Reconnaissance

My family and I went to Fargo (no, not the movie, the city in North Dakota) a few weeks ago. Most of the weekend was spent shopping, but I did grab a few shots on Saturday and I negotiated a few hours for railfanning early in the morning of May 12 (Sunday).

First, a little geography. Fargo is on the eastern border of North Dakota, and pretty much seamlessly blends with the town of Moorhead, Minnesota. BNSF's Northern Transcon main line runs right through both towns, and they have a decent-sized yard in Dilworth, MN just east of Moorhead. The K O Subdivision runs from East Dilworth west through all of Fargo all the way to BNSF's large yard at Minot, North Dakota.

Note Dilworth on the right (east).

On Saturday I had about an hour to go scout for trains, so I headed over to West Fargo. I had done some Google Maps reconnaissance and I knew there was an industrial engine at a Cargill grain elevator. I had also spotted some stored passenger cars on Main Avenue that I wanted to check out.

First up, the stored cars. They are at about 1700 Main Avenue East in West Fargo. There is a short spur there with several tracks that seems to be for a scrapper. In Google Maps you can see a caboose, a few passenger cars, a boxcar and some tank cars.

View Larger Map

The street view from Google Maps shows a dome car instead.

When I arrived there, there was a caboose, several passenger cars and some freight cars were there. Ex Illinois Central caboose IC 199388 was on the end.


Further up were two ex-Amtrak cars, "Silver Plateau" (2671) and "Silver Ravine" (2676).


Next, I went over to see the industrial engine at the Cargill facility. It's at about 730 Centre Street in West Fargo. If you zoom right in, you can see the engine poking out of the shed.

View Larger Map

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to get a shot of the locomotive. I did get this end-on shot from a nearby street, but that was the best I could do.

I believe this is an early EMD switcher but I haven't been able to identify it... maybe a GP10 based on the window arrangement.

Nearby is a Dakota AG Cooperative grain elevator complex.


I drove around a bit and saw three different BNSF trains, but I wasn't in a position to shoot any of them. Frustrating!

However, Sunday's railfanning turned out to be very productive in terms of trains.

Read on...

CEMR Pine Falls Subdivision Report

The kids and I went to Pine Falls, Manitoba today. I purchased a scanner via Kijiji and had to go there to pick it up (more on that another time). It's quite a drive from Winnipeg to Pine Falls, well over an hour. I took the opportunity to have a look at the CEMR Pine Falls subdivision.

The Central Manitoba Railway assumed operation of the former CN Pine Falls subdivision on May 2, 1999. I wasn't in Manitoba at the time but I understand the major customers on the line were:

• Imperial Oil just outside Winnipeg
• A Cargill grain elevator at Birds Hill
• Coal for the East Selkirk power generation plant
• A grain elevator in Libau
• The Pine Falls paper mill

The Pine Falls subdivision was notable for having light rail.

Unfortunately for CEMR and the line, the customers have been dropping off since then. The East Selkirk plant switched to natural gas by 2002. The grain elevator in Libau seems defunct. The biggest blow, however, was the loss of the Pine Falls paper mill.

I understand the Pine Falls mill was founded in 1917 and was owned by Abitibi from 1928 to 1994, then eventually by Tembec. In 2009 Tembec sought concessions from its workers to keep the mill open, and after a dispute, they were locked out on September 1 and despite their determination the mill was permanently closed in September 2010 and sold to Pine Falls Development, a subsidiary of NRI Global, in 2011.

Anyway, on to my trip.

On my way north on highway 59, I saw a grain elevator, so I ducked into Libau to photograph it. The line appears disused but it is intact.


The line crosses highway 59 just before the junction with highway 304 at mile 49 of the subdivision. I noticed that the rails were missing and the crossing signals were dismantled.

The line crosses highway 304 at mile 55.7 and again, the rails are missing.

In Pine Falls, the mill is pretty much gone now. There are materials stacked up for salvage to the side.

When the mill was still in operation, it was using ex-CN SW8 7158 . It is still on the property, very isolated from any rail network.


