Bonus Train

Monday, August 6th 2018 was a holiday here in Manitoba. It's called a "Civic Holiday" here, other provinces call it "Family Day" and it's not even a holiday in some provinces. Anyway, I had the day off.

I went out to catch VIA's "Canadian" leaving Winnipeg. It turned out that the first train I saw was CN 8906 West - see above. I elected to catch it at Carman Junction at the curve, to get the head on view above.

The train had CN 8906 / CN 5694 / CN 8823 on the head end.

Westward ho!

After the train passed, I went west to Diamond to set up for VIA. I caught up with some of the train so I amused myself by taking a few shots of the old wooden "Diamond" sign.

Diamond signs are forever, apparently

I hope nobody steals this sign.

VIA 1

VIA Rail Canadian heading west

I got what I came for - VIA 6455 leading the "Canadian" with two other units and 20 cars.

"Glacier Park" was on the tail end.

Prairie Streamliner

Central Manitoba Railway

4002 and 4004 parked on the Carman subdivision

Two Central Manitoba Railway GP9s, 4002 and 4004, were parked on the Carman subdivision.

I noticed this shiny new equipment box in the gap between the main line and the track to the CEMR Carman subdivision.

CN actually owns the first little bit of the track - from the Rivers sub across Wilkes Avenue - before it becomes the CEMR Carman sub.

I didn't see anything happening after that on the CN Rivers subdivision, so I headed for home.

As I drove around the Perimeter Highway, I spotted a southbound CN train on the Letellier subdivision. That would have been CN 532, heading down to the Canada-US border at Emerson to interchange with BNSF.

Bonus train!

CN 532

The dark side of CN 532

I gave chase as best I could. It was hard to catch up to the train through St. Norbert, given the 50 and 60 km/hr speed limits, but eventually I got ahead of them south of the town to get the shot above.

I was on the "dark side" of the train and I wasn't super happy about that. Fortunately, they weren't going very fast, so after they passed by, I gave chase again... this time, at 100 km/hr!

Near Ste. Agathe, I was far enough ahead of them that I felt I could leave the highway and drive the 2 km or so to the track for another round of photos. As it happened, I had enough time to get both my cameras out... one with the 70-200mm "long" lens and the other with the wide angle.

First the long lens. There was a combine working a field nearby, so I included that in the photo. You can see a bit of heat haze, so the shot isn't as sharp as I would like, but I like what's in it!

CN 5693 and a combine

A few seconds later, I took another photo as the train approached.

Storming south

The right of way looks very clean and well maintained, doesn't it?

I love that 70-200mm lens.

I "dropped" that camera and picked up my older T1i with the wide angle lens to capture the train as it went by.

Going wide

The train had a friendly crew who both gave me waves as they went by. Thanks!

One going away shot, with the Viterra elevator at Ste. Agathe just to the left of the train, and the G3 SD40-2 locomotive at far left, on the loop track of the G3 elevator at Glenlea / Saint Adolphe.

Heading south

Here's the video showing all three trains, with a "clickbait" title just for fun.


You might want to read Busy Day - same play, VIA 1 then CN 532, back in 2012!

PS - Important News

It's the end of an era.

This was the last full post that I will write on blog.traingeek.ca.

I've been on the Blogger platform for many years, since my first post in July 2005. After 13 years and 3 months, it's time to move on.

From now on, I'll be writing on my main site - www.traingeek.ca - and the posts will appear there on the home page.

I like the WordPress platform a lot more for writing. I've been thinking about this for a long time, more than a year, and now I'm making the change.

I hope you'll follow me there.

All of my old posts will remain where they are. I am not interested in moving them over!

By the way, there will be one more post, a placeholder to direct visitors to my main site.

https://www.traingeek.ca/wp/

Some Recent Trains

I wanted to share a few trains I saw recently. I parked near Diamond with my laptop at noon time on the 23rd, hopping out to shoot trains as they went by. Not a bad way to spend a noon hour.

First up was CN 103, which showed up just as I arrived near Diamond. CN 2296 was the lead engine.

CN 8837 was mid-train. Note the "new tire" on the rear of the truck.


CN 8012 was pushing on the rear.


About an hour later, the Canadian came rolling along.


This was still a summer consist with 20 cars... not bad.


About 15 minutes later, CN 104 came rolling in with two SD70s for power. CN 5619 was on the head end...


... and Illinois Central 1039 was behind her. I miss the black IC engines but this doesn't look too bad.


I didn't realize they were meeting CN 199 until I noticed that CN 5619 had her headlights dimmed. I wasn't quite in the right place to catch the actual meet.


Nice to see those BC Rail units still kicking around.


That was the end of trainspotting for me for that day. It was nice to get out and exercise my new lens. I'll have to write about the lens soon. :)

The Shot

Sometimes on a train-watching outing, I get some decent photographs but nothing really special. Sometimes I get nothing but duds. Occasionally... I get a shot I'm really pleased with... The Shot.

On Saturday afternoon I went out with the kids to run a few errands and shoot a few trains. I headed toward my usual spot near Diamond to try to catch VIA 692 aka the Hudson Bay returning from its long journey from Churchill.

