Anticipation

Back on February 23 (I told you I have a backlog) I found CN 8847 heading west out of Winnipeg late in the afternoon. This was after seeing CN 106 and the Canadian at noon on the same day. The train approached Diamond and slowed to a halt. Clearly they were meeting another train.


I headed west past Diamond and spotted this train. Here they are approaching the bend west of Diamond.

I love this moment... the train is in sight, not quite "in range" for photography... fire off a test shot to make sure all the settings are right... and wait for "the moment".

Here they came around the bend.


Note how CN 5508 does not have the white-painted numbers above the cab windows like most CN SD60s do, or like trailing engine CN 5538 has.


I hit the road to shoot the meet. I saw that 8847 had started creeping forward in anticipation of 5508's passing. I stopped at the Route 334 crossing just east of Diamond, jumped out, and here is the meet.


I was out of time, so I headed for home. The funny thing is... there was another train behind 8847 West, led by two more SD60s, CN 5536 and CN 5549. Unfortunately I did not have time to get a shot of them!

SD60s in the Snow

First off, I must apologize for not blogging as much recently. I have a little back problem these days and I'm trying to limit my computer time a bit, so the blogging suffers. Hopefully things will improve soon.

I have been seeing trains, and I wanted to share this one from February 16. I went to St. James Junction to see if I could see a train, and sure enough a freight was visible to the west through the falling snow. A CN crew were looking at the diamond, and after saying hello to me they took up positions on both sides to inspect the train.

The lead unit was CN 5538, followed by CN 2727, then another SD60, CN 5508.


I was idly standing by, doing my own rollby inspection, when this car came rolling by. I managed to take a few snaps of this artwork.


IC 799789 appeared to be bearing a likeness of Willie Nelson. I don't know a lot about railway, but this one was done by "Theory" from the FR80PHILE gang.

Near the end of the train, there was a series of shiny new TILX tank cars. They appear to have been built around April 2011 so they are pretty new. These cars were carrying some kind of combustible liquid, according to the 1993 placard. It's a class 3 flammable liquid which means it has a fairly low flash point = easy to ignite.


There were also a few Interstate Asphalt cars, carrying... asphalt. Interstate Asphalt supplies the Chicago area with asphalt, so these cars had a fair distance yet to go. Maybe they came from the tar sands area in Alberta?