Want to buy it? A mere $101,860.68 and it's yours! I find it interesting that the item location is listed as Buffalo, NY and they "may not ship to Canada"...

I understand that the Pine Falls subdivision has been used for rail car storage up to Selkirk, although I did see a CEMR train shunting the CN hoppers in Selkirk. Maybe they were doing training.

On my way back to Winnipeg, I found the end of rail, just past mile 41. This is near the South Beach Casino.

Evraz in Regina

When I was in Regina, I had a look through the good old Trackside Guide looking for interesting things to see in the area. I noted that Evraz Inc. had quite a selection of industrial switchers, so I spent some time there in the morning of August 5.

Evraz has a large facility just north of Regina on Albert Street. They basically fill a square bounded by Pasqua Street to the west, Albert Street to the east, Sherwood Road to the north, and Armour Road to the south. They are served by CP off the CP Lanigan subdivision, which runs right next to their facility. Click on the map to see it in Google Maps.


When I arrived there, I saw an orange switcher pushing some gondolas down a spur track. I waited patiently at the Pasqua Street crossing until it came back. It was engine #11, a GMD SW900 built in 1955 as CP 6716.





I found this little video, shot from the same location I was at.


Another switcher was active, #5, an EMD NW2 (!) built in 1949 as Great Northern #156. It did not venture out of the property but I was able to get a few shots with the long lens.



Note the homemade #582 on the freight car. It was pulling a string of those cars.



I think that is a track scale in the foreground.

After that, I drove around trying to see more of their switchers. I started down Industrial Drive and met an SUV coming out of the facility. He waved me over and asked if I was "the gentleman taking pictures of our facility." I said, yes, that is me. He asked me very politely what I was photographing, and I told him that I take pictures of trains and I was shooting their locomotives. He asked if I was going into their facility, and I said, "no, of course not!" He said OK and was on his way.

That's how a challenge like that should go. Plant security has an obligation to go question suspicious people, and there's no doubt I was doing something out of the ordinary. I was being very obvious about what I was doing, not skulking about, and certainly not trespassing.

Some might say I was within my rights to say nothing, or to challenge him back, but what would be the point of being belligerent? He'd probably call the police and then I'd have to talk to them. Better to be up front about what you're doing, and 9 times out of 10, they'll nod and be on their way.

After he drove away, I got out and shot a few of their stored locomotives from Industrial Drive. Clearly they are being parted out.





I also saw #10 (in BN green) but didn't get any decent photos of it. #6 and #8 might have been there or they may have been scrapped already.

Wheat City Metals is co-located with Evraz, and they deal in scrap metal... like old Government of Canada grain cars!


Here's the complete list of Evraz switchers, according to the 2011 Trackside Guide:

• 1 - Alco S-2, built 8/1943
• 5 - EMD NW2, built 1949
• 6 - GMD SW900, built 3/1955
• 7 - MLW S-3, built 3/1955
• 8 - MLW S-3, built 5/1957
• 10 - EMD SW1200, built 4/1956
• 11 - EMD SW900, built 3/1955

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of a big place!

Inland Cement

This is the Lehigh Heidelberg Cement Group facility in south central Winnipeg. It used to be called Inland Cement until whatever series of mergers resulted in the current owner. This is served by CN's spur off the CN Rivers sub just west of St. James Junction. The same spur also serves a local plastics company and jointly (with CP) serves the LaFarge facility. See the map below.



Inland Cement is a good CN customer and gets a lot of shunts in a week. Typically CN uses a GP9 and a slug to do the shunting in the area. Inland has a car mover to push the train cars around in its facility.


Incidentally, the new IKEA is going into the field just north of Inland Cement!

Lafarge Winnipeg

My family and I went to the excellent Fort Whyte Alive centre to walk and see the wildlife. While we were walking over boardwalks and past marshes, my wife spotted some train cars in the distance. Fort Whyte is adjacent to the Lafarge cement plant and there was an industrial switch engine there too.

This pretty little engine is a GE 50-ton engine, built in October 1954.

