Hit and Miss in Kamloops

I was in Kamloops, British Columbia and had a very "hit and miss" evening on May 1. Let's go.

Hit

Aerial view of Alyth yard in Calgary, Alberta

I flew from Winnipeg (YWG) to Kamloops (YKA) via Calgary (YYC). Normally I book an aisle seat in airplanes, so I can lean into the aisle and not feel trapped against the wall by my seatmate. This time I decided to flip things around and take a window seat on both flights. I'm glad I did! It was a lovely clear morning and I was able to snap a few photos of CP's Alyth yard as we were on final approach to the Calgary airport.

I've been to Alyth on the ground several times but I appreciated the aerial view to get a better sense of the places that non-railway people like me cannot see. For instance, I had no idea there was a large - car repair? - area jutting out of the yard.

I was also struck by how empty the yard is. I understand that one of the many changes made in CP in the past several years is that a lot of switching that used to be done at Alyth is being done elsewhere instead. I know that a full yard means cars not moving, but you expect a certain number of cars in a yard as an indication of a healthy volume of traffic. I don't see that here.

Anyway, I also took some photos of the mountains between Calgary and Kamloops.

The Rockies?

You can see from the prop in the upper right of the photo that I was sitting in front of the wing.

My flights were uneventful - thank you - and we landed in Kamloops on time at 9 AM. After collecting my rental car, I headed to my workplace and spent the day there.

Miss-ish

After work, I drove out to Tranquille to try to catch a few CN trains there. I've been there before and I had a great afternoon there once.

On my way out, along the aptly named Tranquille Road, I was surprised by the eastbound Rocky Mountaineer rolling into Kamloops. Oops! Probably should have checked their schedule to know when they were running...

A quick U turn and I was in pursuit. The road has an 80 km/hr speed limit and I was slowly gaining on the train as we both approached Kamloops. I knew that soon the road would diverge and I would not be able to keep up, so I got a bit ahead and bailed out to grab a quick photo.

Rocky Mountaineer 8011 and 8016

It's really not the angle or location that I would have wanted... but it was the best I could get.

I snapped a few photos of the train as it rolled past, and bid it adieu.

Rocky Mountaineer cars

So, it was a miss, but not by that much. At least I did photograph it.

On to Tranquille.

Miss

As I approached Tranquille proper, I saw a westbound CN train receding in the distance. Clearly a miss and no opportunity to chase on the north side of the Thompson River, as there is no road past Tranquille.

I settled in to wait for the next train... eastbound or westbound.

Hit-ish

After about 25 minutes, I heard a train horn. Great!

But... it seemed distant. Too distant.

It turns out it was CP on the other side of the river..

CP from far away

It was a westbound potash train, led by the two Pacifics, Canadian and Union. They came to a stop, clearly for a meet.

The light was all wrong to photograph them from the north but I did what I could. They were about 2.5 km away so it was a bit of a reach to photograph them!

It wasn't long before the eastbound train came along for the meet. The eastbound was a general freight with a couple of CP units on the head end.

Distant Meet

As soon as the eastbound train passed, the potash train started moving and soon they were gone. I took a video, and you can see it at the end of this post.

Hit - Finally

It was 6 PM when the CP train disappeared from my view. I paced around, waiting for some sweet CN action. My stomach was getting a bit grumbly but it would have to wait.

The sun started playing peek-a-boo with clouds, and finally disappeared behind a big cloud bank. I wasn't impressed, but what are you going to do?

After 40 minutes of waiting, a CN train presented itself.

CN 2926 at Tranquille

I was definitely wishing the sun was out!

I was still set up for video, but I had neglected to change the batteries in my Canon S3 and it refused to start up... so no video of this train. Miss.

Given the low light, a pan shot was in order. 1/50s at f/8.0.

Panning CN 2926

The mid-train unit was CN 3104.

She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes

Might as well pan that one too!

CN 3104

I waited a while longer, but nothing seemed to be coming. I was a little disappointed with the sun but again, what can you do?

A Surprise Hit

I packed up and started driving back toward Kamloops. I noticed a headlight in the distance, from another CN train snaking its way along the hills, so I quickly returned to Tranquille to grab a video of CN 5708 and 2298 rolling westward with my iPhone. It's at the end of this post.

I didn't take any stills because I didn't want to juggle my camera and iPhone. Trying to do both at once is often a recipe for disaster!

