I went to St. James Junction in Winnipeg around noon on April 12 to shoot the Canadian, and as often happens I saw a couple of bonus trains.
As soon as I arrived, I noticed headlights to the east. The other railfans there told me that was CN 199 (seen above). It had CN 5762 and CN 5723 for power. I was going to say that this was the first time I'd seen a pair of SD75I engines on CN 199, but that's not true.
Anyway, VIA 1 came trundling along about 15 minutes later with VIA 6405 on point.
I want to point out two things about this photograph. First, VIA 1 is crossing over from the south to the north track in this photo. Second, note the headlight in the distance behind the Canadian.
After the Canadian passed, that headlight turned into the CEMR train heading toward their Carman subdivision. As they passed a CN maintenance truck, they opened it up and belched a cloud of smoke that would make an Alco proud.
I decided to give chase and headed down to Wilkes Avenue to catch them crossing the road. I beat them easily and had time to turn around, park well off the road, and wait for them to make their crossing.
I went out on Thursday (March 29) to shoot the Canadian, as I often do. I decided I had better hustle west on Wilkes because I was cutting it a bit close for time. As I turned west on Sterling Lyon at route 90, I saw a CEMR train heading west. Great!
I got ahead of them and grabbed this shot of CEMR 4000 and CCGX 5232 leading a short train.
I quickly zoomed west again to get them at Carman Junction. It was a cloudy day so I figured I could pick my side of the crossing and it wouldn't matter much for lighting. I parked just west of the crossing on the shoulder and waited for them to arrive. CEMR slowed.. and slowed.. and slowed. Behind them, I saw lights!
Then it was a race. Would CEMR turn first or would the Canadian get there first? The conductor lined the switch for the CEMR Carman subdivision just before the Canadian came along. I took several shots of VIA passing and this was the best of them.
After that I concentrated on shooting VIA 1 as the CEMR train slowly rolled onto the Carman subdivision. The VIA crew gave me a wave as they passed - thanks!
Here's the last of the meet.
After the CEMR train cleared the switch, the conductor relined it and walked after his train.
I hopped into my car and took off in pursuit of the Canadian. They didn't seem to be going very fast and I caught up with them by mile 10. I went to Hall Road and crossed the tracks well ahead of them to get this shot. As I said in a previous post, normally you can't shoot westbounds at Half Road but since the sun was blocked, a shot from the north worked fine.
I was out on Friday September 16 during the day, spending some time with my son. We headed up to Assiniboine Park to play at the new Nature Playground. It's a very cool place.
On the way we stopped at Wilkes Avenue to see if there was any CN action. Nothing seemed to be happening, so I drove west out to Diamond. There I found the above train on the CP Glenboro subdivision waiting to go south across the CN Rivers subdivision. It had CP 6029 and CP 5920 with a long string of grain hoppers.
Why was it waiting? Well, after I shot the CP photos I saw a headlight to the west. It turned out to be a CN freight headed by CN 2241.
The second unit was CN 2240. 2241, 2240... if they had a third unit it would have to have been CN 2239.
CN 2241 East was not going very fast, so we gave chase. I passed it just east of the Perimeter and shot it again.
By this time my son was getting tired of the trains, so we headed off to the Nature Park for some running around.
On our way back, I ducked out on Wilkes Avenue again and I saw the CEMR freight train was parked at the end of their Carman subdivision. CEMR 4000 was the lead unit but the real surprise was the second unit, SD40 CEMR 5396. That unit has been for sale for almost two years!.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that the Loram ballast cleaner was parked just west of the Perimeter on the little stub siding there. The covers were off the side of the power unit and a few workers were servicing it.
August 16 was a busy day of CN watching for me. I started in the morning by driving to Wilkes Avenue by the Perimeter Highway, a little before 8 AM. An east-facing container train was parked on the north track on top of the hotbox detector at mile 10. I went to the head end and saw CN 8910 was the sole power there. This turned out to be CN train #112.
Incidentally, this is my first HDR photo. I took three shots at different exposures and used FDRTools Basic to blend them together. I'll talk more about HDR at another time.
As I was taking shots of 8910, I saw a headlight to the west. After a few minutes, one of the crew from 8910 dismounted to do a rollby inspection. Dual SD75I engines CN 5795 and CN 5688 at the head of train #404 rolled by on the south track. I didn't get a really good shot of the actual passing move but here's train #404. Remember that engine number CN 5795.
Satisfied, I started walking back to my car. As I walked across the tracks at the Charleswood Road crossing, I saw another headlight to the west. I trotted back and took a position to record this new train. I forgot to record this train #. I think it was a 7xx series train. It had SD75I CN 5705 and Dash-8 CN 2407 for power.
