While I'm working on a longer blog post, I thought I'd share a few trains I saw this weekend. It was a rainy, gray weekend but I got out to railfan a bit anyway.
Saturday
After I visited Pete's Sparetime Hobbies near Transcona, I drove up to Day Street to see what was new at CEMR. The answer: nothing much. The two Railink units I saw back in March are still there, with hood doors open. A couple of CEMR units were shunting the yard.
I saw headlights on the CP line to the east, so I parked a little way away from the crossing and walked back to wait for CP 8604 and CP 8722 to roll past Manson on the CP Keewatin subdivision.
CP 8604 in Winnipeg
As I said, it was a grey weekend.
There was one interesting car in the consist, a former Rio Grande hopper that clearly was relettered a few times before becoming a CP car.
Rio Grande - The Action Line
I went back to CEMR to photograph the two units crossing Day Street. I think they were just shunting cars in the yard.
CEMR 4002 and CCGX 4119 in Winnipeg
That was Saturday.
Sunday
On Sunday afternoon I went to Gooch's Hobbies and then took the long way home along the CN Rivers subdivision via Wilkes Avenue. I was outrunning a westbound CN freight led by CN 2036 and BCOL 4622.
I noticed there was a train facing east so I hastened to get the meet. It turned out that CN 2226 East was stopped just short of Harstone Road.
CN 2226 in Winnipeg
I don't know why they were stopped - maybe they had an unintended emergency brake application? The tail end was at mile 10 so the almost 2 mile long train was blocking Harstone Road, Community Row and Charleswood Road. Eastbound CN trains normally stop short of Charleswood Road so they don't block any crossings.
CN 2036 West came along in good time.
Fancy meeting you here
I relocated to mile 10 to video the approaching train. While I waited, the container train started rolling away, and CN 2036 West seemed to have slowed down quite a bit while it passed the container train. Maybe they were doing an inspection as they passed. 2036 was accelerating when I recorded it.
Sunday's photos were taken with my iPhone 6 as I didn't have my DSLR with me. These phone cameras do a pretty decent job!
P.S. If you're wondering why I was visiting model train stores, I was taking photos of the exteriors for the model train directory I've built... plus dropping in on stores I don't visit frequently.
I've been trying to emerge from hibernation and get out to see some trains. Here's a few that I've seen so far in April 2015.
April 2
I went out before noon to the CN Rivers subdivision. I immediately saw a westbound container train, so I drove ahead of them to Charleswood Road to capture the first photo. There's a little parking lot there so it's easy to park without getting in anyone's way.
After CN 5751 and CN 5602 rolled by, I gave chase. I decided to try something a little different and went out to mile 16 of the Rivers sub. Here the track bends slightly to head west, so there is a chance for a head on shot without standing between the rails (a very bad idea).
I parked and found a place to hop across the water-logged ditch to wait for the train. Then it was just a matter of waiting.
I took this shot as the train approached, then moved farther away from the tracks and gave the customary wave as the train rolled on by.
It looks like the train was really close, but it wasn't. Here's how it looked in Lightroom before I started cropping and doing the editing.
You can see I cropped quite a bit out. My kingdom for a longer lens!
I started heading back east toward Winnipeg when I spotted another westbound train. I went back toward Diamond to get ahead of it. It was an oil train headed by shiny new CN 2971 and CN 2970, train U735 I'm told.
I thought that was going to be the end of it, but they were slowing for a signal at Diamond. I went to the road crossing just east of the diamond to take a few photos of the stopped train.
That was April 2nd.
April 3
We went out after supper on April 3rd. This time I went over to the east side of Winnipeg. I spotted a train heading into Winnipeg on the CN Sprague subdivision, so I went to Deacon's Corner to catch them at the crossing there.
You can see there was a bit of a flurry going on.
I spotted an interesting car in the consist so I went to Tinker Town to capture it. The head end was already by but the car in question came into view.
AEX 5126 was lettered for the Georgia and Clinchfield Railroad, part of the Family Lines System, which became the Seaboard System briefly before becoming CSX. The herald says "SCL/L&N Georgia Clinchfield West Point Route".
I also noted a few ex-Canadian grain hoppers that have been relettered. For example, NDYX 814405.
I normally don't pay a lot of attention to rolling stock but I did for this train.
