Black Trailing

I happened to see a few trains recently with a black engine trailing, so I thought I'd post about them.

On April 11 I was out on the Sprague subdivision, southeast of Winnipeg, waiting near Lorette siding to see what might come along. Eventually a mixed freight came rambling along, CN 344 with CN 2260 leading.


The trailing engine was a Norfolk Southern engine, NS 8700, a GE C40-8. I'm told 8700 went to Melville on X401 and came back to Winnipeg on Q114 prior to this train.

I decided to head to the Dufresne grain elevator to shoot it there. I arrived well ahead of the train and got into position. After blowing for the crossing, CN 2260 led the charge past the elevator.


Here's the black trailing engine. I love the look of those Norfolk Southern engines.


344 was a general freight train with a lot of potash cars.

After that excitement, things were quiet for a while until CN 116 came along. This was an all Illinois Central train, with IC 2712 leading.


The black trailer in this case was Illinois Central 1036.


After realizing that both trains had trailing black engines, I decided to go back into my photo archives to see what other "trailing black" trains I've photographed. Surprisingly, there have been a lot. These Illinois Central SD70s have been fairly common around Winnipeg and they do not lead. I found close to a dozen trains with black IC trailers and I'll share a couple here.

This was another all-IC train back on November 29, 2011.


I took a grab shot of this westbound CN freight on October 17, 2013, with IC 1028 trailing.


I'm sharing this one even though it's a bit of a cheat (the black engine isn't trailing exactly), but because it's one of my favourite train photos. This was shot on Louis Riel Day in 2010 (blog entry).


PS hey, did anyone see the lunar eclipse a few days ago? I was crazy enough to get up in the middle of the night to take some photos.

That little dot above the "blood moon" is Mars.

Chaplin Trains

I spent a few days in Chaplin, Saskatchewan visiting my wife's relatives. The CP Swift Current subdivision runs right through town, so there are a lot of mainline freights rolling through at all hours of the day. Chaplin is a tiny town of a few hundred people, so you are never far from the tracks. On August 11 I had the scanner on and did a few dashes to the tracks when I heard an approaching train. Here are the four trains I saw that day, in between family activities.

10:35 westbound intermodal. CP 8787 on head end with DPU CP 9711.

Chaplin is one of the few places on the CP mainline where the grain elevator is on the north side of the track, making a great backdrop for photos.

13:50 eastbound grain. CP 9542.

That's right, one unit on the whole train. One assumes the cars are empty.

16:30 westbound grain. CP 9609 and CP 9826, stopped for meet.

The train rolled into town and came to a halt on the main. They were to meet two oversiding trains, so they were in town for over an hour.

16:50 westbound intermodal. CP 8700, CP 8548, DPU CP 9835.

I used the long lens on this one. CP 8700 West ran through the siding past 9609 West. I didn't stick around for the next meet.

It was a nice relaxed way to railfan!