Christmas Eve Action

I hope the holiday season has brought you joy. I had a bit of joy on Christmas Eve when I went out railfanning!

I bundled the kids in the car and headed to Diamond to try to catch the VIA Rail Canadian as it left. I was a bit late leaving home but I hoped that VIA 1 was also a bit late.

On my way around the Perimeter I spotted a CEMR train at Oak Bluff, with the locomotives on the east end, ready to go back into Winnipeg. I decided that I had a few minutes before they would start rolling so I carried on to Wilkes Avenue and headed east to try to cut off VIA 1 if it was coming.

Well, VIA wasn't there, but I did see a CN westbound train, led by CN 2853.

CN 2853 in Winnipeg

I went west out to Diamond to see if I could see any eastbound trains. No more CN trains were visible but I saw a CP train waiting to go north on the Glenboro subdivision. This was a solid grain train led by CP 2305, CP 3100, and multimarked CP 5765.

CP 2305 and company on the Glenboro

In this photo they are just beginning to pull as they got their light to cross.

Weary CP 5765 was the only six-axle power on the train.

CP 5765 pulling

I decided to try to get the train crossing the Assiniboine River. In order to do that, I had to beat them to the crossing by driving along Harris Road / highway 334, a gravel road.

Fortunately Harris Road was mostly clear so I was able to sustain 70-80 kph (speed limit: 90) and get to highway 241 ahead of them.

I crossed the river and parked on the wide shoulder just north of the road bridge, then sprinted across the road and back to the road bridge to capture them crossing the nearby train bridge. Did I say "bridge" enough in that sentence?

I got to the bridge a few seconds before the lead locomotive started to cross. Just enough!

CP crossing the Assiniboine River

I've always wanted to get a train there. Cross that off the list!

After capturing that, I returned to Diamond at a more leisurely pace. Within a few minutes, I spotted a headlight to the east that looked VIA-ish. It was indeed a 40-minutes-late VIA 1, with 6426 and 6453 leading the way.

The VIA Rail Canadian in the snow

Prestige-class car "Prince Albert Park" brought up the rear.

Prince Albert Park

I was glad that I didn't miss the Canadian after all.

After it passed, we carried on to Carman Junction to see if CEMR had passed through already. I spotted it approaching the junction and took a few shots. I was surprised to see that they had five locomotives... surely some kind of record for CEMR. Normally you see two or maybe three. I don't expect all five were running.

They pulled up to the derail and stopped.

CEMR at Carman Junction

Fan favourite SD40-2 CEMR 5396 was leading, followed by new-to-me CCGX 5201, SD40-2 CCGX 5311, and two long-time CEMR GP9s CEMR 4002 and CEMR 4000. CCGX 5201 is a rare SD38AC (ex DMIR).

The conductor came out to remove the derail and then got back into the cab. They sat there for a while, clearly waiting for permission to enter the Rivers subdivision.

I spotted a headlight to the east, which turned out to be CN 8917 heading westward.

CN 8917 throwing up snow

I waited another 20 minutes but CEMR wasn't moving and there was no more CN traffic visible, so we headed home.

It was a great 1.5 hours of railfanning. I managed to capture CN, CP, VIA and CEMR. A nice early Christmas present. :)

PS - Railpictures even liked my VIA 1 and CN 8917 shots. :)

Ontar-eye-O, Part 3

I've previously talked about seeing the Windsor VIA Rail station and the Essex train station at night, and also missing VIA, the abandoned CASO sub and the Essex train station in the evening. This time I'll show the little train station in Leamington, Ontario as well as the VIA train I actually did see.

So, Leamington. It's a nice little city on Lake Erie, kind of midway between Windsor and Chatham in longitude but south of both of them. It has no railway service any more, but it used to be served by the Canada Southern Railway as well as the Pere Marquettte.

I don't claim to be any kind of expert on Ontario railways. From what I've gleaned the Pere Marquette merged with the Chesapeake and Ohio in 1947. The C and O merged into CSX in 1987. The PM's Canadian line ran from Windsor south and then east through Leamington to a point just south of Chatham, then on to St. Thomas where they had their servicing facilities (map). This line was removed in 1997 as far as I can tell. There's lots of good reading at the Pere Marquette Historical Society site. The Pere Marquette station was quite nice.. here's a 1977 photo and a 1987 photo, both taken by Bruce Mercer.

