Passing a Half Century (Part 7) - Not the Rocky

For my 50th birthday, my wife and I drove through Alberta and British Columbia. You can start at the beginning here... or read the whole series as an eBook with extra content!

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Ah, Banff

Sure as that old whistle's blowin'

There's a tug upon my heart
Somewhere in that misty mornin' light
There's another brand new start

- Doobie Brothers, "Keep This Train A-Rollin'"

Day 5, Continued

When we left off, my wife and I were on day 5 of my 50th birthday railfan trip, heading to Banff, Alberta on highway 1A (also known as the Bow Valley Parkway), after chasing a train through the Spiral Tunnels to Lake Louise.

We drove into town and I stopped at the train station at about 4:30 PM to ask when the Rocky Mountaineer was coming in. The person behind the RM counter said they would be arriving around 7 PM. Great!

We checked into our hotel (the Elk + Avenue, a nice but rather expensive hotel). After a bit, we headed over to the station to see the Rocky.

Meet at Banff

At first I went to Banff East (at Compound Road) but nothing was around. I was listening to my scanner and heard chatter about a meet at the station, so we drove over to the station and parked there. My wife sat in the car while I went over to the crossing at Mt. Norquay Road to wait.

A guy driving a blue Alberta pickup showed up and started wandering all over the tracks, taking photos and being rather unsafe. I don't know if he was a railfan and I didn't speak with him.

A few minutes later, CP 8948 East showed up.

CP 8948 East

It was pulling a big ol' grain train.

CP 8948 and the Banff station

You can see some of the Rocky Mountaineer staff on the platform by the station.

This train had a shiny locomotive on it, freshly repainted CP 9835 with the new "golden beaver" logo.

Shiny CP 9835

CP 9835 and 8639 were the first two locomotives to receive the new, simplified beaver and came out of Relco's Albia, Iowa shops in July 2017.

It's so rare to see a clean locomotive on CP these days! 9835 really stood out.

After standing on the ballast, too close to the train, Mr. Unsafe took off.

The train wasn't going very fast, and the reason why became evident when the tail end passed me. Here's the other train!

CP 8622 at Banff with buses

CP 8622 was waiting on the main for the other train to clear. They took off to the west without delay.

Speaking of shiny, freshly repainted locomotives...

CP 8622 leaving Banff

Another new "golden beaver"!

I saw an interesting car in the train. It is lettered COER 354978 but I could see the KCS underneath the patch. Apparently there are a few of these kicking around.

COER 354978 in Banff

Here's a photo of the same car in August with the same graffiti. I found that photo on this thread featuring my friend Bill Brillinger!

Here's the video I took of CP 8622 West.

After the DPU - CP 8819 - passed by, all was quiet for about half an hour.

All quiet in Banff

Everyone was waiting for the Rocky Mountaineer to show up. I talked with a couple - from Tennessee, I think - who were going to ride the Rocky the next morning. They were really looking forward to the trip and were out to see their train come in.

Finally

Eventually, a headlight in the distance...

Ummm... what?

Wait... that's not the Rocky Mountaineer...

It was the Royal Canadian Pacific!

Anyone remember this show?

It was a very pleasant surprise!

CP 1401 and the Royal Canadian Pacific in Banff

I was delighted to see the RCP - and maybe a bit puzzled. Why was it here?

Oh well... don't ask questions, just take pictures!

They pulled up until the whole train was at the station, and stopped briefly.

Given the poor lighting (it was 7 PM and not very bright out) I took some 3 frame HDR photos and combined them.

A fine looking train

The conductor got out and uncoupled the power from the train. If you expand the photo above, you'll see him down at the junction of CP 4106 and CP 95.

Once the power was uncoupled, they pulled ahead through the crossing, then reversed along the siding waaaayy down to the east to the other siding switch.

Giving it the run-around

While they were doing that, I walked along the station platform and recorded the consist: CP 1401 / CP 4107 / CP 4106 / CP 95 / CP 77 "VAN HORNE" / CP 103 "MAJOR ROGERS" / "ROYAL WENTWORTH" / "CRAIGELLACHIE" / CP 74 "MOUNT STEPHEN".

I thought the view of CP 1401 coming up with the mountains in the background would look great.

So did this person.

Thanks for getting in the shot

Wouldn't this have been nice without the chimping photographer?

So close

No, I'm not bitter. ;)

There was quite a crowd on the end of MOUNT STEPHEN watching the proceedings. That's the bride on the left.

An audience for the couple.. er, coupling

I took video at a few points and combined them into this video.

Ninety Minutes

At this point I realized I had been out railfanning for ninety minutes. My wife, my ever loving, very patient wife, was a bit annoyed that I took so long. Very understandable! Now I know the limit. :)

So I didn't wait for the Rocky Mountaineer to eventually arrive. I figured we could catch it departing in the morning.

We wandered around Banff looking for a restaurant that didn't have a huge waiting list. It was tough! We finally found the Bear Street Tavern, a place that advertises "ridiculously good pizza". We had eaten there on a previous visit and it was just as good this time. Highly recommended.

Next Up

We spent day 6 in the Banff area, starting with a little chase of the Rocky Mountaineer before we finally got to Lake Louise. One more post in this series... READ ON!

PS you can read this series as an eBook, with extra photos and content!

A Wee Grain Elevator Trip

On August 4 I took a "wee" grain elevator trip as part of my 2014 photography project (you've visited www.grainelevators.ca, haven't you?). I only had Sunday morning and I had an errand to run, to drop off a print to the owner of the Mentmore grain elevator in thanks for him showing me around. I figured I didn't have much time so I really only planned on seeing one new-to-me elevator, in Justice, Manitoba.

