Busy Day

Thursday, July 12 was a busy busy railfanning day. It started at noon when I went out to shoot the Canadian. I went down to my new favourite spot by Carman Junction around mile 8.3 and set up. Soon I realized that there was a CN freight coming east. I was hoping it would not skunk me like a certain previous time, but fortunately it was on the north track. CN 2592 led CN 2609 and a medium-sized intermodal train. I believe it was CN 102.


As the train rolled on past me, I saw a set of headlights in the far distance to the east. Here comes VIA!


The end of the CN train passed and shortly after that, VIA 6413 came around the curve.


Now... here's a funny little picture from the same time. Guess what happened? (answer at bottom of post)


I took a video of the two trains.


After work, I traveled out toward the CN Rivers subdivision again. I saw a container train rolling over route 90, and it turned out to be CN 199. I gave chase, although I figured I would not catch up to it.They met an eastbound train and I caught a glimpse of the head end at Shaftesbury Boulevard as I waited for the light to change.

I continued on westward and 199 got away, but I heard them get a rollby inspection from a train. Curious, I kept going west of Diamond and found CN 112 stopped on the north track. They were waiting for a green light. Here they had just received their light, turned their headlights on, and were preparing to head out.


I took some shots as the head end passed, then jumped in my car and gave chase. It was quite easy to pace them at the start, as they were still pulling hard to get moving. I fired some shots out my side window and ended up with a half-decent pacing shot.


I then pulled up to Hall Road to take video. I thought I had plenty of time but in fact I was a bit rushed and missed a bit of horn noise at the start.


All very exciting, but there was one more train to see! CN 106 was still to come into Winnipeg. Here they are near Diamond.


Here's the video from the same location.


That was quite enough for me, so I headed for home. But wait! There's more... when crossing the CN Letellier subdivision, I saw CN 532 rolling south, so I took a quick exit and shot them as they approached the Perimeter Highway. CN 5532 on 532... love it.


I have no idea why the door was open, except perhaps to provide some cooling for the crew.


Answer to why the VIA photo was so dark: My camera was set to meter on a single point (the center of the lens) and I had pointed it at the headlight. The camera metered for the headlight and so the shot was very underexposed. I like the effect!

CN 346

Just a quickie post... I heard CN 346 was leaving the CN Symington Yard onto the Sprague subdivision, so I caught it at Deacon's Corner just south of the bridge crossing Winnipeg's all-important floodway.

CN 8883 and CN 8820 were the power on the head end.


About mid-train, CN 2684 and CN 2332 were the distributed power (DPU). I'm not sure I've ever seen two DPU units stuck together on a CN train before.


The head end of the train was grain hoppers, with a few miscellaneous cars mixed in, and a collection of empty autoracks on the tail end.

I've shot CN 346 twice before.

I think I'm getting to know the CN engines around here a bit too much. Of the four engines on this train, I've seen three of them before!

Brandon Bound

When my son was visiting, we took a day to go to Brandon, Manitoba on July 5. We were going to see the National Artillery Museum of Canada and the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum. I recommend both highly.

On our way out of Winnipeg, we saw a CN train stopped at mile 10 on the Rivers sub. I pulled off the highway to take a shot of CN 5266.


We continued on to CFB Shilo and visited the artillery museum. On our way back to the highway, we saw a westbound train stopped outside Brandon. I shot it from a distance. It appears the train was "in the hole" waiting for a meet and the crew was having a break. :)

After visiting the Air Training Plan museum, we headed home. It started to rain and a pretty good storm built up. Near Austin MB (between Brandon and Portage la Prairie) I saw a headlight and pulled over to get the shot at the grain elevator in Austin.

We carried on and the rain grew more intense. We saw a westbound Herzog ballast train, with a CITX unit as the second of three, but I did not pull over to shoot it... too much rain.

If you're ever in Brandon, take time to visit the National Artillery Museum of Canada (at the airport) and the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum (at CFB Shilo).