That was all that I could see for the time being. I heard of some kind of "traffic tie-up" around Fort Rouge but I wasn't going to go investigate. I headed east on Wilkes, only to find the CEMR train sitting at the end of their track at Carman Junction.
They clearly weren't going anywhere, so I grabbed a few shots and continued on.
I saw one more train! CN #115 was waiting just east of Shaftesbury Boulevard. CN 8811 and CN 8005 started rolling after a few minutes, so I shot them as they passed.
I heard CN #112 finally getting permission to continue on at this point, so 115 and 112 probably met somewhere near Carman Junction.
That was it for the morning... four CN and one CEMR trains in an hour. Not bad.
But wait! There's more! If you keep reading...
On my way home, I headed out via Wilkes and saw CN #301 heading out. It had a single engine for power... the same CN 5795 that came into Winnipeg on train #404. I first shot the train at Carman Junction. Note the signals behind the engine.
I chased west and shot video train 301 a few km east of Diamond. Check the video out... especially the end of the train!
I think this must be approaching some kind of record for largest # of cars pulled by a single engine on a road freight... 134 cars plus the Herzog set.
I just posted about some VIA trains I saw in May. Here's a grab bag of some other trains I saw in May.
Hmmm, let's see. I spent a bit of time at CN Subway on May 2 and I saw CN 199 heading west, with CN 2601 and CN 2298.
On May 5 I saw the usual BNSF transfer, still with BNSF 2756.
BNSF 2756 has been here for four and a half months... almost a record for BNSF in the past couple of years since long-time resident BNSF 1685 left.
Scoot ahead to May 26. I saw CN 106 in the afternoon around mile 9 of CN's Rivers subdivision. This was a grab shot.
Anyway, the interesting unit is the second one, SD70 IC 1004.
A few minutes later, I saw CEMR switching at Oak Bluff. CEMR 4000 and CCGX 5232 were doing the honours. This was a long telephoto shot, as you can see.
Note that CCGX 5232 used to be ANY 5232 (Athabasca Northern).
I mentioned I was in Portage la Prairie this past Saturday. There was a CP train doing some switching in the yard there by the old CP station. SD90 CP 9135 and faded SD40 CP 6040 were putting a grain train together.
Local switcher engine CP 3021 is locked away in its cage in the background.
When I was leaving Portage on the 28th, I saw a CP train heading east through the town. I got ahead of it on the east side of Portage and ended up shooting it at High Bluff in the rain.
I was leaning against the utility box (on the far side from the tracks) to keep steady and try to keep out of the rain.
I went up to Wilkes Avenue today at noon to shoot the Canadian, for the first time in over a month (since May 27!). I saw a friend of mine waiting for the same train, so I parked by him at mile 10 and we chatted while waiting for VIA.
First up was CN 801, however, with CN 8011 as the sole engine. 8011 on 801... quite a coincidence.
After that went by, we waited... and waited... and waited for the Canadian. Finally we heard that it had a mechanical problem and was stopped. In the meantime, we saw the CEMR train in the distance starting down the Carman subdivision.
The Canadian did show up, quite late.
VIA 6412 and 6427 were pulling 19 cars under the lovely sky.
Immediately afterward, CN 108 came the other way with CN 2673 and 8825 and a mile or two of containers. The problem with the mile 10 location is that you are too close to the tracks for eastbounds to shoot the whole train... too much stuff in the way. So, a closeup of the engine was in order.
We went our separate ways after that. I went south, just in time to catch CEMR crossing the Perimeter Highway at Oak Bluff. CEMR 4000 and CCGX 4010 were bringing a portion of their train to switch Oak Bluff.
Nice sun, eh?
It was nice to get out and take some shots on this beautiful day. Today's sightings
CEMR 4000 and 4002 switching at Oak Bluff outside Winnipeg
I happened to see the Central Manitoba Railway (CEMR) switching at Oak Bluff just south of Winnipeg on the Carman subdivision.
A pair of ex CN GP9s, CEMR 4000 and 4002, were shunting a few cars at the lumber yard, while the rest of their train waited just north of the Perimeter Highway.
There's a lumber dealer there that receives centerbeam flatcars, and a fertilizer? dealer that gets hopper cars. Sometimes the siding is used for storage.
Remember this book? I saw the modern version of that today. I was driving around the Perimeter Highway today in Winnipeg, intending to catch VIA's Canadian at Wilkes Avenue before heading into the city. As I approached the CP La Riviere track, I saw a long southbound grain train approaching the highway. I could see that it was going to cross the highway before I got to the crossing. I decided to exit and take a shot of it after it crossed the highway. I rushed over to get the shot, and here it is at 12:08. I returned to the highway and got in line for the crossing. The train continued on, car after car, and as I watched I could see it going slower and slower. I could hear the engineer talking with the RTC and the train was in trouble. That single AC4000CW was struggling to pull almost 100 grain cars up the gentle grade. Soon it was proceeding at a walking pace, then a crawl, then ... it stopped.