Visiting Cando

I posted back in January 2016 that Cando Rail Services were building a facility outside Kamloops. This facility will do rail car storage and transloads. I decided to see how it was coming along... and it looks almost ready for service!

Cando bumpers in Kamloops

Literally miles of track at the Cando facility in Kamloops

Absolutely! All photos taken from the "good" side of the fence

A Big Miss

As I was driving back along Mission Flats road, I saw a CP train rolling west. I took a brief video (see below) of CP 9622, CP 8744 and CP 9739 as they came to a stop short of the crossing. "Huh," thought I, and turned my camera off and got back into my car. As I drove away, I saw a second CP train pass them with a UP unit... so I recorded the "boring" train and missed the good one. Miss.

The Video

Here's the video of three trains in or near Kamloops, BC.

There are three trains in this video, the CP potash train, a CN general freight train and CP 9622 and company.

Lessons Learned

I can take away a few lessons from this day:

• Charge your dang batteries. I am usually very good at this for my DSLR but not as diligent for my AA batteries.
• Look for a second train. Often one train is followed by another so if you have the time, wait a few minutes to see if a second one shows up.

See Also

• Portage - Hit and Miss
• A Tranquille Afternoon (6 part series in and around Kamloops)
• Return to Kamloops

Rail News, Times Three

A few items of rail news all arrived at once. Two are of interest to the Winnipeg area and one to the Kamloops area, although there is a Winnipeg connection.

First, a new grain terminal will be built at CentrePort in Rosser, by the Winnipeg airport just outside city limits. A privately-owned company called BroadGrain Commodities will build a large terminal to handle grain and beans. This presumably will include a modern high-throughput elevator.

Based on this map (PDF), the terminal will be parallel to CP's Carberry subdivision.

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CP's Winnipeg yard

Second, former Quebec premier Jean Charest has been named the head of a Rail Relocation Task Force for Winnipeg / Manitoba. The role of this task force is nebulous at the moment, but they have four guiding principles, with the key focus being "enhanced railway efficiency and function in the capital region."

I'm.. skeptical.

Many have seized on this as an opportunity to move the CP rail yard out of downtown Winnipeg. The cost of doing this would be astronomical, both in terms of the actual relocation and also in terms of cleaning up the environmental damage done by the yard.

I agree there are big benefits, both in terms of freeing up prime locations for redevelopment, possibly increasing the city's tax base significantly, and reducing noise and other environmental issues. I just question whether the cost is worth it, and who's going to pay for it.

We shall see. I intend to watch this closely and will write about it again.

EDIT: The new provincial government seems to be backing away from this project.
EDIT 2: The new government definitely seems to be backing away.
EDIT 3: The Palliser government has killed the study.

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Third, Cando Rail Services has announced it will build a new rail terminal in Kamloops, BC. They acquired the former Weyerhauser sawmill site along Mission Flats Road, adjacent to the CP Thompson subdivision.

Cando will build 15 miles of track there, both for railcar storage and for transloading materials between truck and railcars. They are going to start with 250 car storage spots. Since Cando does significant track work for CN and CP, they will likely be basing some crews and material out of there to work in BC.

The sawmill was served by a wye off the CP main line. This wye still exists so it should not be difficult to get new track in service.

Wrapping Up Kamloops

This is the sixth and last in a series about a May 2015 visit to Kamloops, British Columbia. Start at the beginning.

After seeing the Rocky Mountaineer off, I returned to downtown Kamloops to see what was going on with CP. At 20:15 I found a crew that apparently had just put their power away.

Too bad I didn't have the focus right. :(

Facing west from the same pedestrian bridge, I saw CP 8904 at the head of a coal train waiting to enter downtown.

Kamloops is a crew change point and they switch crews right beside the pedestrian bridge. Here's 8904 pulling up to the office to swap crews, from ground level this time.

On coal trains, CP seems to run a toaster* in the lead followed by one of the SD30C-ECO units (refurbished SD40-2 units). They then have another toaster as mid train power and one more on the tail end. I saw this combination multiple times during my times in Kamloops.

* toaster = squarish, boring locomotive aka AC4400CW or ES44AC. A derogatory railfan term.

So, to recap: toaster and SD30C (CP 5018) on the head end:

Mid-train toaster (CP 8923) with a little bonus coal on the dynamic brake fan grids, and crewman giving the train a rollby inspection:

Finally, end of train toaster (CP 8915).

