Surprise At Lake Louise

After the excitement of shooting at Morant's Curve and photographing the Rocky Mountaineer, you would think I was satisfied, right? No way! A good railfan is never satisfied!

On August 9 we traveled to the Lake Louise area to visit Moraine Lake. We had just about reached the Lake Louise exit when I heard an end-of-train squawk on the scanner. This meant there was a train in the area! Since we had just driven up the 1A, I figured there were no trains east of us. We drove the short distance to Morant's Curve and I promised my wife we would wait up to 10 minutes for the train, then leave.

Well, no train came, so we headed back to Lake Louise. I dropped her and the kids off at the shops there and headed back to the Curve to wait for a train. I had 40 minutes so I was hoping something would come along.

There were a few other people hanging around, so I talked with them while keeping an ear to the scanner. One fellow was from Germany, on assignment as a photographer in the area and hoping for a train at Morant's Curve. As we were talking, I heard the hotbox at mile 111 come alive. Since Morant's Curve is at mile 113, a westbound train was imminent!

CP 8714 and 9813 pulled an intermodal train through the Curve.

The engineer gave the crowd of photographers a toot as he went by.

That was very exciting and I was pleased that my trip was not in vain. I heard another train was coming from the east but my time was up, so I advised the other photographers and left, hoping to get a chance to shoot it at the Lake Louise station.

I found my wife and kids at the shops and my wife grudgingly agreed that I could go shoot the train at the station in Lake Louise. As I drove down Sentinel Road, I saw a sight that made me forget all about the imminent freight.

The Royal Canadian Pacific was parked on the stub siding at Lake Louise! Who needs a boring old freight when the pride of the CP fleet can be photographed?

You may remember I saw the Royal Canadian Pacific in Calgary in June, albeit fleetingly. This time I had a few minutes to take shots of CP 4106 and 4107 from various angles. Mindful of my wife and kids in the van, I went as quickly as I could.

Isn't it pretty? Four minutes later, I was done and driving back to the main road. As it happened, the westbound freight rolled through right beside me. I stopped, shot it while sitting in the van, and carried on. It was kind of an anticlimax after viewing those beautiful old engines.

The freight had CP 9808, CP 9607, CEFX 1026 and CP 9506, all on the head end. Oddly enough, I saw CP 9808 on the same day I saw the Royal Canadian Pacific in Calgary. Quite a coincidence.

We drove up to Moraine Lake and took a little walk around. It is a long trip but well worth it. I think Lake Louise has the best overall scene but the colour of the water at Moraine Lake is simply unbelievable. Oh, and unbelievably cold on the ankles.

Another great day in the Rockies. I miss them already.

Jackpot

As I mentioned in my previous post, after a bit of early evening railfanning outside Calgary, I was not done with my train chasing for the night.

After a quick stop at my hotel, I decided to go see the Ogden Shops in Calgary. The directions are easy - go to the Ogden Road and you'll see them. I saw the shops, and shortly thereafter I saw CP 1601 and CP 1648 running light toward them.

Both of these units are GP9s. 1601 wears the short lived CP Rail System livery while 1648 sports faded CP Action Red with the multimark.

I saw a boatload of units at the Ogden Shops. You can view the day's sightings for a complete list of what I saw. It's not the easiest place to shoot without trespassing. I didn't get many decent shots because of this, but I did see a few interesting units, such as CP 1000. This unit was built as an SW1200 for the Milwaukee Road, before being acquired by CP's SOO lines and eventually being turned into a slug in 1996. It still has its cab (unusual for a slug) and sports a very simple lettering scheme.

Note the lack of exhaust stacks (slug=no engine).

That was all very exciting, but I decided I wanted to see the famous Alyth yard while I was here too. A short drive brought me to the Blackfoot Trail, which goes over the north end of the yard. I found a place to park and started to walk toward the overpass when I saw... classic passenger cars... on CP... this could mean only one thing.

The Royal Canadian Pacific was in town!

I sprinted toward the overpass while uncasing my camera and ripping the lens cap off.

They headed out just as I reached the top of the overpass, so I shot this video of their departure with my Canon T1i.

After they left, I took inventory of the yard. CP 9808 and 8871 were running light.
CP 6065 and 6614 were working hard shunting the yard. CP 9808 and 8871 ran past them to couple onto their train.

There were lots and lots of engines on the south side of the overpass. Unfortunately there is no walkway on that side, but I was able to take inventory of most of the units there. As I said, you can view the day's sightings to get a complete list.

That was a special moment for me to see the Royal Canadian Pacific train. I'm glad I was lucky enough to catch it.