Return to Tranquille

Previous posts: A Tranquille Afternoon, A Rocky Mountaineer evening, and Into the Mountains, Briefly.

On May 12th I went to the excellent Kelly's Kaboose shop after work. This model train / antique store is located in downtown Kamloops, BC. They have a great selection of model train equipment, lots of railway paperwork (my favourite!) and lots of other interesting items like signs, photos, and other railway memorabilia. I highly recommend the store. I walked away with a selection of BC railway timetables to fill out my collection.

When I stepped out of the store, I saw a Rocky Mountaineer bus unloading passengers at a nearby hotel. I hadn't really intended on seeing the Rocky this evening but hey, since I was only a couple of blocks away...

They were parked with the locomotives under the Red Bridge again. All of the passengers were gone and the staff were packing things up prior to the train heading over to the shops. A worker was walking along the train disconnecting the power lines between cars. He told me it was to speed up the switching they were going to do in the shop area once the train got over there.

In good time they pushed back and I shot the train passing the station.

Hey, if you want to do me a favour, go vote for your favourite Rocky Mountaineer photos at moments.rockymountaineer.com - mine are here and here and here and here.

I did a quick jaunt over to the Mission Flats Road area and found CP 3074 waiting at CP Benledi near the Domtar plant.

By the way - there's a nude beach in the area. ;) On a previous visit I was driving past the Domtar plant when I saw two quite naked people walking back to their cars from the park area. Not something you see in Winnipeg!

It was time to head back to Tranquille again. Passing the airport I spied a westbound freight headed by CN 8868. I quickly bagged it before continuing on.

I easily beat them to Tranquille, where they rounded the bend before the crossing.

While I was watching the train, a water bomber flew overhead, so I had to grab that too.

This is a Convair CV580 water tanker, owned by Conair Aerial Firefighting.

As the train rolled by, I noticed a CP eastbound potash train across the water.

Apologies for the photo quality - it was 2.5 km away and hazy in the heat. Lightroom CC's dehaze feature helped a bit.

Notice that the CP train is going through a little tunnel. Here's a Google satellite view of the short tunnel, which is about 80m long.

As the westbound CN train rolled by, and the eastbound CP train rolled by, a third train entered the scene - CN 5652 East, with BCOL 4616 trailing.

Here you are - three trains in one photo.

The CP freight had a pusher on the rear.

Speaking of DPUs, CN 8868 West had a mid-train DPU, CN 2200.

After all of that excitement, I was done for the night.

For my last second-last post from this Kamloops visit, I will visit the Rocky Mountaineer one more time, plus show some downtown Kamloops CP action. Read on!

A Busy Noon

Thursday March 28 was a busy railfanning day. I went out at noon to see the Canadian and I ended up seeing a little more.

First, I saw a short CP local rolling north on the La Riviere subdivision at Kenaston Boulevard. CP 8216 and CP 3132 were pulling some tank cars and cement hoppers from the local industries. They were quick about clearing the crossing so they didn't hold traffic up for very long.

I went up to the Rivers subdivision around mile 8 and waited for VIA 1. After some time, I grew bored and headed west to see what might be out at Diamond. I passed the track gang that was hard at work replacing rails. They have been doing this for the past few weeks and look like they are just about done.


Just west of Diamond, I found CN 316 sitting patiently on the north track, waiting for their light. 316 had three engines, SD70M-2 CN 8868, SD60F CN 5528 and GP40-2LW CN 9418. The Geep was a nice find for me, as I rarely see GP40s anywhere and in fact I've only seen eight of CN's GP40 engines.


As I headed back east past Diamond, I saw VIA 1 coming quickly, so I grabbed this shot at the crossing just east of Diamond.


Note one of the track workers on the other side of the Park car.


I was heading back east, satisfied, when I saw a set of headlights coming. It was a westbound general freight train, and I shot it around mile 7. It had CN 5726 and CN 2187 for power and had a lot of wood products on board.


That was great... but I saw more after work...