CP Holiday Train and CN Christmas Train

As usual, Canadian Pacific is running their Holiday Train across Canada and the USA to raise money and gather food for local food banks. It's a great cause and I encourage you to get out and see the train and make a donation. I've seen it in 2011 and 2013. The photo at right is in my 2015 Train Calendar.

The complete schedule is here. These are the stops near Winnipeg:

December 3, 6:45 PM - Whitemouth - Railway Ave. across from Whitemouth Hotel
December 3, 9:00 PM - Winnipeg - Molson Street between Panet Road and Munroe Avenue
December 4, 4:45 PM - Portage la Prairie - Opposite Centennial Arena, 390-1st St. NW
December 4, 7:45 PM - Brandon - Assiniboine Ave, west of the 8th street overpass
December 5, 9:15 AM - Virden - North side of tracks on 5th ave South between Lyons Street & Ashburton Street

CN - I've heard that CN will be running a Christmas train for their employees and family from Winnipeg out to Diamond just west of Winnipeg. The train is supposed to depart from Symington Yard at 17:00 and 19:00 on November 21, 22 and 23. The train will feature CN 102 on one end (and a CN freight engine on the other) with some rented VIA coaches for the passengers. All proceeds will go to the Christmas Cheer Board.

The photo at right was from September 9, 2014 when CN ran a Family Day train in Winnipeg on the St. Boniface spur. You'll see that engine on the cover of my 2015 Train Calendar.

There's a couple of good opportunities to get night photos of some interesting trains!

The Canadian Pacific Holiday Train

Finally I was able to see a Holiday Train!

Canadian Pacific Railway is again running a Holiday Train across Canada (and another across the USA) to raise funds and food for local food banks. I have been away for work the past two years and did not see it pass through Winnipeg. Fortunately this year I was home and could get out to see it.

The train was scheduled to arrive at Molson Street a little east of the CP yard at 9 PM. I drove up there and saw that the train was waiting a bit east of that at 8:45. I took a few photos and then struggled in vain to find a parking spot. It was crowded! I ended up parking a few streets away and hoofing it with my camera bag and tripod.


The train has some performers on board who do a little show at each stop. I was on the other side of the train, taking photos of each car, so I didn't actually see the performance... but they sounded good!

The CPR Police were out in full force and the Winnipeg Railway Museum had volunteers on hand to help with crowd control. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and nobody was doing anything stupid like climbing on the train or crossing between cars.

I took some photos of CP 9815 on the head end before proceeding down the train.


For most of my shots I used a 10 second exposure to bring out as much light as I could. I set a 2 second self-timer so I could press the shutter release and then let the camera settle before taking the shot. It seemed to work well.

The weather cooperated... no snow and not too cold. I was all bundled up and nothing but my finger tips was cold.


Did you know they have a stage on CP 42901 that folds up and down?

Sorry for the grainy photo - this one was hand-held.

They started loading the performers and stage back up around 9:40 PM and were on their way before 10 PM. I believe they laid over in Winnipeg over night and headed out in the early afternoon for a mid afternoon stop in Portage la Prairie. It was snowing so I decided not to chase them out there.

If you get a chance to see the train, do so! It's very impressive. Here's the Canadian schedule and the American schedule.

Please consider donating food, money or time at your local food bank.  Here's a list of Canadian food banks. In Winnipeg you can donate to Winnipeg Harvest.

I'll leave you with the VAN HORNE and the tail end of the Holiday Train. Highball!