Kitchener Railfanning

I was in the Kitchener-Waterloo area in mid October to see my son Nick graduate from the University of Waterloo. It's hard to believe he's old enough to graduate from university... sheesh.

Anyway, there were trains. Here they are.

CN En Route

As I was driving west on highway 401 on October 19th, I spotted a pair of CN locomotives doing some industrial switching. I exited quickly and found CN 4710 and CN 4136..

CN 4710 in the Guelph area?

Note the numbers under the cab... CN 4710 was originally built as CN 5510 and the two "5" digits are showing through. It's a GP38-2.

CN 4710 turning back into CN 5510 again

The second unit was GP9RM CN 4136 in sergeant stripes as well.

CN 4136 with sergeant stripes

Both of those locomotives were "new" to me. I've seen a lot of CN Geeps but not many in the 47xx or 41xx series.

Kitchener At Night

I checked into my hotel, and decided to take a stroll... a fairly long walk, actually. I was staying at the Comfort Inn on Weber Street North in Waterloo, and the train station in Kitchener was a good 3 kilometre walk down Weber Street. Google Maps says it takes 38 minutes to walk that but it clearly hasn't seen how fast I walk.

As I approached the train station, I saw there were two Goderich and Exeter locomotives parked there. LLPX 2236 and QGRY 2008 were on one of the two back tracks (See lead photo).

There is a fence on that side of the tracks so I was shooting over the fence, hand-held at some pretty low shutter speeds. The joy of digital is that I could take a lot of photos and toss the ones that were blurry. The above was shot at 0.3 second, f/5.6 and ISO 100.

Here's an example of two photos I took, one blurry and one that was pretty sharp. See if you can tell which is which. ;)

The first one is a good example of the many photos I deleted.

I took 162 photos that evening, and kept 35. This is something you would never do with film.

While I was photographing the units, a crewman came out and started them up.

LLPX 2236 and the H.R. Krug Furniture Company

For the above photo, I was standing on the station platform shooting toward where I was standing when I took the first photo of this post. Note the historic H.R. Krug Furniture Company building in the background. I don't know the age of this building but it has clearly been there for a while!

VIA 87

VIA 911 in Kitchener, Ontario

At 19:11, VIA 911 pulled train VIA 87 up to the station. This was my first time seeing 911 and it was nice to see it in a "Canada 150" wrap, advertising Sarnia, Vancouver, Ste-Foy and Sackville.

They didn't linger long... a quick stop and they were off, with VIA 913 on the rear. They had a "Canada 150" wrapped coach in the consist, VIA 3355.

At 19:21, the pair of GEXR locomotives pulled out. They headed down the Elmira Spur, which goes through Waterloo, St. Jacobs and terminates in Elmira, Ontario. The line terminates at Canada Colors and Chemicals, which makes sulphuric acid, oleum and sodium bisulphite. (read more about the Elmira Spur)

I thought that was it for trains that night, since there were no more VIA trains scheduled until 21:42. I packed up and started walking away from the station when I heard a train...

GO 289

GOT 326 in Kitchener, Ontario

I didn't really have much of a chance to set up, so this was the best I could do.

GOT 326 was the cab car in the lead. I didn't catch the number on the locomotive pushing on the rear.

Smear

Not a great photo.

Inside the Station

I took a few photos inside the (pretty much deserted) Kitchener VIA / GO / bus station.

Inside the Kitchener train station

Inside the Kitchener, ON train station

Outside, a GO bus sat apologetically...

That was it for me, so I walked back up to the hotel for the night. I resolved to return in the morning to catch the morning VIA Rail train 84.

Kitchener Station in the Light

The Kitchener, Ontario VIA Rail / GO station

The train station is an impressive sight in the day.

It was built by the Grand Trunk Railway in 1897. At one time it had a clock tower but it was removed by CN in 1966. The station was designated a railway heritage structure on February 15, 1994. At one time it hosted the VIA-Amtrak International Limited. Recently it has started hosting GO Transit trains since the start of GO service to Kitchener.

VIA and GO service are due to be relocated to the new King-Victoria Transit Hub aka Central Station a few blocks west of this station. It will also serve the new ION light rail system that is starting up in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. I don't know what will happen to the GTR station, but since it is protected it should continue to enjoy some public use after the railway moves out.

I should mention that the freight shed portion (in the foreground of the photo above) is used by the Goderich and Exeter Railway (GEXR).