I heard that CP 3116? (or 3118, can't remember) was working a couple of miles north, with another Boyko in the engineer's chair, and I was wondering if Mr Boyko would have to come give this train a push. Suddenly the grain cars started moving again, slowly, then gaining speed, and finally, 17 minutes later, the crossing was clear. The little red engine COULD!
Normally I love being stopped by a train, but that was a little much!
During this time, I heard that VIA 1 (the Canadian) had stopped at Waverley. It turned out that VIA 6420 was not loading and they had to wait for someone to come look at the engine. The Thursday CEMR train ended up going around them, and I grabbed a quick shot of them as they approached Carman Junction.
I was off last Thursday (Jan 14), so my youngest son and I went out to see some trains in the late morning. My intention was to shoot the Canadian then proceed north to CP to see what was up.
We went up the Perimeter on the west side of Winnipeg. I heard CEMR 4000 (as CN train 525) report to the RTC that it was off the main line, meaning that it was on the Carman subdivision. Good to know!
We west on Wilkes Avenue to a spot near Diamond. I didn't want to stay out of the car, due to the cold, so I set up the video camera and parked facing east. I jumped out of the car every now and then to see if I could hear the train. It turned out that I didn't hear it, so I was a little later getting to the video camera than I would have liked. Still, I think it turned out OK.
There were two Chateau sleepers deadheading ahead of the baggage car and behind 6441 and 6425. I took this going-away shot and then headed back to see what CEMR was doing.
I found CEMR 4000 and 4002 switching at Oak Bluff at 12:39. It looked like they would be there for a while, so we went to have lunch. When we returned, CEMR was still switching, so we went north back to Wilkes Avenue. I could see an eastbound CN train across the prairie at Diamond so we hustled to catch it. It turned out to be CN 2648 and 5722 leading a paper products / autorack train.
After the train passed, we went back south to Oak Bluff and found the CEMR train had just left. We gave chase down highway 3 toward Carman. I had never been in this area before, so I didn't have any idea where the good shots were. However, on the prairies, every shot is pretty good. After about 15 minutes, I was far enough ahead so I picked a spot to leave the highway and went down a rural road to near the tracks. I set up the tripod and we waited for the train to come. Soon enough, CEMR 4000 came into view across the prairie. This telephoto shot shows how the prairie is not exactly flat around Winnipeg, just rolling.
As I panned the video camera, I noticed a grain elevator just south of us. Darn it! That would have been a better backdrop. Next time...
We chased it down to Sanford, and then gave up the chase since I had other business to attend to. I'm glad I had this little sojourn down the Carman sub, and I look forward to more railfanning in the area.
I had some errands to run on Monday (Nov 16) in Winnipeg, so I arranged things to be able to see the Canadian leave. It's getting a little sad now that the once-proud summer Canadian, usually 20+ cars in length, has been reduced to a train shorter than the Ocean.
Anyway, I went to shoot it on Wilkes Avenue. I saw the tail end of the CEMR freight leaving CN's Rivers subdivision and heading south on the CEMR Carman subdivision. I decided to wait for the Canadian and hopefully I would see CEMR before I had to go. The Canadian was a bit late.
A quick drive south on the Perimeter found ANY 5232 and CEMR 4000 just about to cross the highway to switch the industries at Oak Bluff. I didn't get to the crossing before the lights came on, so I had to shoot them from the non-sun side. Never race a train!
I went on my way after that and did my errands. On my way back to the office, I looked and saw that the CEMR freight had just finished its switching and was continuing south on the Carman subdivision. I went a couple of minutes out of my way to shoot them across a field. True Prairie branchline railroading!
A truck ran into a CEMR train on the Perimeter Highway just northeast of Winnipeg Tuesday around 4 PM. The Winnipeg Sun reported that a semi (transport truck to you Easterners) went around four stopped cars and plowed into the train as it was crossing the highway. The crossing lights were working but there are no barriers at that crossing. I doubt barriers would have made much difference in this situation.
CEMR 4000 was on the train, and from the Winnipeg Sun photos, it looks like the train struck the train between 4000 and the first freight car. It looks like there was some damage to 4000.
The driver was extricated from the cab and taken to hospital, and was reported to be in stable condition. The train crew was not injured.
The CEMR train was heading south on the Pine Falls subdivision. I had heard CEMR 4000 on the scanner on Monday around noon as they headed south on the Carman subdivision.