Leamington was also served by a 13.8 mile spur from Comber on the CN Caso sub, completed in 1887 by the Canada Southern Railway. The Canada Southern ended up being acquired by the Michigan Central Railway. At one point it was owned by Penn Central, and eventually it was owned by Conrail. I believe CN and CP ended up buying the Canadian portions of Conrail in 1983. The train station I saw in Leamington was on the Leamington spur, and is quite modest compared to the old Pere Marquette station that no longer exists. The spur used to serve the large Heinz factory in Leamington and I believe it reached past that to Lake Erie.


There's a photo of a Penn Central caboose in front of the station here.

Here's the back side of the station. It's a shame it is fenced in but there are plans to refurbish it. The station is a registered Historic Place.


Other than the station, the only sign of railways I saw in Leamington were a few rails embedded in the pavement near the Heinz factory, complete with crossing signs.

There was apparently also an electric railway from Windsor to Leamington!

On my last day in southern Ontario, I had some time in Windsor before my flight, so I went to the VIA station to shoot VIA #78. I knew that train 73 would have come in and needed to be turned before going back to Toronto as #78. It turns out they turn it somewhere east of Windsor, as I saw the train backing into the station with a crewman protecting the movement.


This was really the first time I was able to see LRC cars in detail.




The consist was VIA 6426, VIA 3465, VIA 3303, VIA 3364, and VIA 3368. VIA 3465 is an LRC club car and the rest are LRC coaches.

I was standing beside the new station when I shot this one.


After I finished taking these shots, then relocated to George Avenue to shoot them at the crossing there. There is lots of evidence that the Chatham subdivision used to be double-track, and there are still many rails in the grass with switches to nowhere. I shot VIA #78 just as it came onto the main line, with the skyscrapers of Detroit looming in the background.


After that I switched lenses and shot video. I had plenty of time because the train wasn't very fast until it entered CTC territory beside me.


That was fun. One more post from Southern Ontario featuring the old steam engine and train station in Windsor.

Read on!

ADDENDUM: Found this great site listing some old railway timetables in text form. It includes the following Leamington branches: Penn Central, New York Central, Michigan Central, Conrail, Chesapeake and Ohio, and even the electric Windsor, Essex and Lake Shore Railway. Note that many of those listings are for the same piece of track, owned by different rail companies.

VIA Meets CEMR

I went out on Thursday (March 29) to shoot the Canadian, as I often do. I decided I had better hustle west on Wilkes because I was cutting it a bit close for time. As I turned west on Sterling Lyon at route 90, I saw a CEMR train heading west. Great!

I got ahead of them and grabbed this shot of CEMR 4000 and CCGX 5232 leading a short train.


I quickly zoomed west again to get them at Carman Junction. It was a cloudy day so I figured I could pick my side of the crossing and it wouldn't matter much for lighting. I parked just west of the crossing on the shoulder and waited for them to arrive. CEMR slowed.. and slowed.. and slowed. Behind them, I saw lights!

Then it was a race. Would CEMR turn first or would the Canadian get there first? The conductor lined the switch for the CEMR Carman subdivision just before the Canadian came along. I took several shots of VIA passing and this was the best of them.


After that I concentrated on shooting VIA 1 as the CEMR train slowly rolled onto the Carman subdivision. The VIA crew gave me a wave as they passed - thanks!


Here's the last of the meet.


After the CEMR train cleared the switch, the conductor relined it and walked after his train.

I hopped into my car and took off in pursuit of the Canadian. They didn't seem to be going very fast and I caught up with them by mile 10. I went to Hall Road and crossed the tracks well ahead of them to get this shot. As I said in a previous post, normally you can't shoot westbounds at Half Road but since the sun was blocked, a shot from the north worked fine.


And that was that.

Whither the Chaleur?

I'm quite concerned about the future of VIA's Chaleur train. The Chaleur has been terminating at Matapedia, Quebec for more than a month.

First the bridge over the Grand-Pabos River in Chandler was condemned on December 14, forcing the Chaleur to turn at New Carlisle. Then the bridge at St. Jules / Cascapedia was condemned on December 22. That's this bridge, by the way.


That bridge is between Matapedia and New Carlisle, so since December 22 the Chaleur has been terminating at Matapedia and passengers have been bused the rest of the way. There's a VIA press release about this.