I had a little detour, though, because when I drove over Pembina Highway I saw the headlights of CN 532 to the north. I did a quick turnaround and went into St. Norbert to wait for 532 to roll by. I didn't want to go too far south so I set up at the crossing of Avenue Ducharme to get them. I did not have to wait long. In fact, I was still slapping the tripod up when CN 532 came around the bend. Faded SD75I CN 5628 and shiny ex-BNSF C40-8W CN 2199 were the power for the long train.




After they passed, I continued on my way up to Diamond. There were quite a few CN maintenance vehicles around and a foreman had a block from mile 10 (the hotbox detector) out to mile 17 or so. This meant that all trains had to call the foreman for permission to pass through his block, so I could get some advance warning.

I was not there long before I heard VIA 692 call through loud and clear to acknowledge that the foreman had given them permission to pass through on the north track at 30 MPH. I set up the tripod with the Canon S3 on it for video, and waited for the train.

I should mention that the outside temperature was -11C according to the hotbox, but the wind was howling. My hands were almost completely numb after VIA passed. I think I need to toss some light gloves into the camera bag!

Anyway, here's VIA 6455 leading the usual consist of two engines, baggage car, two coaches, diner and one Chateau sleeper car.




Here's my video. Note that my tripod is a little broken and the wind of the passing train twisted the head around a bit!


VanBilly1 shot the same train at St. James Junction a few miles east of me.

That was all well and good. I heard CN 117 calling for permission to go through the block, so I shot them coming the other way. I had already packed up my tripod, and I didn't feel like standing in the cold cold wind again anyway, so I just shot stills.


Dash-9 IC 2724 and ES44DC CN 2292 were the power for this intermodal train. You can see by the light that the sun was getting close to the horizon. This was at 5 minutes to 5 PM.

Yes, yes, Steve, all good, but where is this "shot" you are talking about?

I figured there were not going to be any more trains on CN for a while, and with darkness approaching I thought I'd try my luck on the CP mainline 10 minutes north. I drove up to the elevator at Makwa and saw that the west-facing lights had a green light on them.

In fact it was red over green over red by the elevator at Makwa, which is Canadian Rail Operating Rules rule 416, "Limited to Clear"... "Proceed, LIMITED speed passing signal and through turnouts." From Makwa (mile 11.1 of the CP Carberry subdivision) there are two main tracks east to the yard at mile 1.7, so the eastbound train would be switching to the other main track, hence the LIMITED speed.

This was good! It meant there was probably a train coming soon. I headed west toward Rosser village, straining to see a headlight in the falling dark. I passed through Rosser and continued west toward the grain elevator at Meadows, figuring if nothing else I might get a bit of sunset on the side of the elevator. As I was on the straightaway approaching the elevator, I saw headlights on the track on the other side of the elevator. I was hoping that I could get there in time to get the train passing the elevator.

Well, you might have guessed that I did get there in time. Here's the Shot.


I mean, seriously, look at that sky! I could not have asked for a nicer colour.

The train rolled on by and I gave pursuit. It was going a good 55-60 MPH (speed limit 60) so I did not pass the head end until near Makwa where they had to slow to that LIMITED speed. By this time I had my "nifty fifty" 50mm prime lens on to try to grab what little light there was. I did this panning shot of CEFX 1050 as it rolled on by, and the engineer gave me a few toots.


I was super pleased with myself for getting that elevator shot, and I think I need to try some more sunset shots!

You can view the complete consists in my sightings database, as always.

VIA Videos

Here is my little video of the Hudson Bay from yesterday.


Kevin Gaudet shot a couple of VIA videos recently. Here is VIA 14 (the eastbound Ocean) at Memramcook on July 31 with 6442 and 6414 (Loto Quebec).


Kevin also shot VIA 15 at Gort (just outside Gordon Yard, in Moncton) on the same day. This train had VIA 6400 & 6425 for power.

Sunday Railfanning

I took some time away from unpacking on Sunday (August 2) to go see some trains with my youngest son. I really wanted to shoot the Hudson Bay for my friend David Morris. It is scheduled to leave Union Station in downtown Winnipeg at 12:05.

I decided to shoot it along Wilkes Avenue, so we arrived around mile 8.0 at about 12:00. There was a CN hollow weld gang setting up on one of the two tracks near us. Thankfully they were only blocking the one track, so trains could go around them on the other track.

At about 12:30 I heard a train horn blow, and within a minute the Hudson Bay rolled by. It had VIA 6455 leading baggage 8600, coach 8120, coach 8110, diner YORK, Chateau LEMOYNE, and Chateau RIGAUD.


I waited around for a while, and I was just about to pack up when I saw headlights approaching from the west. It turned out to be CN 314 rolling into Winnipeg with old CN 2449 leading and CN 5773 trailing, at 13:01.


We got a nice wave from the engineer - always appreciated.


We pulled up stakes and headed into town at that point. I drove around for a bit, and finally settled on the diamond where the CP La Riviere subdivision crosses the CN Rivers subdivision. CN 304 rolled through at 14:08. This was a very long train, with CN 8822 and another unit leading, and CN 2292 as DPU about 2/3 through the train. The train was almost entirely paper loads.

The CP line is in the foreground.



We went home after that to get the rest of the family for Folklorama. Not a bad first railfan outing since moving here!