Railfanning with Michael Berry, Part 2

Michael Berry and I went railfanning on Saturday September 3rd. Michael is from Montreal and wanted to experience Winnipeg's railfan scene. In part 1 we went to CN's Diamond.

Prairie Dog - this way!

The Prairie Dog Central

Michael and I left Diamond and headed north on the Perimeter Highway to see the Prairie Dog Central's steam train depart. They have numerous excursions from their station and each trip has a theme. You can always see what's coming up by going to https://tickets.pdcrailway.com/ and they even indicate whether it will be steam or diesel pulling the train.

This time it was a steam train, good old #3 ready to haul the ancient coaches to Grosse Isle and back. They had a long train this trip, with the normal four coaches 104-107, combine 103, the caboose, and even bunk car #110 behind the locomotive for some reason.

The Prairie Dog Central steam train

They have to have a "buffer car" between the steam locomotive and any passenger car, but normally the combine (seen above behind the water tank) provides that function as it doesn't carry passengers. I saw from other photos taken this day that the steam engine and #110 were turned together on the wye in Grosse Isle, so maybe the caboose was occupied and they needed 110 as the buffer when they headed back from Grosse Isle.

While we were waiting for the train to leave, we photographed some of the other equipment in the yard.

VLSX 5232

The PDC acquired ex CN SD40 #5232 from the Central Manitoba Railway in the spring of 2015. At that time it was in a faded CN "sergeant stripe" scheme. It was repainted this summer into a classy black and white scheme and this was the first time I had seen it in its new.. "colours" isn't the right word... in its new paint scheme.

VLSX 5232 in Winnipeg

It's now VLSX 5232, labelled for Prairie Rail Solutions, which is the freight arm of the Prairie Dog Central and handles car storage and other railway services. Both the PDC and PRS are owned by the Vintage Locomotive Society, which is where the VLSX reporting mark comes from.

I immediately thought it looked like the New Brunswick East Coast SD40 locomotives' scheme. Here's a comparison:

Comparing PRS 5232 to CFMG 6907

Both are ex CN SD40s. NBEC/CFMG removed the snow shields behind the cab and made some changes to the filters and doors to try to reduce snow ingress into the body. You can also see that 5232 still has her class lights above the number boards while 6907 did not.

For comparison, here's CCGX 5232 in July 2014.

CCGX 5232 in Winnipeg

By the way, the fine print under the cab window of 5232 says "Prairie Rail Solutions is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Vintage Locomotive Society Inc. Operators of the Prairie Dog Central Railway".

Anyway, tangent over - for now.

Other Equipment

ex Virginia Central #1238

We photographed the two ex Virginia Central steam engines that are stored at the PDC (ex CP 1238 and 1246). These came to Winnipeg back in September 2015 and have remained at the PDC since.

ex Virginia Central #1246, power car and ex BNSF 1685

I don't know what the plans are for these locomotives. The PDC does not own them.

You can see the freshly painted "genset car" #111 and ex BNSF 1685 in the row as well.

PDC's main diesel, #4138, was sitting out at the other end of the shops.

The high hood GP9s... ex BNSF 1685 and PDC 4138

As 11 AM approached, people started lining up to board the train. Tickets indicate which car you are on and the seat you're assigned to. If you go to their ticket site you can pick which coach and which seat you want... assuming it isn't already taken. It's pretty slick! They used to link out to Ticketmaster but I see their ticketing is now fully integrated with their web site. Nice work.

The crew did some final oiling of the locomotive before the trip to Grosse Isle.

Oiling the locomotive

The platform was emptied as people found seats, and there were only a few stragglers left on the platform when we took our final shots before getting ready for the pursuit.

The Prairie Dog Central at the Inkster Junction station

Smoking It Up

They made some serious smoke before getting under way!

Smokin' it up

The PDC's line goes north-south, and since we were shooting at 11 AM, the sun was right on the rear of the train, and high. This made head-on or near head-on shots impossible as they would have been terribly backlit. For example, even with heavy editing this photo isn't great:

Smo-o-o-ke on the prairie / a fire in the boiler

A Short Chase

We chased the train from the Inkster Junction station to the Perimeter Highway. That's a short chase - 4.5 km (2.8 miles) - but there's a dirt road paralleling the track and the train doesn't go very fast, so we were able to stop three times to shoot the train. I elected to shoot video.

Here's the train leaving the station. Lots of wind noise. :(

Round 2 - no crossing = no whistle here:


Round 3 - I elected to shoot this at the Lilyfield spur. The track in front is the track CN uses to service the nearby Paterson grain elevator.

