Sunday Trains in Calgary

As I mentioned, I was in Calgary last weekend while my wife attended a conference. After seeing some interesting CN units and varnish power, I went back out Sunday to see what I could see. There was a rumour that the CPR Holiday Train was heading out from Ogden at noon.

I decided to go up on the 50th Street overpass over Ogden Road (here) and see how the view was from there. You can only face south from there since the Deerfoot Trail is in the way to the north, and there's no walkway on the north side anyway.

Unfortunately there are some wires in the way to the south, but I did what I could to get around them. CP 6058 and 5853 were doing some shunting in Alyth Yard and they stuck out quite a way on the yard lead. While I filmed them, a potash train arrived from the south with CP 9529 and 9614 on the head end, CP 9597 in the middle and CP 9682 pushing on the end. Just as they cleared out, CP 9589 and CP 9734 ran light from Alyth to Ogden. Here they are, all in one video.

Once they passed, I headed out to Indus to try to catch some mainline action at speed. I set up at the crossing at the south end of town and soon enough, CP 103 rolled by at 11 AM with CP 8739 and CEFX 1050.

25 minutes later, another north / westbound rolled through. Red SOO 6044 had quite a wimpy horn on it!

CP 9803 was trailing on this train.

I went back to Ogden to see if the Holiday Train would come out. There was no sign of life in the yard so it was clear that nothing was going to happen. I checked out the CN yard but not much was going on there and there was no mainline power around. Back on CP, I saw CP 110 pull up to Ogden to do a crew change. The train had CP 8776 and 9627 on the head end.

That was clearly not THIS CP 8776:

I talked with the conductor for a few minutes before they did a crew change. I then went down the line a few hundred feet to set up the video camera and wait for them to start rolling. I wanted to capture the rumble of the engines bringing the train up to speed.

There was some discussion with the RTC about when they could leave. They had a yellow over red signal (Clear to Stop) indication. Since train 110 was just under 9700 feet long and "over siding" (meaning it would not fit into any sidings) it could not meet any trains en route. The decision was made to allow it to proceed to Shepard (the next siding) and hang out the back of the siding. Presumably the train it was meeting would hold the main between siding switches, and 110 would go around it.

With that decided, the signal indication changed to green over red, and 110 left Calgary.

CP 8747 was mid-train and CP 8767 was on the end.

CN Detour, Days 2 and 3 and over

I heard nothing in Bathurst Friday morning, except for NBEC train 587 getting ready to go to Belledune in the rain.

NBEC 1868 and 1821 were the power, except they kept having problems with 1821. They pulled out of the yard at 06:50, with 1868 pulling her heart out. They stopped soon afterward and pushed back into the yard, and I believe they doubled the train from Bathurst to Belledune. I heard a horn blow at 09:10 in Belledune so that was probably them.

I heard nothing in Bathurst Friday evening, either. I headed down to Miramichi, and as I approached I heard someone talking about a hot wheel on the 136th car. Since NBEC doesn't run trains that large in Miramichi, it had to be a CN detour. It turned out to be CN 308. The head end was stopped just short of the UPM-Kymmene mill, and the tail end was just out of the NBEC yard. The power was CN 8807, CN 5414, and IC 6058.



21:40ish VIA 15 met CN 122 at Irvco (Belledune)

May 3:
01:15 CN 122 through Rogersville with 2550 and 2621
06:20 CN 120 through Tide Head, passed by VIA 14 in Campbellton

That was the last train of the detour, as CN's main line is now open.

Back to the start

Video of CN 303 in Manitoba

Here's a video I took of CN 303 rolling through Oakville, Manitoba on December 27 last year. (blog entry). CN 303 had CN 2554?, IC 6058 and 113 mixed cars.