On May 12th I went to the excellent Kelly's Kaboose shop after work. This model train / antique store is located in downtown Kamloops, BC. They have a great selection of model train equipment, lots of railway paperwork (my favourite!) and lots of other interesting items like signs, photos, and other railway memorabilia. I highly recommend the store. I walked away with a selection of BC railway timetables to fill out my collection.
When I stepped out of the store, I saw a Rocky Mountaineer bus unloading passengers at a nearby hotel. I hadn't really intended on seeing the Rocky this evening but hey, since I was only a couple of blocks away...
They were parked with the locomotives under the Red Bridge again. All of the passengers were gone and the staff were packing things up prior to the train heading over to the shops. A worker was walking along the train disconnecting the power lines between cars. He told me it was to speed up the switching they were going to do in the shop area once the train got over there.
In good time they pushed back and I shot the train passing the station.
Hey, if you want to do me a favour, go vote for your favourite Rocky Mountaineer photos at moments.rockymountaineer.com - mine are here and here and here and here.
I did a quick jaunt over to the Mission Flats Road area and found CP 3074 waiting at CP Benledi near the Domtar plant.
By the way - there's a nude beach in the area. ;) On a previous visit I was driving past the Domtar plant when I saw two quite naked people walking back to their cars from the park area. Not something you see in Winnipeg!
It was time to head back to Tranquille again. Passing the airport I spied a westbound freight headed by CN 8868. I quickly bagged it before continuing on.
I easily beat them to Tranquille, where they rounded the bend before the crossing.
While I was watching the train, a water bomber flew overhead, so I had to grab that too.
This is a Convair CV580 water tanker, owned by Conair Aerial Firefighting.
As the train rolled by, I noticed a CP eastbound potash train across the water.
Notice that the CP train is going through a little tunnel. Here's a Google satellite view of the short tunnel, which is about 80m long.
As the westbound CN train rolled by, and the eastbound CP train rolled by, a third train entered the scene - CN 5652 East, with BCOL 4616 trailing.
Here you are - three trains in one photo.
The CP freight had a pusher on the rear.
Speaking of DPUs, CN 8868 West had a mid-train DPU, CN 2200.
After all of that excitement, I was done for the night.
For my
