Terrible News

The CBC was reporting that 3 contract workers were hit by a train near Edmonton in the morning of Boxing Day (December 26). The three work for A&B Rail Services and were contracted to clear snow off the tracks at the CN Clover Bar rail yard just outside Edmonton. It appears that it happened here... I was right at that spot back in June 2010.

The CBC story says they were using snowblowers and had the appropriate hearing protection on, so there was no way they could have heard an approaching train. They were struck by a train traveling at approximately 40 km/hr. Two are in critical condition and one has minor injuries.

CTV Edmonton is reporting that a stop-work order has been issued and several agencies are investigating, including the Transportation Safety Board (TSB, who issued a brief statement) and Occupational Healthy and Safety.

The Edmonton Journal is reporting that two of the workers will be released soon, but the third, aged 20, is facing a long recovery. The Journal also quotes a TSB official as saying that a Safety Watch should have been in effect to warn the workers of the oncoming train.

There is not much information available online about CN's Safety Watch program. CN's Safety web page has not been substantially updated for a couple of years. As far as I can gather, a Safety Watch requires one worker to be solely dedicated to watching out for trains and other hazards and be in a position to alert the other workers in a timely manner. The Safety Watch person must not do any other work. Time will tell what happened here but clearly the system did not work for these workers.

This situation is reminiscent of the July 2011 incident near Durham, Ontario where one rail worker was killed due to an inadequate safety watch. CN updated its procedures but clearly more needs to be done to ensure the safety of CN workers and contractors.

My best wishes to the injured men and to their families for the recovery ahead.

The Three Hundreds

Not 300 the movie... this is about two trains numbered in the three hundreds. Specifically, 301 and 304.

On the evening of June 10th, I was standing on 156th Street NW in Edmonton just north of the Yellowhead Trail. This is the east end of CN's Bissel yard, on the CN Edson subdivision.

I saw train 304 was waiting to head east across Edmonton, with CN 5761 and CN 5703 at the head of a train consisting mostly of paper products.

After a while, they got their light... yellow over yellow, meaning "Clear to Slow" - proceed, approaching next signal at slow speed. They slowly pulled out of the yard and went under me.

As they did that, CN 301 came around the corner east of me, and passed under me on their way west. This train had CN 2304 and IC 1027 on the head end.

CN 301 had engine 2238 mid-train... nice to see!

Once those two had passed, I went back to my car and headed east. I saw CN 304 threading its way past Calder Yard. I went to East Junction, where the CN Vegreville subdivision meets the main line, and where I railfanned back in 2004. I waited by a baseball field and soon enough 304 came along.

It was getting dark, so I decided to head back to the hotel. On my way, I noticed that CN 304 had stopped on the high bridge over the North Saskatchewan river. I went to the wye just east of the river and waited. After a few minutes, they started up again and I took this shot of the "Canadian National Railways - Courtesy and Service" logo with the train in the background.

It was getting pretty dark by then!

VIA 1722

I spotted VIA 1722 parked at the station in Edmonton, Alberta. VIA 1722 was built by Colorado Railcar for BC Rail as BCOL 1722 in 2000. It was part of a set of 3, numbered 1720-1722.

These cars ran on the Whistler Northwind. You may remember I saw ex-BCOL 1700 recently, the power for the short-lived Northwind.

Here's a shot of the VIA station in Edmonton... quite deserted at the time I was there.

CN in Edmonton, 2010/06/09

I am in Edmonton, Alberta for a short business trip. On the evening of the 9th, I went out with my new Canon T1i to see if I could have better luck with it than last time.

I am staying a hotel a short distance away from CN's Clover Bar yard in eastern Edmonton. I went to the west end of that yard and saw a slug set working the yard. CN 7518 and 7526 bracketed slug CN 508.

Not a bad shot, taken from a distance with the kit lens of the T1i. Sports mode, my friends, sports mode!

Later, I decided to go a little west to Hayter Road. After a bit of a wait, CN 313 rolled into view. They pulled past me, then stopped and pushed back up the hill into Clover Bar Yard to make a pickup.

The train had CN 2561 and IC 1030 for power.

I also saw another slug set working the west end of the yard. Details here.

Not a bad evening of railfanning. I'm very pleased with the shots the T1i gave me this time, especially on a cloudy evening. I don't think my S3 would have even come close to these. More to come.

May 3

2006
Several Fredericton railfans and I chased the supposedly "last" Budd Ocean from Oxford Junction to Moncton. Read my blog entry.




The current "last" Budd Ocean left Halifax on April 30 2007. It may be back again in the fall... hopefully.

2004
In early May I was in Edmonton, Alberta. On the evening of the 3rd I went up to the CN mainline east of Calder Yard and watched some trains go by. These are what I saw:

17:36 CN 5306, 5391, 4784 came off the Vegreville Sub with 144 cars. It was quite an impressive sight. The train took nine minutes to pass by me.

18:47 CN 9670, 9672 eastbound, general freight
18:59 CN 5290, 4778 eastbound, running light
19:03 VIA #2 the Canadian with 6434, 6437 and 18 cars

19:12 CN 5281, 9455 eastbound, 22 cars

19:33 didn't catch the numbers, westbound freight with mostly grain cars

While I was in Edmonton, Phil Ross noted that OCR 4204 (soon to be SFEX 4204) was brought to IRSI in Moncton for some work.