Their sign is on the end of the station and there were a few GEXR road vehicles parked in the lot when I was there.

The GEXR operates the former CN Goderich and CN Guelph subdivisions, serving many local customers. It interchanges with CP in Kitchener and Guelph and with CN in Toronto.

Anyway, I was there to see VIA...

VIA 84

VIA 911 and the Krug factory in Kitchener, Ontario

I set up just past the station to try to photograph the train with the Krug factory in the background. I didn't know where the train would stop so I had to guess a bit. I think it worked out OK.

There were a LOT of people boarding, so the train sat for about 5 minutes while the passengers got on.

Passengers boarding at the Kitchener train station

This gave me a couple of minutes to photograph a bit of the train and get in position to capture them leaving.

VIA 911, up close and personal

Darn those long shadows.

VIA 911's "builder's plate"

I photographed the train leaving and caught a little reflection of VIA 913 trailing as they headed out of town.

VIA 913 reflecting on the GO shelter

So that was VIA.

That was almost the end of my railfanning in Kitchener.

The ION Depot

I met up with my son Nick and had supper with him and his girlfriend, then we paid a quick visit to the new depot built to service the ION light rail equipment.

ION light rail depot, Kitchener, ON

Everything looked very nice and new.

ION will eventually have 14 Flexity Freedom light rail vehicles, with the option to buy up to 16 more. The first vehicle was undergoing testing on site in Kitchener in November 2017. The service has been delayed due to delivery problems from Bombardier, and it is now expected to open in early 2018.

That was it for my railfanning in Kitchener. Nick graduated on the 20th, his girlfriend graduated on the 21st, and I made my way to Toronto to fly out. I did a bit of railfanning on the way... I might write about that another time.

I'll leave you with another bus, GO Transit #2448. This is a Motor Coach Industries D4500CT bus.

GO GO TRANSIT

See Also

• The Beachburg Sub visits Kitchener
• London Town
• The Ontario Southland Railway Woodstock Job
• How I Got the Shot: VIA 78
• VIA 78, Several Times

Layover at Dorval

After my recent trip to Saint John, NB (see Saint John Railway Scenes and CN 406, Times Two), I hopped on a plane back to Winnipeg. Well, actually, I took two planes... a little prop plane to Montréal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (aka "YUL") and then a jet from there to Winnipeg's James Armstrong Richardson International Airport.

I had a three-hour layover in Montréal. I decided that I wasn't going to just sit around playing with my computer or phone. I knew from a past layover that the Dorval VIA / AMT train stations were within walking distance, and since I like to walk, this could be done!

Dorval is on the CN Kingston subdivision and the CP Vaudreuil subdivision.

These Shoes Are Made For Walking

VIA 6414 at Dorval

I was fortunate that I was only a few seats back from the front of the plane, so I was able to deplane quickly and zoom out of the airport. I walked through the acres (hectares?) of parking garages and open air parking lots toward the Dorval train station.

It is a good 15-20 minute walk at a brisk pace.

I was carrying my camera bag (a Lowepro SlingShot 102 AW, if you're curious) and my laptop bag, so by the time I reached the station I was a little warm and my back was a bit sore. No worries!

The AMT and VIA stations are quite close to each other but they are separate. AMT has a pair of tracks with little one story shelters beside them, and VIA has a full train station beside their own pair of tracks. There is a tunnel that goes under all four tracks so you can go to any platform without crossing tracks.

VIA at Dorval

I looked at the AMT schedule - displayed on the station outside - and determined that nothing was coming until 13:02, so I walked over to the VIA station.

VIA 35 showed up very soon after I arrived, with VIA 6414 for power. You may remember that 6414 was the Loto Quebec unit when they were still wrapped, and was derisively labelled as "the Turd".

Spotting the consist at Dorval

In the photo above, you can see the second engineer looking back to spot the train at the right place on the platform.

There was quite a crowd on the platform but it did not take long for everyone to get on or off the train. I elected to shoot video with my iPhone as the train departed.



The consist was 6414 / 3451 / 4177 / 4118. I noted that VIA 3451 had a poppy sticker on it already.

After VIA 35 left, I went inside to check the schedule.

VIA schedule at Dorval

Nothing for an hour. Off to AMT.

