Bonus Train

Monday, August 6th 2018 was a holiday here in Manitoba. It's called a "Civic Holiday" here, other provinces call it "Family Day" and it's not even a holiday in some provinces. Anyway, I had the day off.

I went out to catch VIA's "Canadian" leaving Winnipeg. It turned out that the first train I saw was CN 8906 West - see above. I elected to catch it at Carman Junction at the curve, to get the head on view above.

The train had CN 8906 / CN 5694 / CN 8823 on the head end.

Westward ho!

After the train passed, I went west to Diamond to set up for VIA. I caught up with some of the train so I amused myself by taking a few shots of the old wooden "Diamond" sign.

Diamond signs are forever, apparently

I hope nobody steals this sign.

VIA 1

VIA Rail Canadian heading west

I got what I came for - VIA 6455 leading the "Canadian" with two other units and 20 cars.

"Glacier Park" was on the tail end.

Prairie Streamliner

Central Manitoba Railway

4002 and 4004 parked on the Carman subdivision

Two Central Manitoba Railway GP9s, 4002 and 4004, were parked on the Carman subdivision.

I noticed this shiny new equipment box in the gap between the main line and the track to the CEMR Carman subdivision.

CN actually owns the first little bit of the track - from the Rivers sub across Wilkes Avenue - before it becomes the CEMR Carman sub.

I didn't see anything happening after that on the CN Rivers subdivision, so I headed for home.

As I drove around the Perimeter Highway, I spotted a southbound CN train on the Letellier subdivision. That would have been CN 532, heading down to the Canada-US border at Emerson to interchange with BNSF.

Bonus train!

CN 532

The dark side of CN 532

I gave chase as best I could. It was hard to catch up to the train through St. Norbert, given the 50 and 60 km/hr speed limits, but eventually I got ahead of them south of the town to get the shot above.

I was on the "dark side" of the train and I wasn't super happy about that. Fortunately, they weren't going very fast, so after they passed by, I gave chase again... this time, at 100 km/hr!

Near Ste. Agathe, I was far enough ahead of them that I felt I could leave the highway and drive the 2 km or so to the track for another round of photos. As it happened, I had enough time to get both my cameras out... one with the 70-200mm "long" lens and the other with the wide angle.

First the long lens. There was a combine working a field nearby, so I included that in the photo. You can see a bit of heat haze, so the shot isn't as sharp as I would like, but I like what's in it!

CN 5693 and a combine

A few seconds later, I took another photo as the train approached.

Storming south

The right of way looks very clean and well maintained, doesn't it?

I love that 70-200mm lens.

I "dropped" that camera and picked up my older T1i with the wide angle lens to capture the train as it went by.

Going wide

The train had a friendly crew who both gave me waves as they went by. Thanks!

One going away shot, with the Viterra elevator at Ste. Agathe just to the left of the train, and the G3 SD40-2 locomotive at far left, on the loop track of the G3 elevator at Glenlea / Saint Adolphe.

Heading south

Here's the video showing all three trains, with a "clickbait" title just for fun.


You might want to read Busy Day - same play, VIA 1 then CN 532, back in 2012!

PS - Important News

It's the end of an era.

This was the last full post that I will write on blog.traingeek.ca.

I've been on the Blogger platform for many years, since my first post in July 2005. After 13 years and 3 months, it's time to move on.

From now on, I'll be writing on my main site - www.traingeek.ca - and the posts will appear there on the home page.

I like the WordPress platform a lot more for writing. I've been thinking about this for a long time, more than a year, and now I'm making the change.

I hope you'll follow me there.

All of my old posts will remain where they are. I am not interested in moving them over!

By the way, there will be one more post, a placeholder to direct visitors to my main site.

https://www.traingeek.ca/wp/

Quickies From This Weekend

While I'm working on a longer blog post, I thought I'd share a few trains I saw this weekend. It was a rainy, gray weekend but I got out to railfan a bit anyway.

Saturday

After I visited Pete's Sparetime Hobbies near Transcona, I drove up to Day Street to see what was new at CEMR. The answer: nothing much. The two Railink units I saw back in March are still there, with hood doors open. A couple of CEMR units were shunting the yard.

I saw headlights on the CP line to the east, so I parked a little way away from the crossing and walked back to wait for CP 8604 and CP 8722 to roll past Manson on the CP Keewatin subdivision.

CP 8604 in Winnipeg

As I said, it was a grey weekend.

