Bonus Train

Monday, August 6th 2018 was a holiday here in Manitoba. It's called a "Civic Holiday" here, other provinces call it "Family Day" and it's not even a holiday in some provinces. Anyway, I had the day off.

I went out to catch VIA's "Canadian" leaving Winnipeg. It turned out that the first train I saw was CN 8906 West - see above. I elected to catch it at Carman Junction at the curve, to get the head on view above.

The train had CN 8906 / CN 5694 / CN 8823 on the head end.

Westward ho!

After the train passed, I went west to Diamond to set up for VIA. I caught up with some of the train so I amused myself by taking a few shots of the old wooden "Diamond" sign.

Diamond signs are forever, apparently

I hope nobody steals this sign.

VIA 1

VIA Rail Canadian heading west

I got what I came for - VIA 6455 leading the "Canadian" with two other units and 20 cars.

"Glacier Park" was on the tail end.

Prairie Streamliner

Central Manitoba Railway

4002 and 4004 parked on the Carman subdivision

Two Central Manitoba Railway GP9s, 4002 and 4004, were parked on the Carman subdivision.

I noticed this shiny new equipment box in the gap between the main line and the track to the CEMR Carman subdivision.

CN actually owns the first little bit of the track - from the Rivers sub across Wilkes Avenue - before it becomes the CEMR Carman sub.

I didn't see anything happening after that on the CN Rivers subdivision, so I headed for home.

As I drove around the Perimeter Highway, I spotted a southbound CN train on the Letellier subdivision. That would have been CN 532, heading down to the Canada-US border at Emerson to interchange with BNSF.

Bonus train!

CN 532

The dark side of CN 532

I gave chase as best I could. It was hard to catch up to the train through St. Norbert, given the 50 and 60 km/hr speed limits, but eventually I got ahead of them south of the town to get the shot above.

I was on the "dark side" of the train and I wasn't super happy about that. Fortunately, they weren't going very fast, so after they passed by, I gave chase again... this time, at 100 km/hr!

Near Ste. Agathe, I was far enough ahead of them that I felt I could leave the highway and drive the 2 km or so to the track for another round of photos. As it happened, I had enough time to get both my cameras out... one with the 70-200mm "long" lens and the other with the wide angle.

First the long lens. There was a combine working a field nearby, so I included that in the photo. You can see a bit of heat haze, so the shot isn't as sharp as I would like, but I like what's in it!

CN 5693 and a combine

A few seconds later, I took another photo as the train approached.

Storming south

The right of way looks very clean and well maintained, doesn't it?

I love that 70-200mm lens.

I "dropped" that camera and picked up my older T1i with the wide angle lens to capture the train as it went by.

Going wide

The train had a friendly crew who both gave me waves as they went by. Thanks!

One going away shot, with the Viterra elevator at Ste. Agathe just to the left of the train, and the G3 SD40-2 locomotive at far left, on the loop track of the G3 elevator at Glenlea / Saint Adolphe.

Heading south

Here's the video showing all three trains, with a "clickbait" title just for fun.


You might want to read Busy Day - same play, VIA 1 then CN 532, back in 2012!

PS - Important News

It's the end of an era.

This was the last full post that I will write on blog.traingeek.ca.

I've been on the Blogger platform for many years, since my first post in July 2005. After 13 years and 3 months, it's time to move on.

From now on, I'll be writing on my main site - www.traingeek.ca - and the posts will appear there on the home page.

I like the WordPress platform a lot more for writing. I've been thinking about this for a long time, more than a year, and now I'm making the change.

I hope you'll follow me there.

All of my old posts will remain where they are. I am not interested in moving them over!

By the way, there will be one more post, a placeholder to direct visitors to my main site.

https://www.traingeek.ca/wp/

What's on CN 2329 East?

Just for something a little different, let's look at some of the cars found on CN 2329 East, spotted on September 13, 2018.

CN 2329

By the name I've given the train, obviously CN 2329 was on the head end. 2329 is a GE ES44DC locomotive, built in mid 2010.

