I was going through some old prints of mine when I stumbled across these photos. I knew they were taken in Chaplin, Saskatchewan and fortunately I had scrawled the date (August 11, 2001) on the back of the prints.
I recall we were returning from Moose Jaw when we spotted a military train heading west toward Chaplin. I grabbed the train coming into the town here.
Nice wave from the conductor!
Note the "dual flags" unit leading and the St. Lawrence and Hudson unit trailing.
I don't know which country's military owned this equipment. I see it was marked for KFOR (the Kosovo peacekeeping force) but it doesn't look Canadian to me. I could be wrong.
The majority of the equipment was on flatcars. A set of autoracks was on the rear of the train, presumably holding the smaller vehicles.
They took the siding when they passed me, to meet an eastbound freight train led by CP 8521 and CP 8543.
Nice wave from the engineer of this train! There were friendly train crews in Saskatchewan that day.
PS I know the colours on some of these prints are a little "off". I fiddled with the white balance in Lightroom but I can't get them looking realistic so I elected to leave them as they were on the print.
You know the old yarn that in the Prairies, you can watch your dog run away for three days? It might be an exaggeration, but you sure can see a long way out here.
In early August I was in Regina, Saskatchewan, one of the flattest areas I've seen in the Prairies. I negotiated some railfan time early in the morning of August 8 and headed out at sunrise to get some shots. I shot a few grain elevators and then moved to the west side of Regina. I had noticed one elevator there on the CP mainline and wanted to see it. It's at the intersection of Pinkie Road and 13th Avenue, here.
It was raining lightly as I approached the main line. I saw a couple of CP GP9s working outside the Brandt facility. CP 1541 and 1533 were switching some tank cars.
They had an honest-to-god caboose there too, CP 434412.
I watched them switch for a while in the rain and took some video.
Finally, they coupled up to their caboose and I figured they were headed back to Regina, so I took off east on 13th Avenue to wait for them. After about 10 minutes I realized they were going west. Oops. I came back and saw they were waiting to go north just west of where I was. I took this long-range shot of the completed train.
I figured I would investigate where they were going, so I drove north to route 730 to have a look. I got snared in road construction and as I was waiting, I saw a westbound train approach. I tried to get to the crossing by 13th Avenue but the train was there just before me. CP 8866 and CP 8831 blew by.
I waited in the rain for the train to pass. CP 8521 was a mid-train DPU engine.
Good thing this is the Prairies! After the train cleared the crossing, I returned to the Trans-Canada Highway and headed west. Since everything is wide open it was obvious where the train was... just a kilometre or two north of me! I overtook the train and was well ahead of it by Belle Plaine, so I pulled off to shoot it there.
I saw there was a westbound train stopped at Belle Plaine in the siding. CP 8604, CP 5908 and CP 9614 were patiently waiting.
Those SD40-2 engines, once the primary power of Canadian Pacific, are getting more and more rare. The ES44AC engines and the AC4400CWs have taken over. I'm trying to get my shots when I can!
Soon enough CP 8604 West blew through. I had the shutter speed a little lower than I wanted, but I kind of like the light blur on 8604, suggesting motion.
I had my video camera set up too.
I was out of time by this point, so I headed back to Regina to rejoin my family.
