Saint John Railway Scenes

NB Southern #911

I was in Saint John, New Brunswick last week for work. I didn't have any specific plans for seeing trains, as I wasn't sure how long I would be working each day. As it happened, things went pretty smoothly so I did see some trains.

My plane landed in YSJ (Saint John airport) pretty much on time at 17:35, and fetching the rental car and luggage was quick. One big bonus of small airports is doing the renting in sight of the only baggage carousel!

I decided I would head straight to the former train station in Rothesay to photograph it with the fall colours. I had a hope in the back of my head that I could catch CN 406 passing by (to reproduce this), but I wasn't counting on it.

As I approached Station Road by the Rothesay station, I saw the last couple of tank cars on CN 406 roll by on their way to Moncton. Missed it by that much. You can't catch 'em all.

There was no point in pursuing them. It would have taken a lot of time to get back to the highway and the light was failing.

Fall colours and the Rothesay train station

At least I got the shot I wanted.

I headed into Saint John. As I drove along Rothesay Avenue, I spotted a set of locomotive headlights on the track leading to Courtenay Bay / Irving Oil / Irving Paper. I headed up and found GMTX 2226 working the crude oil terminal at Courtenay Bay. The sunset light was pretty sweet.

GMTX 2226 at sunset

I thought about staying to watch them switch, but I decided against it and continued on along past Island Yard. I was going to head to the NBSR Dever Road yard and see what was going on there before turning in for the night.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this excursion train at Harbour Station!

NBSR 9801 and an excursion train at Harbour Station, Saint John

I believe they had taken some people from a visiting cruise ship out for a spin. I saw a large cruise ship leaving Saint John that night.

In the photo above, you can see the crewman walking back to the cab. I must have looked pretty comical running back and forth as I wasn't sure which direction they were going. As it happened, they headed toward the Dever Road yard / NB Southern yard.

The train had NBSR 9801 with the three ex VIA Rail coaches (5448, 5471 and 5537) along with their "new" #508 and the Metis. NBSR 2317 was on the other end.

NBSR 508 and the Metis

The light was pretty low so I was shooting with a 1/20s shutter speed, meaning the blur was inevitable.

They took off and I gave chase. I decided I would try to catch them crossing the Reversing Falls bridge. I got to the Falls well before them, so I parked and ran up the hill to get a broad view of the bridge.

This was at 7:15 PM so the sun was already down below the horizon. Tricky light!

NBSR crossing the Reversing Falls bridge

I decided to stick to my original plan and headed to the Dever Road yard. I didn't think I would beat them there, and I was right. They were rolling under the Green Head Road overpass when I arrived.

I did managed to catch them passing the night switcher, NBSR 911. I like how this turned out.

NBSR 911 and the excursion train, by night

That was it for me for the night.

In part 2 I shared my catch of CN 406, twice.

Until then, you might wish to read about my visit to New Brunswick in 2011..

Along the Stewart Southern, Part 2

This post has MOVED to the new site.

Return to McAdam

I was in New Brunswick last week, in the St. George area. On Tuesday the 26th I decided I would take a run up to McAdam to try to photograph the station around sunset. It had been 4 years and 5 days since I had last been in McAdam - and that time I never even got out of the car!

I set the GPS for First Street in McAdam and took off.

Of course, my GPS had its own idea of how to get there. I had never gone to McAdam from St. George but I had a hazy notion of taking route 127 to route 3, but that's not what my GPS thought.

I spent a lot of time on route 755 through backwoods New Brunswick. All I can say is that I was glad it was still daylight! I'm pretty sure at one point I did a few kilometres on a gravel road. I crossed the St. Stephen subdivision in Honeydale, then encountered the McAdam subdivision at the intersection of route 4 and route 630. By this time the sun was pretty much below the horizon.

This is facing west, toward the USA.

A few more kilometres of driving brought me into McAdam. I spotted headlights in the yard and it turned out to be GMTX 209 and HLCX 906 (with caboose NBSR 434919) working the night shift.


I've seen HLCX 906 before but GMTX 209 was new to me. The paint looks nice and shiny.

You might notice a railfan peering out at me...

They went down to the west end, out of my view from the station, so I took some stills of the station, then went for supper at Terry's. When I returned, it was totally dark. I shot a few more stills and this one was my favourite.


The engines returned and did a bit of switching near the shop building. Gary got down from the engine and chatted with me for a bit. I did get a still of GMTX 209 at night and I like the headlight effect here.


I hit the road for St. George after that, taking route 4 to route 3 then to route 1. No backwoods trips in the dark!

Yet Yet Yet More NB Southern Engines Coming

It seems like I make one of these posts every month!

The New Brunswick Southern Railway has five more leased engines on the way. GMTX 2644 (a GP38-2) will join the growing NBSR fleet. This old lady was built in October 1967 for the Baltimore and Ohio as GP38 3821. It is in Oakway blue and white like GMTX 2639.

The other four are SD40-2 engines from Helm, HLCX 6304, 6319, 6332 and 6340.

HLCX 6304 looks pretty sharp. Photo by Terry Cantrell.


HLCX 6319 is in dark red and blue, and looks like the leasers that the Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway had/has.

HLCX 6332 is in Conrail baby blue with HLCX on the side, originally a Pennsylvania Railroad engine. Apparently it is looking pretty shabby, so maybe it will get a repaint. Even in 2006 it was looking a bit rusty. Photo by Brian Jones.


HLCX 6340 is in Southern Pacific gray with red ends. Very recently she was working on the Iowa, Chicago and Eastern (ICE), purchased by Canadian Pacific.