There was one interesting car in the consist, a former Rio Grande hopper that clearly was relettered a few times before becoming a CP car.

Rio Grande - The Action Line

I went back to CEMR to photograph the two units crossing Day Street. I think they were just shunting cars in the yard.

CEMR 4002 and CCGX 4119 in Winnipeg

That was Saturday.

Sunday

On Sunday afternoon I went to Gooch's Hobbies and then took the long way home along the CN Rivers subdivision via Wilkes Avenue. I was outrunning a westbound CN freight led by CN 2036 and BCOL 4622.

I noticed there was a train facing east so I hastened to get the meet. It turned out that CN 2226 East was stopped just short of Harstone Road.

CN 2226 in Winnipeg

I don't know why they were stopped - maybe they had an unintended emergency brake application? The tail end was at mile 10 so the almost 2 mile long train was blocking Harstone Road, Community Row and Charleswood Road. Eastbound CN trains normally stop short of Charleswood Road so they don't block any crossings.

CN 2036 West came along in good time.

Fancy meeting you here

I relocated to mile 10 to video the approaching train. While I waited, the container train started rolling away, and CN 2036 West seemed to have slowed down quite a bit while it passed the container train. Maybe they were doing an inspection as they passed. 2036  was accelerating when I recorded it.


Sunday's photos were taken with my iPhone 6 as I didn't have my DSLR with me. These phone cameras do a pretty decent job!

P.S. If you're wondering why I was visiting model train stores, I was taking photos of the exteriors for the model train directory I've built... plus dropping in on stores I don't visit frequently.

The Dufresne Grain Elevator, and CEMR

I was browsing through Flickr a few days ago and stumbled across this photo of CN train 342 at Dufresne, Manitoba. It's a very sharp photo, but what really attracted me was the grain elevator. I had no idea there were any grain elevators on the CN Sprague subdivision. I decided that I had to go check it out, and on Sunday June 30, I did.

Dufresne is located about 30 km southeast of Winnipeg, just off the Trans-Canada Highway. The kids and I drove down there and found it easily enough. It's hard to miss a grain elevator on the Prairies once you get within 10 km or so of it.


There were some beat-up gondolas and side-dump cars parked beside the elevator, and the smell of creosote was strong in the air. Clearly the elevator is not being used, but a little research shows the elevator wore the Agricore logo as recently as 2006, although the elevator tracks were pretty overgrown by that point.

I went around to the sun side and took a shot there, to illustrate the trackage there.


Sadly no trains were evident and the signals were all dark.

The most recent data I have for the Sprague subdivision shows the following for the area around Dufresne:

120.7	Hotbox detector	-
130.9	DUFRESNE	6,690
133.1	Hotbox detector	-

The siding is evident as the middle track in the above photo, and it does appear to get some use, although by modern standards 6,690 feet is a bit short.

Looking back in time, the CN Assiniboine Division Employee Timetable #72 from April 24, 1977 shows a bit more information.

The siding was just a bit shorter (6,390 feet) and the hotbox detector at mile 133.1 was not there in 1977. The more interesting information is that there was a siding at Ste. Anne at mile 126.2 (not present now) and two spurs in Ste. Anne to service the Co-Op and also Cominco.

Also notice the Railliner trains, #687 and #686, which ran three times a week up to May 21. I assume they were cancelled after that. They were relatively speedy, scheduled to take 3 hours and 10 minutes to cover the 145.7 miles between Navin and Rainy River.

Anyway, after taking all the photos I wanted, we proceeded back to Winnipeg. There were three hump sets of GP38-slug-slug-GP38 visible in Symington yard, two of which were active. I carried on up to Transcona but the yard was devoid of any power. Off to see what was going on at CP and CEMR...

CP was dark but I spotted headlights on the CEMR Pine Falls subdivision just outside their yard. There is a chemical plant there that takes tank cars and I could see an engine with some tank cars. I took a guess that they were going to push the train into the CEMR yard, so I carried on down Day Street. I was surprised to see there was an engine on the other end of the train too. CEMR 4001 had two crew and was pulling the train into the CEMR yard.


After about a dozen tank cars, there was CEMR 4002 on the other end! It had a crewman riding the end of the engine.


I had a quick look at what was inside the yard, as much as I could see from Day Street. New acquisition CCGX 4119 was there with CEMR 5396, and ex-CN GP9 JLCX 7059 was there too. I saw that engine several times in its former life as CN 7059.