Note that the above two photos were taken with my iPhone 6, mainly because I was too lazy to change lenses on my Canon and I wanted to see how the iPhone did. It took both a regular and an HDR version of each, probably noting the dynamic range of the image between the bright sky and the dark rolling stock. It did an OK job although there are parts of the sky that are still blown out, even in the HDR verison. In my editing, I basically brought the sky exposure down some, brightened the shadows, and added a bit of clarity... and of course cropped it.
I carried on around the Perimeter to Transcona, where I noted a westbound train parked in the CN yard there. It had CN 2606 and blue BCOL 4648 for power but did not appear to be going anywhere. I took a photo of each but they're nothing special.
I carried on to CEMR's shops on Day Street. There I spotted a few locomotives outside their shop, and I was glad to see CCGX 4202 there in the new Cando Rail Services scheme. This was the first time I'd seen it in person.
You can see that the flurries were still going on.
There was no action on CP so I headed back south on the Perimeter. I spied a westbound train coming in off the CN Redditt subdivision, so I got into position to photograph them coming off the bridge over the Floodway just east of the Perimeter Highway.
CN 2600 was followed by another blue BC Rail unit, BCOL 4653.
By this time the light was getting iffy, so we headed home.
April 4
We had an errand to run near Symington Yard, so I had a quick glance at Symington on the way by. There were quite a few CN engines there as well as a yellow Railserve locomotive (see this post for the only Railserve I've photographed). I continued up Lagimodiere and made my way to CEMR to try to get a better shot of 4202. Unfortunately there were no locomotives visible at all. I decided to follow the CEMR Pine Falls subdivision up to see if there was any action, and also because I'd never visited the first few miles of it. You may recall I saw the part of it from Selkirk to Pine Falls, now removed.
I drove up to the Imperial Oil facility, which had a lot of tank cars around, but it's not very approachable so I didn't take any photographs. I did spot a snowplow parked on a siding (Manlius, mile 10.2) just north of Imperial Oil.
That was CEMR 2, an ex CN plow built in September 1930. There were a few MOW cars coupled to it. Note the tank cars sitting on the main, a clear indication that this is being used for storage.
I decided to circle around Winnipeg via the Perimeter, so we headed west. After passing the Prairie Dog Central, I spotted a westbound CP train that turned out to be a rail train with CP 3085 as the sole power. I decided to shoot them at the Viterra elevator by the Perimeter Highway. They gave me a nice toot on the horn as they passed.
Heading down south, I spotted a Herzog machine dropping new ties off on the CN Rivers subdivision, so I had to capture that.
It was HZGX 206 and train at work. They were crawling west at a slow walking pace, while the operator was picking a bunch of ties up and dropping them on the north side of the tracks. I saw the south side already had ties placed.
I'm so far behind in cataloguing my train photos. I've been busy on a bunch of other (non-train) stuff and yet I keep taking train photos, so my virtual "to be filed" stack gets larger and larger. I know, I know, it's not a bad situation to be in... so here is a dump of some photos I've taken recently, without much commentary.
On July 31, I shot an eastbound intermodal at Diamond in the late afternoon. CN 2248 was the sole engine on the head end and CN 2338 was farther back in the train.
On August 14, two SD60s brought CN 781 west out of Winnipeg. CN 5548 was the lead engine, followed by CN 5516. I quite like how this one turned out.
On August 21, I took the kids for a drive because we were all bored. We ended up in and around Transcona and saw a few trains. First, we saw BCOL 4607 sitting by itself in the CN Transcona yard. I don't know whether it was dropped by a train or was left as additional power for a soon-to-arrive train, but it was all alone.
I drove up to CEMR's yard to see what was up. On the way I saw CEMR 4002 pushing a set of tank cars back toward their yard. Technically CEMR was on the Pine Falls subdivision, so that was the first time I'd seen a train there.
In behind CEMR's shop, the hulk of CCGX 4010 is being slowly stripped. Here it is, clearly showing half of the 16 cylinder holes.
CCGX 4010's hood lay on the ground nearby.
Finally, we have CN 199 heading out of Winnipeg on August 23. First, here it is just west of Carman Junction with CN 8874 leading.
Ex BC Rail unit BCOL 4601 was trailing. Note the shiny clean section on 4601... wonder why?
I got ahead of them and shot them approaching Diamond. I decided to do a bit of a pan shot for this one.
I shot some video of 199 here.
As a little extra, here are some crossing gates at sunrise. This was shot just south of the floodway on the CP Emerson subdivision.