I first spotted this locomotive on train 404 on April 4, 2011 (see "404 on 4/04"), several hundred feet further east from the photo above. The second time I spotted 2329 was on October 9, 2012, pretty much at the exact same location. I might take a lot of photos in the same area... what do you think?

There was another locomotive on the train. You'll see it soon...

MGLX 625056

MGLX 625056 in Winnipeg

The first freight car I photographed was this Saskatchewan! car now owned by MobilGrain, MBLX 625056. The taggers have been all over this car, unfortunately. I always liked the green SK cars.

GTW 138205

Long live the Grand Trunk

The next car I photographed was heavily weathered GTW 138205, sporting the giant white "GT". It even has its multicolour ACI label visible to the right of the "T". I can't quite read the built date but it looks like "11-76", which is comparable to the dates on other GTW cars like this that I have photographed. 40+ years of working... too bad rail cars don't get a pension when they are retired.

CN 395299

Faded glory

Next up is highly faded CN 395299, with its Canadian Wheat Board logo and lettering barely visible. I remember it being almost pink in colour to my eye. Another car on borrowed time...

CGEX 1085

Cargill's CGEX 1085

I see a lot of Cargill grain cars. CGEX 1085 here is one of the common types, but I also see a lot of Cargill cars with external, vertical ribs. The reporting marks tend to be CGAX, CGEX or CGOX. I don't know if there is any reason for the difference in reporting marks.

You'll see another Cargill car shortly.

EFNX 160760

A truly boring car

I took a photo of EFNX 160760 not because there was anything interesting about it, but because it is a prime example of today's truly boring rail cars. This 5200 cubic foot car was built in September 2016 and is one of many cars in Element Financial's fleet of rail cars available for lease.

In "days of yore", railroads owned a lot of rolling stock. Not any more. I believe the majority of today's rail cars are owned by lessors like Element who lease them out to customers. It probably makes a lot of financial sense for the railroads to be out of the lease market, but I miss the corporate logos on rail cars. This car is truly and literally the beige among the rapidly disappearing GT blue, the UP yellow, and the rainbow Canadian grain car fleet.

OK, rant over. Incidentally, another photo of this very rail car is available on RRPictureArchives.NET.

CNA 385112

What's that in the top left corner?

CNA 385112 looks like a pretty ordinary 4740 cubic foot rail car, with external ribs, built in March 1972 and still sporting its ACI label. However... what's that in the top left of the car?

Aha! Cargill!

This was a Cargill car! Also note that it used to be NAHX 5xxx3 before CN acquired it.

These little details keep me watching the train after the locomotive(s) go by.

The FURX Cars

FURX FTW

I saw a string of these gray FURX cars on the train next. You can see they are three bay open top hopper cars, 2400 cubic feet. I can see external controls to open the doors, so they must be pneumatically controlled. I see the pistons to operate the doors and there are nozzles on the cars labelled "AIR". It's weird how the middle door is "C" and the "A" and "B" doors are on the ends.

FURX was First Union Rail, recently renamed to Wells Fargo Rail. It's another railcar and locomotive leasing company.

The 86 Foot Boxcars

PHRX 4794

The real "win" on the train for me was this pair of 86 foot boxcars, with the PHRX reporting mark. The PHRX reporting mark is owned by Premier Horticulture Ltd., a company founded in 1923 around sphagnum peat moss. Their head office is in Rivière-du-Loup (Québec).

I remember seeing 86 foot boxcars on the New Brunswick East Coast Railway in northern New Brunswick. There is a lot of peat moss on the Acadian peninsula, and in fact the former Caraquet and Gulf Shore Railway (and later CN Caraquet subdivision) hauled a lot of peat moss.

Eric Gagnon has an excellent article on 86 foot boxcars hauling peat moss.

PHLX 206036

I'm sure you noticed the locomotive...

CN 3826

CN 3826

This shiny locomotive, CN 3826, is one of the 260 new Evolution-series locomotives GE is building for CN to ease its power shortage. I imagine this was one of the first revenue runs, as the locomotive is still clean!

