I didn't see any trains on the way there, and all I saw while I was there was resident switcher CP 3082 and white caboose CP 420989.
I caught CN 302 passing through as I was heading home to Winnipeg. First, I saw it as it came into Portage at 18:04. CN 2226 and IC 1026 were the engines on the point.
I went around Portage on the Trans-Canada Highway, and I saw 302 meeting 401 as the latter came into Portage. 302 was really moving, but I was able to get ahead and set up at a crossing just west of Elie. 302 blasted through at 18:35 in the falling dark.
302 had just passed by the time I crossed over Wilkes Avenue on the Perimeter. They were making good time!