I went out on Thursday (March 29) to shoot the Canadian, as I often do. I decided I had better hustle west on Wilkes because I was cutting it a bit close for time. As I turned west on Sterling Lyon at route 90, I saw a CEMR train heading west. Great!
I got ahead of them and grabbed this shot of CEMR 4000 and CCGX 5232 leading a short train.
I quickly zoomed west again to get them at Carman Junction. It was a cloudy day so I figured I could pick my side of the crossing and it wouldn't matter much for lighting. I parked just west of the crossing on the shoulder and waited for them to arrive. CEMR slowed.. and slowed.. and slowed. Behind them, I saw lights!
Then it was a race. Would CEMR turn first or would the Canadian get there first? The conductor lined the switch for the CEMR Carman subdivision just before the Canadian came along. I took several shots of VIA passing and this was the best of them.
After that I concentrated on shooting VIA 1 as the CEMR train slowly rolled onto the Carman subdivision. The VIA crew gave me a wave as they passed - thanks!
Here's the last of the meet.
After the CEMR train cleared the switch, the conductor relined it and walked after his train.
I hopped into my car and took off in pursuit of the Canadian. They didn't seem to be going very fast and I caught up with them by mile 10. I went to Hall Road and crossed the tracks well ahead of them to get this shot. As I said in a previous post, normally you can't shoot westbounds at Half Road but since the sun was blocked, a shot from the north worked fine.
I had an interesting encounter in the afternoon of October 6. You may recall that at noon time I saw a pile o' trains. On my way home I spotted the Central Manitoba Railway (CEMR) train waiting to cross the Perimeter Highway at Oak Bluff.
When they are headed to their Carman subdivision, they take the CN Rivers subdivision to Carman Junction. The conductor dismounts and manually lines the switch for the Carman sub and the train rolls through and doesn't stop. The conductor then lines the switch back for the main line and gets a taxi to take him/her to the head end of the train, which by then will be waiting at the location shown in the above photo.
Anyway, to take the shot above, I pulled onto the shoulder and took a few shots. I noticed that they were starting to move, so I hopped back in my car and pulled ahead until I was a few car lengths on the other side of the crossing, on the shoulder again. I hopped out again and took the shot below, just as the lights came on.
At that same moment, a white panel van screeched to a halt at the crossing, then pulled over right behind my car and almost on my toes. The driver angrily beckoned me over to his passenger side window. Curious, I went over. This is essentially how the conversation went:
Driver: What are you doing? Me: Taking pictures of trains. Driver: Were you taking a picture of me? Me: No... I was taking a picture of the train. Driver: Well, the lights came on and I had to come to a stop and I didn't see any train. Did you do that? Me: ... um... no... Driver: Did you take a picture of me? Me: No, you can look at my camera if you want, there are no pictures of you. I was taking photos of that train. Driver: What train? Me: (pointing over his left shoulder) That one. Driver: Oh. I didn't see it. You're sure you didn't take any pictures of me? Me: I guarantee it.
Then off he drove.
Part of me wishes I had more time to talk with him. I really just wanted him to leave so I could continue shooting the train. If I had more time, I would have pointed out that I could take photos of him if I wanted to and there was nothing he could do or say about it... but I just wanted the van out of the way.
I missed a few opportunities but fortunately the train was going slowly, so I could get this one of them crossing the highway.
Nice friendly wave from the conductor, which is more than I can say I got from the van's driver. Sheesh.
I was out near Diamond again on August 2 and caught a couple of trains. First up was CN 199, coming out of the rising sun just after 8 AM.
Half an hour later, I had to go, but before I left the area, I drove all the way to Diamond and saw there was a CN freight parked west of Diamond.
I went to investigate and saw it was a general freight with four SD75 units - CN 5643, CN 5637, CN 5651 and CN 5701. There was a crew onboard so I don't know why they were staying there.
Here you can see the whole train curving off in the distance.
That was all well and good. I was out again just after noon and I found a CEMR train on the south track just east of Carman Junction. I presume they had just pulled onto the CN Rivers sub and the train was waiting for the conductor to catch up. After he boarded, off they went. CCGX 5232 and CEMR 4001 provided the power.
I saw CCGX 5232 and CEMR 4001 waiting at the beginning of the CEMR Carman subdivision today around noon. Noone was on board so I assume the crew ran out of time after going down the Carman and back again. I noticed 5232 has some prominent antennae on the roof.
I never paid much attention to them, but it's clear they have been there since I first saw ANY 5232 back in September 2009.