I like the SD30Cs but the endless parade of ES44s and AC4400s... I don't understand why some people say CN has no variety in its locomotives!

After they passed, I walked down to the parking lot visible in the distance to shoot a side-on view of the parked locomotives. I was especially interested in CP 5875 with its multimark.

I think I had the camera on my monopod, on a timer, holding it up over the chain-link fence. Better than trespassing!

I shot CP 6250 as well but the angle wasn't as good.

After that, I wandered over to a nearby ice cream shop to top up my energy. As I walked out, I heard the tell-tale thrum of big diesels and ran to the crossing to find CP 8615 pulling up for a crew change.

You can see a piece of the pedestrian bridge that I was standing on for several of these photos. The plexiglass barriers make it a bit challenging to photograph from some angles, but you can jam the lens in between the panels if necessary. I suppose they are there to discourage littering.

By this time (20:45) the light was getting dim. I was using a shutter speed of 1/20s so there is some motion blur. Note that 8615 (with 8754 and 8922) was meeting a westbound freight in the yard.

After the tail end passed, CP 8624 (and 9683) throttled up and rolled on by with its intermodal cargo.

I packed it in for the night after that.

I didn't railfan at all on May 14th - shocker! - and I didn't intend to railfan on May 15th, but while driving to the airport I spotted a pair of CN locomotives switching the fuel facility by YKA (Kamloops airport). I grabbed a couple of quick photos before returning my rental car and boarding.

CN 5268 and 6023 were shuffling tank cars around.

PS - My flight back home was pretty uneventful. As we descended to land in Winnipeg, I photographed the Fort Garry area with my iPhone. You can see the former Manitoba Sugar property on the left, the CN Letellier subdivision across the bottom left of the photo, and Chevrier Boulevard running up through the middle of the photo.

Thanks for reading about my Kamloops adventures! You can start back at the beginning or read all my Kamloops stories.

I'll be posting about my grain elevator adventures in northwest Manitoba soon... stay tuned.

One Last Rocky

This is the fifth in a series. To start at the beginning, read A Tranquille Afternoon.

On May 13th, I went out to shoot the Rocky Mountaineer one more time. I had a particular shot I wanted to get, "somewhere on the north side" between the bridge I had already featured and the CN yard.

First I wanted to shoot the arrival. I thought I might get them before they entered CN track, but I was too late and I found them stopped at the switch to the CN-CP interchange, so I rushed back to the downtown area to get them. I decided to shoot them in the open area just east of the Red Bridge, because I had noted some unusual power on the train...

They had a little helper in third position. CN 5472 was tucked in behind RMRX 8014 and NREX 2903.

Given that this train had come off of CP track, the CN unit must have been added when the train departed Kamloops on its way to Banff. Since the train power on Rocky Mountaineer trains is delivered by a generator car (seen here behind 5472), they don't need locomotives with HEP (Head End Power) generators like VIA does.

I shot this artsy glint photo as they passed by.

There were lots of happy people in the dome!

It was tricky to edit this photo to be able to see into the dome. All of the windows are tinted so it's pretty hard to see in, but through the magic of Lightroom I can "enhance" it... much like CSI! ;)

Anyway, it was time to go set up the shot I wanted. I drove across the Red Bridge and went trackside. I found a church that I thought would look great in the shot. It is the St. Joseph's Church, a "Tk'emlups te Seewepemc Historic Site" according to the sign. Did you know that Kamloops is the English translation of the Shuswap word Tk'emlups, meaning "where the rivers meet?"

The church is located on the reserve and was built in the late 19th century, and is the oldest church in Kamloops.

I walked around and took a few photos while waiting for the train, including this HDR one.

I was there a good 45 minutes before the train finally showed up. The sun was playing hide-and-seek so I didn't really get great light, but you use what you have.

I'd say that was a pretty good location.

I said this was the last post, but I was mistaken. The next post will be the last in the series, featuring CP action in downtown Kamloops.

• Back to the start of the series
• All Kamloops posts

Return to Tranquille

Previous posts: A Tranquille Afternoon, A Rocky Mountaineer evening, and Into the Mountains, Briefly.

On May 12th I went to the excellent Kelly's Kaboose shop after work. This model train / antique store is located in downtown Kamloops, BC. They have a great selection of model train equipment, lots of railway paperwork (my favourite!) and lots of other interesting items like signs, photos, and other railway memorabilia. I highly recommend the store. I walked away with a selection of BC railway timetables to fill out my collection.

