I went out on Thursday, February 9, to shoot the Canadian at St. James Junction. There was another vehicle there already, with two railfans in it, brothers I have met before. We had a brief chat but it was interrupted by two trains arriving at once - BNSF 2968 returning from Fort Rouge and a CP local train heading north on the La Riviere subdivision. I chose to focus on the CP train and saw old friend CP 8251 leading.
It is challenging to shoot a northbound CP train here as the sun is over the engineer's shoulder. Of course I also got the shadow of the signal protecting the diamond on the engine... sigh.
Here's the video of the same train.
I chatted for a bit in the cold and finally saw headlights coming from the east. There was the Canadian, maybe 10 minutes late.
As the train passed, I shot each car to record the consist in my database. I quite liked my shot of the Skyline car, VIA 8504, and turned it into a black-and-white shot.
VIA 1 quickly receded into the distance and I hit the road.
Shortly after my last post, I spotted a westbound in the distance on the north track. Soon enough, CP 115 came rolling by at 17:00 with CP 8504 and 9810 on the head end, and CP 9783 midway through the train.
I kept an eye on the crossing arm after the train went by, and sure enough it was bouncing. The arm had gone up as normal, but it kept oscillating about 30 degrees from vertical back to vertical for about a minute. I called the CP number on the crossing to report it and they took the details down and said a maintainer would be dispatched.
With no more trains due to arrive for a while, we headed out. I drove around North Transcona for a bit and went up Risque Avenue (love that name) to the CEMR shops. I took a few shots through the fence. I saw CEMR GP9s 4010, 4013, 4001, 4002, ex-CP 5396 and snowplow CEMR 2.
We headed down south after that. Rolling past Symington Yard again revealed humpyard set CN 7511, CN 501, CN 504 and CN 7528 hard at work. I spotted a northbound train coming off the Sprague Subdivision but I was in no position to take a good photograph. The train had CN 2537, CN 5667, and CN 5661 for power.
That was a much better way to spend the afternoon than sitting at home!
