Wrapping Up Kamloops

This is the sixth and last in a series about a May 2015 visit to Kamloops, British Columbia. Start at the beginning.

After seeing the Rocky Mountaineer off, I returned to downtown Kamloops to see what was going on with CP. At 20:15 I found a crew that apparently had just put their power away.

Too bad I didn't have the focus right. :(

Facing west from the same pedestrian bridge, I saw CP 8904 at the head of a coal train waiting to enter downtown.

Kamloops is a crew change point and they switch crews right beside the pedestrian bridge. Here's 8904 pulling up to the office to swap crews, from ground level this time.

On coal trains, CP seems to run a toaster* in the lead followed by one of the SD30C-ECO units (refurbished SD40-2 units). They then have another toaster as mid train power and one more on the tail end. I saw this combination multiple times during my times in Kamloops.

* toaster = squarish, boring locomotive aka AC4400CW or ES44AC. A derogatory railfan term.

So, to recap: toaster and SD30C (CP 5018) on the head end:

Mid-train toaster (CP 8923) with a little bonus coal on the dynamic brake fan grids, and crewman giving the train a rollby inspection:

Finally, end of train toaster (CP 8915).

I like the SD30Cs but the endless parade of ES44s and AC4400s... I don't understand why some people say CN has no variety in its locomotives!

After they passed, I walked down to the parking lot visible in the distance to shoot a side-on view of the parked locomotives. I was especially interested in CP 5875 with its multimark.

I think I had the camera on my monopod, on a timer, holding it up over the chain-link fence. Better than trespassing!

I shot CP 6250 as well but the angle wasn't as good.

After that, I wandered over to a nearby ice cream shop to top up my energy. As I walked out, I heard the tell-tale thrum of big diesels and ran to the crossing to find CP 8615 pulling up for a crew change.

You can see a piece of the pedestrian bridge that I was standing on for several of these photos. The plexiglass barriers make it a bit challenging to photograph from some angles, but you can jam the lens in between the panels if necessary. I suppose they are there to discourage littering.

By this time (20:45) the light was getting dim. I was using a shutter speed of 1/20s so there is some motion blur. Note that 8615 (with 8754 and 8922) was meeting a westbound freight in the yard.

After the tail end passed, CP 8624 (and 9683) throttled up and rolled on by with its intermodal cargo.

I packed it in for the night after that.

I didn't railfan at all on May 14th - shocker! - and I didn't intend to railfan on May 15th, but while driving to the airport I spotted a pair of CN locomotives switching the fuel facility by YKA (Kamloops airport). I grabbed a couple of quick photos before returning my rental car and boarding.

CN 5268 and 6023 were shuffling tank cars around.

PS - My flight back home was pretty uneventful. As we descended to land in Winnipeg, I photographed the Fort Garry area with my iPhone. You can see the former Manitoba Sugar property on the left, the CN Letellier subdivision across the bottom left of the photo, and Chevrier Boulevard running up through the middle of the photo.

Thanks for reading about my Kamloops adventures! You can start back at the beginning or read all my Kamloops stories.

I'll be posting about my grain elevator adventures in northwest Manitoba soon... stay tuned.

Clusterf... pack?

I went out at Thursday noon to try to shoot the Canadian near my favourite spot, Diamond. Just after noon I saw my first train, an eastbound intermodal with CN 2679 and CN 2436.



I headed west to set up near Diamond, only to find a container train parked there. It was CN 199, stopped at a red signal on the south track just east of Diamond. The train had CN 8023 and CN 8956 and was completely blocking highway 334 / Hogue Road.



I was a little concerned about seeing the Canadian with the freight in the way, so I waited at the head end for VIA... and waited.  After a bit, the conductor cut the train at the crossing and the head end pulled forward a bit  to clear the crossing. They completed that... and then they got the green light. I'm sure that was frustrating for them. They stuck the train together and took off.

I headed back east, hoping to see the Canadian even though I had not heard anything about it on the scanner. Instead I stumbled across CN 803 heading toward Diamond. They had CN 2236 as the sole power on this train.



I understood they were going to meet CN 112 so I tried to get the meet as close as I could.



CN 112 had CN 8915 and CN 2449. They weren't going very fast so I jumped in the car and got ahead of them before the Perimeter, then shot them there.



By then I was tired of waiting for the Canadian, so I resolved to head out. On my way east on Wilkes I saw one more train, so I took the shot. I don't know the train number but it had CN 2623 and BCOL 4609 on it. I guess I missed that meet with CN 112.



All of these trains were sighted in 40 minutes. I never did see the Canadian. I heard it left about an hour late, without a Park car on the tail end. Obviously they had some kind of issue with it and had to set it off.