The Canadian Today, and more

Today's Canadian was very prompt, rolling into view at St. James Junction at 12:14. She had three-eyed VIA 6434 leading and 6408 trailing, both Spiderman-2 units.

They had 19 cars: baggage 8616; coaches 8118, 8104, and 8103; Skyline 8509; diner Louise; Skyline 8512, sleeper cars Drummond Manor, Dawson Manor, Cabot Manor, Blair Manor, Chateau Lasalle, and Chateau Salaberry; Skyline 8503; diner Emerald; sleepers Osler Manor, Laird Manor and Christie Manor; and Tremblant Park bringing up the markers.


Just after they passed, CN 303 was heard passing through Fort Rouge. There was some discussion about meeting CN 114 east of Diamond, as 303 apparently had a dimensional load and the rules say that either one of the two has to be stopped, or they both have to proceed at 10 MPH. I believe 114 ended up stopping.

CN 303 had Dash-9 2624 leading and IC 1009 trailing.

I think this was the dimensional load they were talking about, about six or so cars back from the engines.

It says "CB Energy Recovery" on it. It's a HSRG, a Heat Recovery Steam Generator. These are used to make steam from gas turbines or other waste heat sources.

Herzog Cars

This morning I was approaching Elie, Manitoba from the west when I heard a chirp on the scanner from a nearby end-of-train (EOT) device. The EOT sends little data chirps to the engine, and vice versa, on occasion and you can pick that up on a scanner. Hearing that chirp means there is a train nearby.

I pulled off to cross the tracks near a little elevator just west of Elie. As I crossed the two tracks I saw a train far to the east. It turned out to be CN 303 just pulling out of Elie. There were some rather interesting cars behind CN 2301 and 8859!


You may recall I reported on a Herzog ballast train in the east back in July.