Shiny new loco

Note the CN Aboriginal Affairs logo that these new locomotives wear. I love how there are labels with tiny letters along the frame edge... someone is very optimistic that these will be readable! My guess is that they will become covered in grime and be unreadable within a month.

Canadian Grain Cars

A rainbow

There was a rainbow of Canadian grain cars near the tail end of the train to finish things off.

I hope you enjoyed this little rolling stock review. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Waiting for the Sunset Train

I still can hear the whisper of the summer night
It echoes in the corners of my heart
The night we stood and waited for the desert train
All the words we meant to say
All the chances swept away
Still remain on the road to the dune
- "Desert Moon", Dennis DeYoung

After a successful evening of sunset Sprague subdivision railfanning, I went out again the following evening, hoping for some more good photos. This time I didn't take my son along, so it was a solo outing... kind of like Dennis DeYoung's first solo album, "Desert Moon".

I elected to start on the CN Rivers subdivision, since it has the highest rail traffic of any rail line around Winnipeg. When I arrived "on scene", there was an eastbound freight train rolling by, with another east-facing train sitting at mile 10. I chose to chase.

CN 2421 East

Too much train on my hands

CN 2421 and IC 2465 were powering that eastbound grain train. I elected to photograph them at Harstone Road, which is a crossing just west of one of my usual spots, Carman Junction.

I chose this location because I could get on the north side of the tracks, where the sun was. Since it was an eastbound train in the evening, the light wasn't great so I had to make the best of it.

IC 2465 - not a "Blue Devil"

These Illinois Central (IC) 2400 units (C40-8W locomotives) were originally owned by GE's Locomotive Management Services (LMS) and were leased to Conrail and painted blue. Eventually 12 of them became IC 2455-2466 and were dubbed "blue devils" by railfans. I like seeing them.

Sadly, IC 2465 was repainted sometime between 2013 and 2015 and is no longer blue. This was actually the first time I saw this unit, so I never saw it as a "blue devil".

Eric Gagnon has a great article on CN leasers between 1994 and 1998 that includes the "blue devils" when they were still LMS units.

Someone had dropped a pizza box in the middle of the road, so I had to include that in a photo.

MGLX 397044 and pizza

Note the ex Saskatchewan Grain Car Corporation car... now MGLX (Mobil Grain). It's one of several hundred purchased from the province.

About 15 minutes later, a westbound train came. As I drove west to find a spot to catch it, I found that CN 8899 East was still sitting at mile 10 on the north track. I pulled off the road and I was able to catch the meet.

CN 8800 West, Meet CN 8899 East

East meets west

I like how someone has cleared the grime off the reporting mark on CN 8800.

PRLX 250 returns

Note the unit in second position - PRLX 250 again! I saw that the previous night coming into Winnipeg, so here it was, continuing westward out of the city.

I definitely had to chase this train!

I headed west, past Diamond, to mile 15. There I set my old Canon T1i up on a tripod to record video, then shot the train as it went by.

Little potash train on the prairie

Those locomotives and the pink potash cars looked pretty sweet in the sunset light.

Another shot of PRLX 250? Why not?

PRLX 250 redux

The third unit was CN 2225, for those keeping score at home.

Here's the video...

I didn't feel like there were going to be any more CN trains for a while, so I decided to take a quick trip north to the CP Carberry subdivision and see if I could catch a train there before I had to head for home.

Luck was with me, because as I arrived trackside, I could see a headlight in Rosser, several miles to the west of me.

I found a crossing and setup for video and still photography. As the train approached, I could see it was an oil train. The sunset sure looked nice shining off all of those tank cars!

CP 9668 East

Shot of the day

I took a number of photos as the train approached. Say what you will about unit trains, to me they look very nice stretched out across the Canadian prairie... especially with some sweet sunset light on the side. This was truly "the best of times", in my opinion.

As the train passed, I pivoted to get the "going away" view as they approached a set of signals.

Highball!

Sunset snake...

Sunset snake

The tail end had another locomotive on it, and as the end approached, I saw it was a BNSF locomotive, BNSF 7413. I photographed them passing the signals, then I threw my gear in the car and gave chase, hoping for another photo of the BNSF unit.

