November 26 Observations

On Saturday November 26 I did my usual survey of the CP yard in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba. There were a collection of the "usual suspects" (GP38s, AC4400s, SD90s) with a few more interesting units. The first was CP 8957, another one of the shiny new ES44AC engines that Canadian Pacific Railway has purchased.


Canadian Railway Observation's December issue has a better photo of 8957 by Ken McCutcheon in Assiniboia, Saskatchewan.

For me the most interesting unit in the yard was CP 9015, a "red barn" SD40-2F. Blog readers know I like the red barns, but this one is special because it has a rebuilt nose.


CP 9015 was involved in a grade crossing accident with an oil truck earlier this year (I believe) and the Weston shops here in Winnipeg rebuilt the nose end.

Compare it to CP 9017... shot here in Winnipeg on October 25, 2009.


The candy stripes are gone, the bell is painted, and most importantly, the shop didn't bother repainting the whole locomotive! Given the age of the red barns, it doesn't make sense for CP to spend a lot of time and money doing cosmetic work to them.

Here's a photo of CP 9015 from Flickr.

Complete list of units seen.

Meet at Caron

I was browsing through my photo albums and stumbled across a series of photographs I took at Caron, Saskatchewan back in the late 1990s. If I had to guess, it was February 1999 but I could easily be wrong. My railway record-keeping was not very good back then.

Caron is a tiny town (population 120) west of Moose Jaw on the CP main line. It likely used to have the usual grain elevator(s) but now it has nothing but a siding. The nearby town of Caronport is more famous, as one site of the former British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

I was driving by Caron on the Trans-Canada Highway when I noticed a westbound CP train stopped in the siding. I took the exit and went to investigate.

CP 9015 and 5583 were sitting at the head of an intermodal train in the siding. At that time, pretty much any locomotive was different to me, so I didn't really realize how different the "red barn" 9015 was.


CP 5583 was a run-of-the-mill SD40-2.


As I took these photos, I noticed a train coming from the west. In my inexperienced way I recorded the meet.


Leased unit CEFX 106 was the lead engine on this potash train. There was probably a mid-train unit or two, but apparently I did not record them.


This may have been the first train meet I ever recorded. I remember being pretty excited about it.