Not a bad afternoon of railfanning, all things considered.

So Many Photos, So Little Time

I'm so far behind in cataloguing my train photos. I've been busy on a bunch of other (non-train) stuff and yet I keep taking train photos, so my virtual "to be filed" stack gets larger and larger. I know, I know, it's not a bad situation to be in... so here is a dump of some photos I've taken recently, without much commentary.

On July 31, I shot an eastbound intermodal at Diamond in the late afternoon. CN 2248 was the sole engine on the head end and CN 2338 was farther back in the train.




On August 14, two SD60s brought CN 781 west out of Winnipeg. CN 5548 was the lead engine, followed by CN 5516. I quite like how this one turned out.


On August 21, I took the kids for a drive because we were all bored. We ended up in and around Transcona and saw a few trains. First, we saw BCOL 4607 sitting by itself in the CN Transcona yard. I don't know whether it was dropped by a train or was left as additional power for a soon-to-arrive train, but it was all alone.


I drove up to CEMR's yard to see what was up. On the way I saw CEMR 4002 pushing a set of tank cars back toward their yard. Technically CEMR was on the Pine Falls subdivision, so that was the first time I'd seen a train there.


In behind CEMR's shop, the hulk of CCGX 4010 is being slowly stripped. Here it is, clearly showing half of the 16 cylinder holes.


CCGX 4010's hood lay on the ground nearby.


Finally, we have CN 199 heading out of Winnipeg on August 23. First, here it is just west of Carman Junction with CN 8874 leading.


Ex BC Rail unit BCOL 4601 was trailing. Note the shiny clean section on 4601... wonder why?


I got ahead of them and shot them approaching Diamond. I decided to do a bit of a pan shot for this one.


I shot some video of 199 here.


As a little extra, here are some crossing gates at sunrise. This was shot just south of the floodway on the CP Emerson subdivision.

January 3

I'm way behind in posting this, but better late than never, right? Right?

On January 3 I went to St. James Junction in Winnipeg to try to shoot the Hudson Bay, er, I mean VIA's "Winnipeg-Churchill train" VIA 693. What a dull name!

There were two other railfans there already, VanBilly and another gentleman whose name I never got. Nothing much was going on so we chatted for a bit. Soon the CEMR train came along, heading west toward their Carman subdivision. CEMR 4002 and CCGX 5232 were the power.


Here's VanBilly's video.


Soon after that, the BNSF transfer train came back from Fort Rouge. New-to-Winnipeg engine BNSF 2968 was on the point.


Here's VanBilly's video of the same train. I think you might see my shadow in the shot at one point.


Right after that, a CN freight came rolling east. I think it was CN 404 but I could be wrong. It had an interesting consist on the front end. CN 8892 was the lead unit, a fairly boring SD70M-2, very common these days.


There was a bit of an editorial comment on the frame of CN 8892...


The second unit was one of my favourites, an SD60, CN 5526, in "sergeant stripes".


The real catch was the third unit, an SD40, CN 6008, in CN North America livery!


I had to leave after that, so I never did see the Hudson Bay. I don't know why they were so late!

EDIT: Added VanBilly1's videos.

Tuesday's CEMR at Oak Bluff

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.

See Also

• A Short CEMR Chase
• It's Not All About You
• Other CEMR blog posts

CEMR on the Prairie

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.

CEMR, VIA, BNSF, oh my!

I went to the St. James Junction area today at noon to see the Hudson Bay. I heard that BNSF 2001 was at Fort Rouge last night, so I was hoping to see that too. I got more than I bargained for! I set up at the Waverley Street crossing.

At 12:17 I saw a westbound freight round the corner at Portage Junction. It turned out to be CEMR 4001, ANY 5232, and CEMR 4002 leading the westbound freight to the CEMR Carman Subdivision.

I had a look at the photos afterward, and I see the engine crew were gesturing as they went by.

I'm glad they had TWO fingers up!

Right after that, a CN local went down the Letellier sub to switch the industrial area around Chevrier. They had one engine (likely a 7200 series GP9), one slug, and about a dozen cars.

At 12:25 the Hudson Bay (VIA 693) made its appearance.

The consist was 6456, 6445, 8600, 8110, 8100, York, Chateau Radisson.

Finally, at 12:40 the BNSF transfer went east to Fort Rouge with BNSF 12580 leading and BNSF 2886 pushing. By then I was out of time so I couldn't wait to see 2001 return. Here they are, with a fairly long train.