Last Trains of 2011

I did manage to squeeze in a bit more 'fanning at the very end of 2011. Here's what I saw.

I saw CN 2566 leading an eastbound freight in the falling dark of December 30.


Ex-UP CN 2136 was the second engine. There's a little lens flare going on there, probably reflections of the train's headlights inside the lens mechanism.

I made an effort on December 31 to go shoot the last Canadian of the year, as I did in 2009. I went out to Diamond just west of Winnipeg and found CN 404 rolling toward me.


SD75I engines CN 5641 and CN 5694 were leading, followed by SD60 CN 5511.

There was too much foreground clutter to shoot a westbound from the south side, so I walked over to the north side after 404 passed and waited for VIA 1. She had VIA 6443 on the head end, followed by now-rare unrebuilt F40PH-2, VIA 6451.


The paint is wearing off the plow on 6443.

The Canadian blew by at an impressive speed.


The kids were restless, so off we went. On our return trip, I caught one more, my final train of 2011. CN 2651 led CN 5602 and an intermodal train. CN seems to like the Dash-9/SD75I combo for its general freights these days.


When the lead engine passed, the conductor gave me a nice wave out the side window. When I reviewed my photos later, I realized that both the engineer and the conductor were giving me waves.


You have to squint a bit to see the engineer's hand. Thanks for the waves!

Wave 'bye to 2011!

A Busy CN Day

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!


Yes, that is the Herzog multipurpose machine HZGX 185 that I saw back in February.

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.

404 on 4/04

I went out at noon Monday to shoot the Canadian. After a miserable rainy Sunday it was nice to be out in the bright sun. I set up just west of mile 10 at the Perimeter and I didn't have to wait long before VIA 1 came along.




You may know that VIA 6429 used to be the Telus unit. Here's the only time I saw it on the Canadian, back on October 19, 2009.

Now it's another refurbished unit. I think there are only two wrapped VIA engines left - Loto-Quebec 6414 and one Spiderman unit.

As you may have noticed in the video, VIA 1 called a "clear to stop" signal so they were set to stop at Diamond. I was quite surprised by this, so I jumped in the car and tried to get ahead of them. Unfortunately, due to the wet weather on Sunday the road was quite muddy and I couldn't get a decent speed on. They did stop briefly before Diamond before starting up again. I came abreast of them just west of Diamond and pulled over to get the going-away shot before they pulled away. I did notice that Strathcona Park was the trailing car.

Note the mud in the foreground!

I headed back through the mud at a more sedate pace. I heard CN 404 call a clear approach signal to Diamond, so I knew they would not be long. I set up to catch them at about mile 11 and here they are.

Matched GE ES44DC engines CN 2329 and 2339 provided the power.

It was nice to see CN 404 on 4/04!