Oh, and GMTX 2666 showed up very quietly at the beginning of this month. GMTX 2666 is a GP38-2 painted in Oakway blue and white and was on a westbound NBSR freight shot by Byron Thomas on August 2. Note HLCX 6200 leading, GMTX 2645 in second position, "new" GMTX 2666 in third, HLCX 6315 fourth, and finally NBSR 2612 as the fifth engine.

I love this shot. The consists are so colourful on the NB Southern these days.

By my count that makes 29 engines. You can see my NB Southern roster page for the full list.

Recent NB Southern Videos

Here are a few recent NB Southern videos featuring the "new" leased power.

Dave Dineen aka NBSRfan shot HLCX 6318 and HLCX 8144 leading a fairly short train out of Saint John. The big cars on the head end are trash cars for the steel recycling facility now located in the Port of Saint John.


Gary Lee was in the cab of GMTX 204 in McAdam. I'd really like to get back to McAdam at some point as it is really hopping now!


Jason aka NB Green Machine shot a transfer freight within Saint John. The MP15DC GMTX 203 was ahead of "huff and puff", NBSR 3702 and 3703, and Geep NBSR 2610 was there for extra muscle. Apparently they almost stalled trying to get up Mill Street from Island Yard. Great video!


Doubleiron shot an eastbound NB Southern freight through Harvey. It had a quite colourful consist.


Gary also shot this sizable westbound freight in McAdam, headed by NBSR 2319, HLCX 6200 and MEC 354 in Pan Am colours.

GMTX in Saint John

Byron Thomas graciously allowed me to post these photos of NB Southern's newest engines, GMTX 2639 and 2645. Here they are hard at work pulling a transfer freight from the Island Yard in Saint John across the Reversing Falls bridge.


Here they are just coming off the bridge.


Byron also shot GMTX 2639 working by itself.


No word on GMTX 2666 yet.

Two railfans caught GMTX 2639 working the main line. First Gary Lee shot it in McAdam. The train had GMTX 2639 followed by MEC 354, HLCX 6200 and HLCX 6315. Odd to see an NB Southern train with no NB Southern engines on it.


Dave Dineen then shot the train in the dark as it approached Saint John.


Here's another one from Gary Lee, maybe from May 1, featuring HLCX 8144, NBSR 2612, NBSR 9802 and GMTX 2645.

In other leased engine news, Wendell Lemon noted that GMTX 204 was on Tuesday's CN 406 behind the two CN engines. 204 is another MP15DC like GMTX 203.

Thanks to Byron for the photos,Wendell for the heads-up, and Gary and Dave for the videos.

Yet Another Engine Arriving

The New Brunswick Southern Railway is getting yet another engine. Luc Doiron reported that GMTX 203 was in CN's Gordon Yard in Moncton yesterday, coupled up to CN 5748. Here's his photo.

Thanks for permission to use the photo, Luc.

GMTX 203 is an MP15DC, built in August 1976. The unit was recently rebuilt at the Progress Rail shops in Tacoma, Washington. Before that it worked on the Alaska Railroad for about two decades as ARR 1551.

These units are fairly similar to NB Southern's existing SW1200RS switchers NBSR 3702 and NBSR 3703. The MP15 does have an EMD 645-series engine, like NB Southern's Geep fleet, whereas the SW1200RS has the 567-series engine.

Word has it that another MP15 is coming from GMTX at some point.

NB Southern is really going to have some colourful consists!

"New" NB Southern Units Imminent

Three GATX GP38s are about to arrive at New Brunswick Southern Railway's doorstep. The three were spotted in Portland, Maine on the Pan Am Railway property on Monday morning, and on the move through Waterville, Maine Tuesday afternoon.

The three units are GMTX 2639, 2645 and 2666, all in bright blue paint with white lettering. GMTX 2639 in particular spent some time on the Quebec and Gatineau Railway a few years ago.

Hat tip to Chuck and SteveO for the information.

In Search of Elevators

I woke up fairly early on August 12. I hit the road, heading west from Chaplin Saskatchewan to photograph the grain elevators in Morse and Herbert, and especially the GM lease unit at the Reed Lake inland terminal.

The first town west of Chaplin is tiny Ernfold, and there was a westbound potash train in the siding. Just as I stopped, an eastbound freight rumbled past.

This train had CP 8621, CP 9509, and CP 8564.

After shooting CP 9584 at the tail end of the potash train, I drove up toward the head end. While I did this, another eastbound rolled past the stopped potash train. I missed the head end! I settled for a few shots of CP 9588 and 9675 at the head end while the grain train went by.

Once the grain train passed, CP 9588 West turned their headlights on and prepared to roll out. I hit the road and set up at the next town, Morse, to await their arrival.


Once the train passed, I continued on to Herbert to shoot the elevator and train museum there. I'll talk about the train museum later.


I headed back toward Chaplin. As I passed Morse, I saw a westbound container train in the distance. I did a quick turn and headed back to Morse to get the train with the grain elevators.

CP 8738 and 8711, both GEVO units, provided the power. I recall it was raining fairly steadily, so I shot from under the van's tailgate.


Lest I forget, I should post a photo of the main reason I went out, GATX lease unit GMTX 410 at the Reed Lake inland terminal. The terminal is between Morse and Herbert.

GMTX is a former Conrail GP15-1 (ex CR 1674). It appears to be a recent arrival at Reed Lake, since it was shot at other locations in 2008 and before.

The Reed Lake elevator itself was completed in 2001. It appears to have rendered obsolete the elevators in nearby Morse and Herbert.

Here are some more Saskatchewan grain elevator photos.