As railfans, we get caught up in the details of locomotives and train operations. "Is that an ES44DC or an ES44AC? Check out those giant radiators on that Tier 4 locomotive."
Sometimes we have to stop and smell the roses... or sunflowers, in this case.
I was out looking for trains a few evenings ago, and I found one getting ready to leave CN's Symington Yard in Winnipeg. I set up for a "meh" shot - the light wasn't great - and then this hump yard set of power rolled in the way... so they got to be in the picture instead.
Hump Power Photobomb
Moody
It's funny how shooting into the sun really strips the colour from the image. When processing the photo above, I decided to make it a black and white image as there wasn't a lot of colour anyway.
Contrast that with the image below, taken half a minute later but facing away from the sun.
Lots of colour
Colour galore!
I've noticed that the SD40 sets of hump yard power seem to be used more often than the older GP38 sets, so I have been trying to photograph the Geeps.
(I've left off all the letters and numbers after the GP38 and SD40 units, as I don't really care. I believe the SD40 units used for hump service are SD40-3s and these GP38s might be GP38-2 units, but I often get those details wrong and they really don't matter to me. If you like those details, great! There's room for everyone in this hobby)
I drove around to Symington Yard proper.
GrainsConnect
GrainsConnect hoppers in Winnipeg
I spotted a line of shiny grain hoppers in the yard, so I took a few telephoto shots of them.
They are GrainsConnect hoppers. Presumably they are for GrainCorp's grain terminals in Maymont, and Reford, Saskatchewan. They are building two more, in Huxley and Vegreville, Alberta. Of course, GrainCorp also owns Canada Malting, which has a few grain elevators across the prairies.
I found it interesting that these cars all have "dents" in the same place. It must be part of the manufacturing process as I can't imagine they all got banged up so soon.
Not really a dent, I assume
Driving back toward CN Navin and the southeast corner of Symington, I saw that the train I saw earlier was on its way. I headed east on the Trans-Canada Highway (which parallels the CN line for quite a few kilometres), looking for a good location to make a photograph.
I was mindful of the sun's position, mostly behind the train, so I thought a side shot would be better than a "glint" photo toward the sun. When I spotted a field of sunflowers next to the tracks, I knew I had my location. I exited the highway and drove around the field to position it between me and the tracks.
Not long after, CN 3062 East came rolling along.
Sunflower Central
Passing Petro Canada
I fired off a series of frames as the train came rolling past. The photos toward the sun weren't as good as the "going away" photos, but I do love those sunflowers.
I liked the lead photo of this post the best. Here's one more, where I focused on the sunflowers and not the train.
Yellow Tide
They weren't going super fast, and I had a feeling they were going to do a meet at Lorette siding just down the line.
Sure enough, there was a train waiting on the main line.
Meet at Lorette
CN 3042 at Lorette siding outside Winnipeg
CN 3042 West was sitting on the main line while CN 3062 East went around them through the siding. I'm not sure why 3042 wasn't in the siding - maybe they didn't quite fit.
Meet complete
Once the train passed, the crew of 3042 returned to their locomotive. I didn't have any time to sit and wait for them to leave, so I took a few more photos and went on my way home.
Michael Berry and I went railfanning on Saturday September 3rd. Michael is from Montreal and wanted to experience Winnipeg's railfan scene. In part 1 we went to CN's Diamond and in part 2 we visited the Prairie Dog Central Railway. This is the third and last part of the story.
After we finished photographing the Prairie Dog Central's steam train, we drove back down the Perimeter Highway toward CN's main line. We wanted to catch VIA's Canadian out there and we didn't have a lot of time.
However, we were hungry.
Wizard Needs Food, Badly
Am I the only one here who played Gauntlet?
We stopped at the Tim Horton's near the raceway on Portage Avenue to grab a quick sandwich... so we thought. The lineup wasn't long but the service was quite slow... so slow that we had to ask if our orders had been forgotten. We were reassured that they hadn't.
Michael was checking the VIA web site on his phone and noted that VIA 1 hadn't left the Winnipeg station. Note that due to some quirk on VIA's site, you can't see VIA 1's status using their normal web site but you can see it on the mobile site. It's https://tsimobile.viarail.ca/ and it's important to include the "s" in https.
Eventually our food came, and we raced back to my car and hit the road. As we approached the CN Rivers subdivision, we saw a westbound intermodal train. We crossed over the train - thank you overpass - then set off in pursuit. It was clear that we weren't going to catch up to the head end, but the train had a DPU on the rear, facing the sun, so it was worth chasing to get that. We caught up to it just before Diamond and we bailed out to get the shot.
Trailing but still a worthwhile shot!
We hopped back in and chased it for a few more kilometres, to try to get it on the curve at mile 16. I like this photo because it shows the super elevation at the curve.
CN 2938, taking the turn
We left off the chase here. On our way back to Diamond we ran into Brian, the "Mayor of Diamond", and his girlfriend Deanne. I need her to convince my wife to accompany me on more railfan trips! ;)
After a brief chat with His Honour, we set up a little east of Diamond to get VIA 1 in the wide open spaces.
CN had other plans, though, and sent CN 347 along first.
CN 347
This train is an interesting one, certainly one of the most recognizable CN freights in the Winnipeg area. It always has a lot of empty centerbeam flatcars on it, empties going back to British Columbia for more lumber loads.
This CN 347 had CN 8924 and CN 5695 for power, followed by... nothing but centerbeam flats.
Grab a chair!
I noticed two discarded lawn chairs nearby and stood them up as props for this train. Something different...
Michael was a little closer to the tracks... though not as close as this might indicate.
Getting the shot
Empty car after empty car rolled by, seemingly without end. After what seemed like forever, but was actually only 3 1/2 minutes, the end of the train passed.
