A Rocky Mountaineer Evening

After my tranquil Tranquille afternoon, I headed over to the south side of Kamloops to see what was going on at the CP side of things.

I'm a little confused on the timing of this train but I think all units are the same train. The time stamps are off because the first photo was taken with my Canon and the other two were taken with my iPhone. CP 8739 and 5004 were the leaders.

I think they must have been the same train because there's no way two westbound coal trains would have passed by me within two or three minutes. I just can't figure out why I would have used my Canon for one and then sat in my car for the other two.

Anyway. After the coal train passed, I went down to the Weyerhauser Domtar mill and spotted spreader CP 402880 and plow CP 400648. There is a wye there that used to service a sawmill and it is a handy place to park equipment, I guess. I spotted a Sperry "doodlebug" there back in August 2013.

I headed back to downtown Kamloops after that, because I knew the Rocky Mountaineer was due in. Very exciting! I have been to Kamloops several times but always when the Rocky was not running, so this was my first chance to see it in Kamloops.

There were several busses arriving by the former CN station (now a Keg restaurant) and I asked one of the bus drivers when the train might show up. He said it was arriving at 7 PM, and sure enough I spotted it coming off the CP main line at 7 on the dot. This train was coming from Banff and had to get onto the CN Okanagan subdivision to A) drop passengers off at the station and B) proceed to their depot in the CN yard.

Here they are.

It might have been nicer if they had closed the door, but I guess they don't cater to railfans... ;)

Here's a little glint shot as they roll under the Red Bridge just before stopping at the station. The main building of the Kamloops Heritage Railway is visible under the bridge.

I have to say that the onboard crew appeared to be universally cheerful. Nice wave from a pair of them here!

They disembarked the passengers at a reasonably brisk pace. They were at the station for just over 30 minutes, so I didn't have a lot of time to grab photos. Here's a photo showing the train in downtown Kamloops at the teeny CN yard there.

The KHR is just visible to the left with a stub end track. The former CN station is visible behind the garish yellow CN "no trespassing" sign. Off camera to my right is the Interior Savings Centre, a multipurpose facility hosting the Kamloops Blazers hockey team as well as a prime concert venue. I was fortunate to see Sarah McLachlan there on my last visit (for maybe the 5th time?).

After taking a few photos of the stationary train, I went down to the South Thompson River. I've wanted to capture the Rocky Mountaineer on the bridge over the river ever since I first visited Kamloops, and this would be my chance.

RMRX 8013 came into view first. Note the Red Bridge in the background.

They crept across the bridge, and I was photographing away, waiting for the perfect opportunity... wait... wait... NOW.

That's what I came for. W00t!

(you can buy this print)

One final frame, and we're good for the night.

Next up.. CP in Savona, more Rocky, lots more CP, and back to Tranquille. Read on! Thanks for reading!

Return to Banff, Part 1

Back in the summer of 2013 my family and I went back to camp in the Banff area for a week. You may recall that we were there in 2010.

We parked our trailer at the Tunnel Mountain Campground just outside Banff proper. That was the same place we camped at in 2010 and in fact we were in the same spot. While we were there, the Google Street View car came through. My son and I were going to get water when we spotted it. I fetched my camera and took a photo of the car.

It took a photo of me, too... in my pajamas!

Anyway, back to trains. I went to the Banff station on the evening of July 16th but nothing came along.

I went out to Banff West early in the morning of July 18th, hoping to capture a train there. The light was great but there was no traffic... in the 3 hours I was there. Disappointing. (I had better luck in 2010)

Here I am pensively watching for trains.

I negotiated one more trip out, on the morning of July 21st. This time I saw trains. I went down to the Banff station about half an hour before sunrise and there was a train. CP 8929 was heading west at 05:27.

This was at 1/50s at f/1.8 with my 50mm lens.

After the train passed, I headed to the railfan Mecca, Morant's Curve, to catch 8929 there. Fortunately I arrived about 3 minutes before the train did (06:16)!

This is the CP Laggan subdivision, mile 113. There's a hotbox detector just around the corner at mile 111 (Eldon) so you can get advance warning of a train if you have a scanner.

You can see the sun was just lighting up the tops of the mountains. Technically the sun was up for about 25 minutes but of course it has to clear the mountains.

Here's CP 9722 as mid-train power.

It wasn't long until another train came by, an eastbound this time. They must have been waiting at Lake Louise for 8929 to pass.

CP 8605 East rolled past my lens at 06:35 with a big ol' grain train.

CP was clearly making up for sending no trains back on the 18th... or at least that's what I choose to believe! CP 9813 East came rolling by shortly afterward at 06:57 pulling a potash train.

Here's a view of my "video camera" aka my old Canon S3.

After that burst of trains, there was a break of over an hour before the next train came along... in the next post.

See also:

• Return to Banff, Part 2 (2013)
• Foggy Morant's Curve in 2010
• Waiting for the Rocky Mountaineer in 2010
• The Rocky Mountaineer in 2010