I made a spreadsheet to plan my trip (of course! who wouldn't?) and here it is.

You can see I intended to take the Trans-Canada west, then north to Justice, then visit Mentmore, then revisit a few elevators on my way out. I had a dwell time of 30 minutes at Oberon because I wanted to revisit that fantastic elevator in detail, and I planned on 30 minutes at Harte to hopefully catch a train passing the elevator on the CN Rivers subdivision.

I woke up bright and early around 03:15 and hit the road a few minutes early. After passing Portage la Prairie, I noticed I was well ahead of schedule so I made a quick decision to add two more elevators to my list. There is a new Viterra elevator just north of Brandon on the Rivers subdivision, as well as the old Manitoba Pool grain elevator at Forrest. I had thought about including them in the list before but I didn't think I had enough time.

After a quick stop at the highway Esso for fuel and the local Scottish restaurant for drive-through breakfast, I headed north on highway 10. I came across the old Pool elevator in Forrest quite easily.

Forrest with a new top!?

I spent the next 15 minutes photographing the elevator. It is a bit of an odd duck in that the top has clearly been replaced / renewed while the rest of the elevator, and the annex, is quite weathered. It does appear to be maintained as it is not very overgrown and there is an open Shop-Vac in the truck bay.

Drive Through Service

Back on the road, I quickly spotted the new Viterra facility and took a few photos from the highway.

Service at.. a profit

After 17 minutes of driving, I found Justice.

Been searching for justice? Here it is!

Justice has a classic Manitoba Pool elevator with a largeish annex. The single-track CN main line runs past it but there is no siding for the elevator any more.

Your classic prairie elevator

I spent half an hour photographing the elevator and a few scenes around. I was hoping a CN train would happen along but there was no sign of any rail traffic. There was some nice scenery, though.

Thanks for the photobomb, birds!

I carried on east to Brookdale and territory I had covered before on May 31. I stopped in Brookdale to photograph the old grain warehouse, a classic structure I had intended to photograph the first time but ended up forgetting about! The sun was not in a great position but I did what I could.

Ancient grain warehouse

From there I headed north to Mentmore. I dropped the photo off and took a few photos of the elevator from afar.

Jayson Brothers Limited, Mentmore

After that it was a short drive to Oberon.

Grain Elevator Selfie FTW!

I just love the weathered, forlorn look of this elevator. I spent about 20 minutes photographing it from various angles. Here's the office, viewed from outside.

Needs a little work

From there I headed directly south to Harte.

Bye for now

I was about 20 minutes ahead of schedule!

There was no rail action imminent but I did see a crop-duster working nearby, so I went over and photographed it for a while.

How low can you go?

The plane is an Air Tractor AT-402B, a plane custom made for spraying. It is part of the fleet operated by Ken Kane Aerial Spray Ltd. out of Minnedosa, Manitoba.

Air Tractor AT-402B

My scanner crackled to life with CN 114 calling the approach to Harte around 09:20. An eastbound would look great in the morning sun but it would be a "going away" photo for the grain elevator, as the elevator is east of the overpass I was shooting from. I had my old Canon S3 set up on the tripod to record video while I shot stills with my Canon T1i with the 70-200mm f/4 lens.

That's the shot I wanted

That overpass sure rumbled when those containers rolled by underneath. It was almost scary how close they were!

Interesting stuff in the gondolas...

How would you like your scrap steel?

After CN 114 went by, it was quiet for a while. I heard two CN trains exchanging inspection reports as they passed each other, and then I heard CN 403 call a diverging signal at Harte as they took the siding at 10:00. They crawled past the elevator, with CN 2307 / CN 8009 / CN 5480 / CN 5548 for power.

Taking the siding

When processing these photos, I was surprised to see that the conductor was photographing me!

Say cheese, foamer!

Sergeant stripes forever

The reason for taking the siding became apparent when CN 106 called the approach to Harte.

I set up to record the meet. CN 106 rumbled past with CN 8948 as the sole power on the head end, and CN 8944 as DPU in the middle of the train.

Pleased to meet you

Mid-train blues

CN 403 was rolling before 106 was past, anticipating a quick alignment of the switch so they could leave, and they got it and were on their way at 10:12. So was I, as my schedule said it was time to leave!

I passed Oberon again and took highway 5 south to the Trans-Canada, then headed east toward Winnipeg. As I passed MacGregor I saw two consecutive CN westbound trains. In both cases I pulled over to the shoulder and photographed them from the highway, as I didn't have time to do any more than that.

1. CN 2120, CN 2619, CN 2125
2. CN 5620, CN 2011

From a distance...

Passing Bloom, I noticed that poor CN 114 was stopped there. Clearly they didn't get too far after Harte before having to stop for westbound traffic.

Between Bloom and Portage I saw another train, with CN 8934 and CN 2528.

Love that zig zag!

I went around Portage and kept going. I saw I was making good time so I cut north to the Rivers subdivision just before Headingley, so I could drive alongside the CN tracks between mile 20 and mile 11 and hopefully catch just one more train. I met Brian Schuff at Diamond and we saw a CN train carry on westward  with CN IC 2699 and CN 5452 on the head end and CN 8846 pushing on the rear.

Just a few more trains and I'll be right home to you

Not bad for a (long) morning's work... 3 new grain elevators and 7 CN trains.

PS if you're interested in purchasing any of my prints, my best photos are available on pixels.com. If there's one you want that's not there, contact me and we can work it out.