Agence Métropolitaine de Transport

I knew I would have a bit of a wait for the next AMT train, but I was hoping for a freight train to come along. CP, CN and CSX all come through Dorval at different times, and on my last visit to Dorval I caught a CP freight.

I paced around by the AMT side for a while, but nothing came along until the scheduled AMT train, led by cab car 3017.

AMT 3017

They sure have a lot of horns on these cars!

I was on the wrong side of the sun but I had decided to stay here because I would have the fence in the way on the other side. Maybe wrong, maybe right, but that's the decision I made. It's important to think of these things if you have time to do so.

After a very brief stop, they continued on their way and I shot AMT 1325 pushing the consist westward.

AMT 1325 at Dorval

AMT 1325 is an F59PHI locomotive.

The End

The next VIA train was VIA 34 at 13:18 and the next AMT train was after that. My flight to Winnipeg was at 14:40 so I thought I might be pushing it a bit to wait for VIA with a long walk to the airport after that, so I set off for the airport.

In the end I was glad I didn't hang around, as the security line was pretty long and I didn't have a lot of time to wait before my flight boarded. It was the right decision.

But Wait, There's More

I neglected to mention earlier in this series that I took a few photos of NB Southern switching in Saint John that week.

GMTX 2639 in Saint John

GMTX 2639 and NBSR 911 were switching the west end of the Dever Road yard (aka "Ponderosa yard"). I took a few minutes to watch them do their thing. There is no really good angle to photograph units here without this upward look to them.

When I last saw #911 in December 2014, it was still HLCX 911. Since then, NB Southern purchased the unit and patched it to be NBSR 911. It still has the crossed out "Union Pacific" on the side, but I'm sure it will be repainted into green and yellow like the rest of the fleet eventually.

NBSR 911

For now, enjoy the patch job.

Just One More Thing

Totally not train related, but I also spotted a couple of cruise ships in the Saint John harbour.

Cruise ships in Saint John, NB

The big one was "Anthem of the Seas", a new Royal Caribbean International behemoth delivered in April 2015. This monster is just over 1/3 km long with a capacity of 4,180 - 4,905 passengers. It has a crane on board to lift a "NorthStar" observation capsule up to 300' above sea level, and an indoor skydiving simulator, as well as many other amenities.

"Anthem of the Seas" in Saint John, NB

The smaller vessel was the Disney Magic. This vessel was launched in April 1997 and can carry up to 2,700 people even though it is not much shorter than the Anthem. The Magic is definitely not as tall!

"Disney Magic" in Saint John, NB

Maybe the excursion train I saw on October 11 had been carrying cruise ship passengers?

See Also

• Canadian Railway Observations guide to railfanning Montreal (PDF)
• My last Dorval railfanning visit
• Back to the start of this post trilogy

Disclosure: This post contains one or more affiliate links to Amazon. If you purchase any item from Amazon via that link, I receive a small commission from Amazon at no additional cost to you. Just so you know.

Saint John Railway Scenes

NB Southern #911

I was in Saint John, New Brunswick last week for work. I didn't have any specific plans for seeing trains, as I wasn't sure how long I would be working each day. As it happened, things went pretty smoothly so I did see some trains.

My plane landed in YSJ (Saint John airport) pretty much on time at 17:35, and fetching the rental car and luggage was quick. One big bonus of small airports is doing the renting in sight of the only baggage carousel!

I decided I would head straight to the former train station in Rothesay to photograph it with the fall colours. I had a hope in the back of my head that I could catch CN 406 passing by (to reproduce this), but I wasn't counting on it.

As I approached Station Road by the Rothesay station, I saw the last couple of tank cars on CN 406 roll by on their way to Moncton. Missed it by that much. You can't catch 'em all.

There was no point in pursuing them. It would have taken a lot of time to get back to the highway and the light was failing.

Fall colours and the Rothesay train station

At least I got the shot I wanted.

I headed into Saint John. As I drove along Rothesay Avenue, I spotted a set of locomotive headlights on the track leading to Courtenay Bay / Irving Oil / Irving Paper. I headed up and found GMTX 2226 working the crude oil terminal at Courtenay Bay. The sunset light was pretty sweet.

GMTX 2226 at sunset

I thought about staying to watch them switch, but I decided against it and continued on along past Island Yard. I was going to head to the NBSR Dever Road yard and see what was going on there before turning in for the night.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this excursion train at Harbour Station!