Finally, the end of CN 347
After that, things were quiet for a few minutes, until the next train came along...
The Canadian
VIA 1
Here's one little chair for one of you, and a bigger chair for two more to curl up in. For someone who likes to rock, a rocking chair in the middle. - The Friendly Giant
This was a good summer length train, two locomotives and 23 cars. It wasn't going as fast as I would have expected.
I was very happy with the going-away shot. Glacier Park was beautiful in the early afternoon sun.
One of the few trains that looks better leaving than coming
Michael was listening on his scanner and he heard them call a "Clear to Stop" signal. I urged him to jump in the car and we set off in hot pursuit.
Normally you can't chase VIA 1 as it is rolling along at 60 MPH or greater, but with a "Clear to Stop" indication, they would not be going too fast. We hurtled along the dirt road, observing the speed limit, and overtook the train within a couple of miles. We jumped out to get the second series of photos.
VIA 6452 on the open prairie
There was a friendly table in the Acadian diner!
Friendly waves and intense focus
I found it interesting to contrast Michael's shot choices with mine. In general we never stood beside each other and took the same photo. He seems to prefer a more head-on approach whereas I like the wide open vista photos. Maybe it's a city versus prairie perspective?
After VIA 1 passed for the second time, we jumped back in the car and chased it for a few more kilometres. We came to the highway 424 crossing - with a stop sign - and I decided that would be it for the chase. We bailed out once more and I shot video at the crossing while Michael took some more photos.
That was the Canadian.
Over the Hump
We left Diamond after that, and as I was driving back toward where Michael was staying, we decided to take a few minutes to visit the hump at Symington Yard. This hump is one of the few hump yards still operating in Canada (CP's Winnipeg hump shut down several years ago) and there are usually three sets of power either at work or ready for work. This day was no exception.
A set with CN 7522 / 7511 was on the hump itself.
CN 7522 / 7511 on the hump in Symington Yard
Another set with CN 7500 / 7513 was sitting to the side.
CN 7500 / 7513 in Symington Yard
The third set was pushing cars over the hump. This was the set that Michael was really looking for, the one with three SD40-2 units! CN 6015 / 6005 / 6012 and 225 were well down toward Navin.
Slug and three SD40-2 units... what could be better?
While we were looking at the hump set, CN 3047 was pulling south/east out of the yard. We believe this was train CN 438.
CN 3047 leaving Symington
That was the end of our time together, and I dropped Michael off to meet up with his family and I headed home to my own family. Railfanning is fun but family is way more important!
Summary
We saw 7 trains over 6 hours, which is pretty good, I think. I hope Michael was pleased with his Diamond experience and I look forward to see more photos from him from this trip and from his normal Montreal railfanning! Thanks for reading and thank you Michael for the company and the experience.
Tom Sajnovic contacted me a while ago to ask if I wanted to go railfanning again while he was in Winnipeg taking some training. We settled on going out early in the morning of Sunday, September 20.
I picked Tom up at 07:15 and we headed toward Symington. There was not much going on at the northwest end of the yard so we headed toward the hump at the southeast end. One line of cars was being pushed over the hump. This is looking south toward Navin and the end of the yard.
Note the piece of track that isn't connected to anything any more... interesting how there used to be a switch here. it used to cross over as a diamond
Looking north toward the hump, we see CN 7500 and company on the north track, resting, while a crewman cuts the cars as they crest the hump. Tom and I watched them hump autoracks and tank cars for a bit.
Lots of things going on here. I'm told the autoracks are annoying to hump because of the long drawbars going crooked during the shove, making it impossible to pull the pin to uncouple them.
We noticed a rail train in the yard, led by CN 5429. The loco had its headlight on, leading us to believe they would be leaving soon. Sure enough they started rolling and passed under us on the way out of the yard area.
A little lens flare there...
They rolled past the hump yard units (15-year anniversary CN 7505 and CN 7511, plus slugs) and stopped.
It turned out that there was a train coming off the CN Sprague subdivision that they had to wait for.
CN 2872 and 2811 pulled by with a mixed merchandise train. I keep wanting to call them "mixed trains" but I'm avoiding that, because traditionally a mixed train was a freight train with one or more passenger cars tacked on the end.
We relocated to Navin to wait for the "rail train". After a while, 5429's ditch lights came on and the train started rolling. A CN pickup rolled up and a young fellow got out to do the roll-by inspection. They were smoking pretty well by the time they reached us.
Here's Tom's video at the same location.
We decided to give chase. The Trans-Canada parallels the CN Sprague subdivision for a while so it was easy to get ahead of the train.
Here they are between the Lorette siding and the east-facing approach signal for the siding (visible at the right of the frame).
The rest of the train was grain cars, I believe.
Yes, yes it does!
We decided to shoot it passing the Dufresne grain elevator, a favourite location of mine on the Sprague. However as we approached Dufresne, we saw construction markers and there appeared to be no way to go in the town! Probably I missed the one turnoff but everything seemed blocked off. I wonder how the local people get in or out?
So that was out.
The track diverges from the Trans-Canada after Dufresne, so it was now or never. I knew there was an overpass at Sainte Anne so we made a beeline for that. I parked on the far side and we walked back to get the overhead view. Fortunately there was a walkway so it was relatively safe to stand there.
I think this was my favourite location. I'd been to Sainte Anne once, just to scout it out, but I'd never railfanned there before. I might have to do that again!
My time was up, so we headed back to town. As we were rolling along the TCH, I spotted headlights in the distance - another eastbound train! We quickly crossed over and nabbed CN 2904 East. This time I photographed the approach then switched to video with my iPhone.