Did you know there are 95 bridges on the route? When I was last there I would bet that at least 80% of them had a 10 MPH slow order on them. That gives you an idea of the condition of the line.

The Gaspésie Railway (Société du chemin de fer de la Gaspésie), owners of the line from Matapedia to Gaspé, have asked all levels of government for additional funding to repair the railway, to the tune of $19 million per year for the next five years (press release, news story).

This article says the bridges should be fixed by mid-February at the latest. There is an interesting photo in the article showing three Rio Tinto passenger cars led by an ex-NBEC RS-18 being brought to Gaspésie Diesel for work.

The odd thing is that VIA is booking coach and sleeper space on the Chaleur on ReserVIA. They do have a note that the train will be replaced by bus between Matapedia and Gaspé on February 2 and 3.

Special thanks to VIA Guru Tom Box for all his informative posts on CanPassRail!

From happier times, here are some photos of the Chaleur provided by Bob Liming, who had the opportunity to ride the train twice, in October and November 2011. Just in time!

Here's VIA 6457 at the station in Gaspé in October.


And from the rear...


Now this is November with VIA 6426. Note the masts behind the train from the marina.


 You may remember that some idiot tried to burn the station down back in early 2011. VIA has been using a trailer for the station since then. It's just visible on the right.


Here's Bob himself standing in front of the station. Thanks for the photos!

Hot Times at Portage Junction

I had a bank errand to run late Monday morning. When I finished, I was on Pembina Highway just south of Fort Rouge. I stepped out of the bank and heard the unmistakable sound of a train engine in run 8 struggling to get a train moving. At that time of day it had to be CN 532 heading down the Letellier subdivision.

I raced down to McGillivray and parked by the Rexall pharmacy. Very soon I saw CN SD40-2 #5264 struggling to pull a fair sized train by itself.

I imagine the nice thing about the Letellier subdivision is that it is straight and flat, so once you get a train moving you shouldn't need much power. Starting must be a problem!

I wanted to wait for the Canadian, so I went to Fort Rouge and parked on the street. I saw BNSF 3028 was doing a quick turn in the yard. They kicked their cars into the yard, then doubled up the return train and headed out.

Once BNSF left, there was nothing in sight, so I decided to go back to my car to get my tripod. On my way back, a CN eastbound rolled by with CN 5765 and IC 1029 on the head end. I think it was probably CN 198, given the time, and the junk cars at the head end followed by containers.

I was a little concerned that CN would block my view of the Canadian, but luckily the tail of the CN eastbound just cleared in time for VIA to be visible on the north track.

As usual, there were no repainted units on the Canadian. I know they have passed through Winnipeg, but I have yet to see them. It'll happen eventually.

Full consists

Dorval Railfanning

After seeing a little NB Southern action last Friday, I hopped on a plane for Montreal. I was to make a connection there to continue on to Winnipeg, but I had almost three hours to kill in between. On a previous visit to the lovely Dorval airport, I had noticed that the Dorval train station was in easy walking distance of the airport. It was time to take a stroll over and see what I could see.

There is no direct walking path between the airport and the train station. You would think there would be one, but you really feel like a trespasser tromping across parking lots and on-ramps to get to the station.

Anyway, I arrived at the station. There are actually two stations, the VIA Dorval station and the AMT Dorval platforms. I figured I would get hassled less at the AMT platform so I stayed there. On the double track CN line, a CN maintenance truck waited. Shortly after I arrived, an outbound VIA train stopped at the station, then headed out.

You can see the CN truck right at the start of the video. VIA 6426 pulled a short train of HEP 1 cars.

Shortly after that, the CN truck left, then another outbound VIA train came, stopped, and carried on. This one had VIA 913 and three LRC cars.


After that flurry of activity, things settled down for a while. There were a few passengers drifting around the platform but not a lot of activity. The sun was beginning to go down but there was enough to see an outbound AMT train come in and depart. AMT 1320 was pushing on the end pretty hard as they left the station.


Right behind that train was another set of headlights. It turned out to be a CP intermodal rolling through the station. I like the sunset reflecting off the sides of the containers.


I figured my time was up, and the light was fading, so I walked back to the airport and caught my flight with plenty of time to spare. I might have to arrange future flights to have a little layover in Montreal again!

PS it turns out there is a shuttle bus between the station and the airport. Who knew?

Last VIA Budd train for a while

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