NBSR 9801 and an excursion train at Harbour Station, Saint John

I believe they had taken some people from a visiting cruise ship out for a spin. I saw a large cruise ship leaving Saint John that night.

In the photo above, you can see the crewman walking back to the cab. I must have looked pretty comical running back and forth as I wasn't sure which direction they were going. As it happened, they headed toward the Dever Road yard / NB Southern yard.

The train had NBSR 9801 with the three ex VIA Rail coaches (5448, 5471 and 5537) along with their "new" #508 and the Metis. NBSR 2317 was on the other end.

NBSR 508 and the Metis

The light was pretty low so I was shooting with a 1/20s shutter speed, meaning the blur was inevitable.

They took off and I gave chase. I decided I would try to catch them crossing the Reversing Falls bridge. I got to the Falls well before them, so I parked and ran up the hill to get a broad view of the bridge.

This was at 7:15 PM so the sun was already down below the horizon. Tricky light!

NBSR crossing the Reversing Falls bridge

I decided to stick to my original plan and headed to the Dever Road yard. I didn't think I would beat them there, and I was right. They were rolling under the Green Head Road overpass when I arrived.

I did managed to catch them passing the night switcher, NBSR 911. I like how this turned out.

NBSR 911 and the excursion train, by night

That was it for me for the night.

In part 2 I shared my catch of CN 406, twice.

Until then, you might wish to read about my visit to New Brunswick in 2011..

An NB Southern Chase

I was staying in Saint John NB Thursday evening. I awoke Friday morning (Dec 12) at 8 am and checked my email / Google+ / Facebook and found a post in the RailsNB Facebook group from Brian Barchard reporting an NBSR eastbound freight train through Harvey at 07:25. I did some mental calculations and figured they couldn't cover the 40+ miles to Welsford until 08:30 at the earliest. I grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel and headed out. My intention was to follow the NB Southern line all the way until I stumbled across the train. On my way out of Saint John I saw these two units at Island Yard..

I passed the Ponderosa Yard at Dever Road in Saint John but nothing was going on. Onwards!

I passed through foggy Grand Bay-Westfield without any sign of trains. As I approached Welsford I heard the EOT squawk* on my scanner just as I came to Aikins Lane/Sand Hopper Road and saw white tank cars going east. Time to turn around!

I decided to get them at Brittain Road first. I got there about 2 minutes ahead of the train. Looking at the bright(er) overcast sky and the dark ground, I set the exposure compensation on my camera to -2/3 of a stop. I do that in these situations to prevent the sky from blowing out when the camera meters the ground. I also had the shutter speed at 1/250s because of the low light. Normally I'd prefer 1/400 or faster but it wasn't possible given the available light. It turned out OK.

The consist was NBSR 6315, HLCX 6304, NBSR 6318, GMTX 2226 and GMTX 2233.

Next I was determined to get the overhead shot at Westfield Beach. I parked at the mailboxes and ran like heck up the bridge to get into position. Seconds later the headlights were visible as the train came around the bend.

Detail roof shot, anyone?

I knew I would be playing catch up so I drove through Westfield-Grand Bay. I wanted the curve shot at Milligan Road and arrived just in time. Part of railfanning is choosing your opportunities!

You can see there was some fog...

I grabbed a quick side-of-road shot as the train passed through Grand Bay.

Since I had an overhead shot I felt no need to get the overhead shot by the Co-Op, and the train was there first anyway. I had no real idea of what I wanted next except that I wanted the bridge shot just before Gault Road. I stopped to take this photo at Ketepec Road. The engineer really loved that horn and 6315 has a very loud horn!

Here's the bridge shot I wanted.

As you can see it was raining by this time, but whatever... The nice thing about a heavily overcast day like this is that you can shoot from any direction and the light is pretty much the same! I had to do some serious editing to lighten the pond and engines enough to be seen, yet not blow out the bright sky.

I went to the overpass to shoot them coming into the yard. "Huff and Puff" were working the west end.

These are NB Southern's two SW1200 locomotives.

The eastbound freight stopped for a while. I am not sure why but there was some chatter about a freight car.

Eventually they got started again.. very slowly. I imagine the rails were quite slippery with the rain and it was hard to get started up the grade into the yard. The engines sounded great and the sanders were doing their thing.

It's been a very long time since I chased an NB Southern train! Thanks to Brian for the heads up and the rest of the RailsNB group for all the information they provide.