Round 3.5 :) - we saw it was approaching the highway crossing and Michael wanted to catch it crossing there, so I stopped the car at the bend near the crossing and Michael jumped out to get the shot. I stayed by the car and photographed him photographing the train!

Michael at left capturing the ancient train with the modern crossing

That was it for us, as we had to get back to Diamond to get the VIA Rail Canadian. No rest for the wicked!

Bye for now!

Up Next

I'll wrap up this three-part series with a few CN trains at Diamond, along with VIA Rail's flagship Canadian, finally... with a little bonus action at the CN Symington hump yard.

NEXT POST

Back to part 1

A Morning in Portage la Prairie

I am normally a "lone wolf" railfan. I find my time to railfan when I can so it's difficult for me to arrange to meet up with anyone else to see trains, plus when I'm alone I get to decide where to go! So when Thomas Sajnovic messaged me to ask if I was available, I hesitated for a moment and decided "what the heck!" Tom was in town doing some training with CN and we arranged to go out on Sunday, May 3rd. I picked him up at 6 AM and we headed over to the CP yard to start.

The usual collection of old Geeps were by the shops.

CP 8231 and company in Winnipeg

CP 8231 and several other GP9s are for sale, "as is where is".

We stood and watched for a few minutes. I spotted a BNSF unit over by the now-closed Rugby Tower. I took this poor shot and then we hopped in the car to try to get a better angle. Of course, by the time we drove around, two CP locomotives had hooked onto it and were pushing it into the shop area as I tried to stop to photograph it. No picture for you!

BNSF 8235 in Winnipeg

We consoled ourselves with photographing a pair of switchers in the nice sunrise light.

Big stacks on those locomotives!

After that, we headed over to the Prairie Dog Central to get a couple of shots before proceeding to Portage la Prairie.

The PDC had all three of its diesels out.

The Prairie Dog Central fleet

BNSF 1685 is the last Burlington Northern Manitoba Limited locomotive (ex BNML 2). It was donated to the PDC in July 2010. The green loco is 4138 which has been with the PDC for quite a while. The new arrival is 5232, the striped locomotive on the right.

Ex CN, ex CCGX 5232

Long time readers of the blog will recognize this as ex CCGX 5232, which worked for the Central Manitoba Railway (CEMR) for several years. I first spotted 5232 in September 2009 when she was still lettered as ANY 5232, ex Athabasca Northern. I've written about 5232 many times.

A volunteer who was around at this early hour told me that 5232 was acquired to work on the PDC's car storage business. This six axle power will pull a lot more than the Geeps!

The volunteer - sorry, I can't recall his name - invited us to have a look at #3, the PDC's steam engine. It was still warm from a run the previous night.

Being in the shade, it was a little difficult to photograph. I did the best I could.

A couple of CP westbound trains rolled by while we were chatting. 

Once we were done at the PDC, we hit the road for Meadows and beyond. I had to pause briefly at Meadows to shoot yet another photo of the grain elevator...

Then we carried on to Marquette - no grain elevator there any more, of course - and on toward Portage la Prairie. While traveling the back roads near Poplar Point, I spotted this grain elevator at a (Mennonite?) colony.

I spotted this nice barn near there too.

Anyway, we finally made it to Portage la Prairie. Tom spotted a rail grinder moving on the CP tracks, so we made our way over there and found LIMX 3411 tying up.

Sadly LIMX 3411 derailmed in Portage the day after we saw it.

While admiring this magnificent piece of equipment, I spotted movement on the CP... and I spotted yellow UP engines! We sprinted for the tracks to capture UP 3556 and UP 3645 leading CP 9562 and a grain train.

While we were admiring that train, Tom spotted movement on the CN side, so over we went! This was CN 2679 leading an intermodal train east.

CN 8877 was about 3/4 of the train back, providing DPU power.

That's the best part of railfanning Portage - action on both tracks!

That train finished going past us at 09:02. We decided to go see the CP station. After we arrived there, we spotted a westbound train on the CN at 09:15. CN 2200 led 8838 and 8901 past the station.

The station is looking good! A big shout out to everyone working to restore the station.

I like the ex Manitoba Hydro locomotive.

I'm guessing it was nicknamed "Snoopy".

CP 3111 was the resident switcher in the CP yard.

After those three trains in Portage, there was a lull. We decided to head back to Winnipeg via the Trans-Canada, which meant there was a potential for CN action... and there was! To be continued...