The Lafarge facility is served by both CN and CP. It is at mile 7.4 of the CP La Riviere subdivision and is also on a spur from mile 5.0 of the CN Rivers subdivision.


As you can see, Lafarge has quite a few rails.

Grand Forks Elevators and Industrial Locomotives

I swear, this will be my last post on Grand Forks for a while! I know it seems like that's all I post about these days.

On Sunday March 28 I went in search of grain elevators. While I was out, I had the good fortunate to stumble across three industrial locomotives as well.

The first elevator I came across was the North Dakota Mill.

It is quite an impressive structure. The sign says the company has been in business since 1922.

The mill sits at the south end of an industrial park, with quite a few rail-served industries. Farther north is Minn-Dak Seeds.

A BNSF line goes north-south right beside the plant.

Just north of that is a gas storage site, and then I came to Gavilon Grain.

Hey look! A locomotive!

In fact, it's Con Agra 477.

It's a high-hood GP7, ex Belt Railway of Chicago. Very nice! There's a couple of photos of it on RRPictureArchives.

Just a bit north of that on the same property was this little beauty.

Peavey #2 is an EMD SW7, ex Atlantic Coast Lines, built in 1950. RRPictureArchives

I was just about out of time at this point, so I headed south on highway 29. As I came to Gateway Drive I saw a bunch of ex-Clinchfield hoppers at the Strata aggregates facility... with a locomotive.

Here's engine 230 (an SW9) from a long way off. I wish I had had time to walk across the field to get a closer look but I fell back on the telephoto to get a few quick shots. Maybe next time!

Gerdau Ameristeel Switcher

Jeff Keddy took a trip up to Selkirk, MB and photographed the plant switcher at the Gerdau Ameristeel steel mill there. The Selkirk location is a steel mill and also recycles metal.

The switcher is an SW900. I looked in Colin Churcher's excellent list of Canadian industrial locomotives but I did not see any SW900s there except for a former Midland Railway engine that went to British Columbia. My Trackside Guides are all packed away, so I can't look it up there either.

The locomotive is remote controlled. Here is the operator on board.

Thanks for the photos, Jeff!

Steve and Dave's Excellent Gaspe Adventure (part 4)

This is the final of four postings about my Gaspe trip on Saturday, August 11 2007 with David Morris to take photos and video of VIA's Chaleur train. (part 1, part 2, part 3)

We decided to go to Perce station to see the Chaleur come in at 15:46.

There were quite a few people waiting to get on.


Next we caught him going under the road at 15:56.


There is a trestle at the west end of Grande Riviere. We went there and got him slowly coming across at 16:17.


Next it was "back to the beach" to get this view from the road.


This time we decided to go into Chandler to shoot him coming into the station. Again, a big crowd waiting at the station at 16:36.


While waiting, I shot a few pictures of the Abitibi-Price locomotive and freight cars at the closed plant.


The freight cars in the foreground have no reporting marks. I understand the mill has (rusty) track down to the wharf, so I guess these were used in captive service.


After that, we went back to my favourite spot at Port Daniel and I shot the train coming the other way at 17:36. At this point it was only 9 minutes late, not bad!


Here he is coming into New Carlisle, right on time at 18:15.


Things went wrong here. They had "bad water" in Gaspe so they weren't able to top up the water tanks in the passenger cars, so they had to do it here. This took quite a long time, and they didn't leave until 18:42.

By the time they got to New Richmond at 19:35 (27 minutes late) the light was starting to get iffy.

They were through Cascapedia at 20:00 in poor light.

We gave up the chase soon after that and crossed into New Brunswick at Pointe-de-la-Croix. VIA 15 had come and gone, so we went back to our cottage for the night. As it happens, we heard CFMG 403 coming in and I did tape it at 23:00 with my van's high-beams providing a little light. CFMG 6907, NBEC 6900 and CFMG 6910 brought 115 cars in.

So ended our trip up the Gaspe peninsula. I can't even count how many locations we took photos of the Chaleur - it is truly the best route ever to take photos of a passenger train.

Next time - our Sunday on CN's Napadogan Subdivision.

See also - our 2009 Chaleur chase!