BNSF 7413 splits the signals

Here's the video...

I wasn't really able to catch up to the train, but I grabbed this long distance photo of BNSF 7413 and the buffer car on the rear of the oil train before giving up and heading home.

The Grand Finale

As I turned onto St. Mary's Road, I spotted this sunset scene and had to pull over to capture it. That's the Investors Group Field stadium on the left, home of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (arch-nemesis of my beloved Saskatchewan Roughriders).

Styx!

PS - I quoted Dennis DeYoung at the start because I finally saw him in concert, here in Winnipeg, on August 16. Dennis is the former lead singer of Styx. He and his band played at the magnificent Burton Cummings Theatre. I sat in the 4th row and enjoyed the performance of the full album "The Grand Illusion" plus many Styx hits. At 69 he still sounds great, and his band was excellent.

Dennis DeYoung and band in concert

If you get the chance, go see Dennis - or Styx - in concert. Both put on great shows.

Dennis DeYoung, up close and personal!

I don't think I mentioned it here, but I saw STYX on Vancouver Island...

STYX.. 72485

See Also

• Sublime Sprague Subdivision Sunset Sightings
• Not Just Waffles and Chocolate - Sunrise and Sunset
• Sunset Train
• Sunset Meet
• Quick Concert Photography Tip (Styx in Concert)

Sublime Sprague Subdivision Sunset Sightings

My youngest son and I went out railfanning on the evening of May 26, 2018 along the CN Sprague subdivision.

I live in southeast Winnipeg, so when I head out to see some main line action, I have two choices - head east to see the CN Sprague subdivision or the CN Redditt subdivision, or head west to see the CN Rivers subdivision or the CP Carberry subdivision. On that day, I chose to head east to the Sprague.

CN 5791 West

I found a westbound freight between Deacon's Corner and Dufresne, and I took the shot at a rural crossing. Westbounds in the evening are nice because you get that sweet nose light.

CN 5791 West

That second unit... another "warbonnet" leaser!

PRLX 250 on CN

The train had a lot of general freight on the head end, then a long string of tank cars.

Tank cars as far as the eye can see

That was nice. I took video with my older Canon T1i on a tripod, with a 50mm lens. I like the sound of the tank cars whooshing by.

We carried on to Dufresne to the grain elevator there. I was hoping for another westbound to get them with the nice sunset light on the elevator.

I set up just west of the elevator and waited... and waited...

I've written about how I am not a patient person. At least this time, I was with my son, so we could chat about Super Smash Brothers or Pokemon or whatever while we waited.

After about 50 minutes of waiting, a train did come along. It was a westbound!

CN 2242 West

CN 2242 by the Dufresne grain elevator

I can't decide which photo I like best - the one above or the one below. What do you think? Leave a comment!

CN 2242, a grain elevator, and the moon

"Death star" IC 1000 was the second unit, and there was a CAT backhoe on a flatcar two cars back.

Here's the video. I should have had the camera a bit farther back, I think.

So that was nice.

I waited twenty more minutes to see if another westbound was following, but nothing came along. I packed everything up and we headed back toward Winnipeg.

In the distance, I saw a headlight...

CN 3086 East

Sweet, sweet sunset light

This was unexpected, but this shot was my favourite of the evening. I just love that gorgeous sunset light.

It's funny how the light can change so much just by the angle you shoot it at. Contrast the photo above with the one below, taken seconds later as the train passed by us.

CN 3086

It's like it was a totally different day.

I didn't have time to set up for video for this one.

This train was a solid intermodal (container) train. I know a lot of people don't like the container trains, as they are basically just a wall of containers, but I like the symmetry... and they look nice at sunset.

Containers at sunset

Summary

It was a lovely evening for railfanning. I'm not sure my son would agree :) but I enjoyed it.

As a little extra, here's a freight car I saw earlier in the day when I was in downtown Winnipeg. These Reading and Northern cars show up now and then on CN.

Reading and Northern RBMN 8173

Thanks for reading!

Coming up... the next evening, May 27, when PRLX 250 makes another appearance...