Other Portage la Prairie posts

A Caboose Hop

BN 12580 at work, Waverley Street, September 18, 2009

BNSF Manitoba has one caboose, BN 12580, that they use as a riding platform. The caboose has had a broken spring for a while and needed new wheels. BNSF doesn't have the equipment to do the work themselves, so they contracted Prairie Rail Solutions (a subsidiary of the Vintage Locomotive Society, owners of the Prairie Dog Central Railway (PDC)) to do the work.

Of course, the caboose had to get to the Prairie Dog Central. If you look at a map of Winnipeg you'll see that BNSF and the PDC do not touch.

BNSF Manitoba's shops are at the south end of their track, and the Prairie Dog's shops are on the CN Oak Point subdivision north of CP. Canadian Pacific is the railway between the two.

The plan was for BNSF to take their caboose up to their interchange yard next to Westview Park*, and for PDC to run over CP to pick it up. I got some intel about when that was to take place - Wednesday, January 7th, with pickup at 12:30 PM.

I headed north and passed by the BNSF Manitoba yard a bit after noon. There was no activity there so I assumed they were up at the interchange point. I kept going.

Keep in mind that I had never been to the interchange yard, so I didn't know precisely where to go. It's just north of Polo Park, Winnipeg's biggest shopping mall, so I knew the area but not the specific spot. I drove up route 90 to Saskatchewan Avenue, then headed east. I spotted a CP engine, CP 2315, doing local switching off Saskatchewan Avenue. I pulled over and snapped a quick photo before continuing on.

I ended up driving completely around the yard! I finally ended up spotting the caboose at the north end of the yard and parked at the foot of Westview Park's hill. I grabbed my camera bag and started walking up the hill. The trail winds around the hill and it's a pretty easy climb, if a bit long, and the snow was packed down fairly well.

As I rounded a corner, I spotted the Prairie Dog Central engine approaching, so I was just in time. I trotted up to a decent photo location and started snapping.

That's PDC 4138 on the left. A crewman holding a switch broom is on the ground, having thrown the switch connecting BNSF and CP track. The track in the foreground is CP's La Riviere subdivision, which parallels the BNSF track for quite a ways, as indicated in the map above. The track behind the crewman is BNSF's, which goes up to Cowin Metals and Grace Industries. The track behind the PDC engine that curves off to the right is CP's and goes to a Viterra grain elevator. There's a diamond off-picture in the distance where CP and BNSF cross.

Closing in...

...aaaaand coupled up (12:46).

A little broader view, showing that Viterra elevator I mentioned.

Here's a look south to show the interchange yard - BNSF on the left, CP on the right.

They sat there for about 5 minutes, presumably while the crew hooked up air hoses, released handbrakes and so forth. At one point there were three crew at the rear of the caboose, I believe unlocking the door so someone could ride inside. I've blurred their faces for privacy.

The gondola was BN 561735 and I'm told the new wheels were in it, although I couldn't see them from my angle.

I took a little video with my iPhone to capture the sound of the Geep idling and to show the area.

After a few minutes, they were on their way. One of the crew rode the rear of the caboose, ready to line the switch for the main once they were on the CP La Riviere sub again.

Once the switch was lined, he boarded the caboose and off they went.

They would have rolled into Rugby aka the Winnipeg yard, then headed west to the Oak Point subdivision then onto Prairie Dog Central tracks.

The caboose should be done and back sometime next week. It's nice to see the PDC get a little paying work!

* Westview Park is also known as Garbage Hill as it is a former landfill.

Volunteering at the Prairie Dog, Part 2

As I mentioned, I volunteered at the Prairie Dog Central Railway on Sunday.

I spent my time from Grosse Isle to Warren counting the money raised from the train robbery. We arrived at Warren, and steam engine #3 was cut off and run around the train.

I disembarked, and after using the port-a-potty I bought an ice cream and resumed my coin counting. There were a lot of coins! In the end I counted $273 raised. We left Warren and headed back toward Inkster Junction.


The return trip was pretty quick and we arrived at Inkster Junction just before 15:00. The passengers disembarked, and some went up into the steam engine. I wandered around taking a few photos.


The steam engine was eventually cut off, and diesel 4138 was fired up to put the coaches away for the night. A few of them were put on one shop track and the rest were put on the other. The caboose stays outside, apparently.


The steam engine was backed up to take on water.


Afterward, both the steam and diesel engines were run around to the south side of the shops.

I look forward to volunteering again. I would like to start as a porter, to be onboard the train and assist the passengers. Eventually I would like to join the head end crew as a brakeman, but that will take some time, and of course I will have to pass my rules course. So far so good!