When I stepped out of the store, I saw a Rocky Mountaineer bus unloading passengers at a nearby hotel. I hadn't really intended on seeing the Rocky this evening but hey, since I was only a couple of blocks away...

They were parked with the locomotives under the Red Bridge again. All of the passengers were gone and the staff were packing things up prior to the train heading over to the shops. A worker was walking along the train disconnecting the power lines between cars. He told me it was to speed up the switching they were going to do in the shop area once the train got over there.

In good time they pushed back and I shot the train passing the station.

Hey, if you want to do me a favour, go vote for your favourite Rocky Mountaineer photos at moments.rockymountaineer.com - mine are here and here and here and here.

I did a quick jaunt over to the Mission Flats Road area and found CP 3074 waiting at CP Benledi near the Domtar plant.

By the way - there's a nude beach in the area. ;) On a previous visit I was driving past the Domtar plant when I saw two quite naked people walking back to their cars from the park area. Not something you see in Winnipeg!

It was time to head back to Tranquille again. Passing the airport I spied a westbound freight headed by CN 8868. I quickly bagged it before continuing on.

I easily beat them to Tranquille, where they rounded the bend before the crossing.

While I was watching the train, a water bomber flew overhead, so I had to grab that too.

This is a Convair CV580 water tanker, owned by Conair Aerial Firefighting.

As the train rolled by, I noticed a CP eastbound potash train across the water.

Apologies for the photo quality - it was 2.5 km away and hazy in the heat. Lightroom CC's dehaze feature helped a bit.

Notice that the CP train is going through a little tunnel. Here's a Google satellite view of the short tunnel, which is about 80m long.

As the westbound CN train rolled by, and the eastbound CP train rolled by, a third train entered the scene - CN 5652 East, with BCOL 4616 trailing.

Here you are - three trains in one photo.

The CP freight had a pusher on the rear.

Speaking of DPUs, CN 8868 West had a mid-train DPU, CN 2200.

After all of that excitement, I was done for the night.

For my last second-last post from this Kamloops visit, I will visit the Rocky Mountaineer one more time, plus show some downtown Kamloops CP action. Read on!

Into the Mountains.. Briefly

CP passing Kamloops Lake

After a Tranquille afternoon and a Rocky Mountaineer evening, I decided to head west after work on Monday. After a discussion on the BC Railfans Facebook group, I had settled on Ashcroft as a destination. It has both CN and CP together in the Fraser River valley.

I headed west on the Trans-Canada Highway. It was still hot in the late afternoon - about 28C - and I had the AC on full in my little Nissan Versa Note rental. I passed the lookout at Tobiano, and as I descended toward Savona I noted a CP container train below me, also headed west. I grabbed the photo above.

As Savona came into view, I saw a nice curve that would be great for the head end of the train. I jumped out of the car as the train came around the curve.

It would have been better if I had time to get a little closer, but I'm happy with the result. CP 9362 was leading.

I tried to get the train on the other side of Savona, but I didn't know the area and missed the fact that the track crossed under the TCH to head down the Fraser valley. I ended up at the Steelhead Provincial Park, wondering where the rails were.

However, I did spot this.

The Canadian Trackside Guide says the near car was a crane idler car (originally Canadian Northern colonist car 7222 built in 1920) and the caboose was Pointe-St Charles CN 79440. There is a reversed "Gift Shop" sign on the idler car indicating this used to be a business. The prominent NO TRESPASSING sign deterred me from investigating further.

Savona is also where the CN and CP lines come together to go into the Fraser River valley.

I kept going on the TCH for a few kilometres but it became very apparent that the little Versa was not suited for the mountains. It was not possible to maintain 100 km/hr going up the steep grades, and given the hot temperature I was concerned about overheating the car. I turned around and headed back to Kamloops.

After supper, I headed back downtown to catch this day's iteration of the Rocky Mountaineer. This Rocky was coming from the west so it would be coming over the South Thompson River bridge to the station. I resolved to try to photograph it end-on as it crossed the river. A pair of helpful gentlemen on horses (shout-out to the Kamloops Mounted Patrol) suggested I stand on the steps of the Interior Savings Centre to get the right angle. They were right!

Here's the shot I was looking for.

I would have liked more light on the nose, but you take what you can get!

This angle was pretty good too:

You can see the NREX unit in second position.

Here are the two Kamloops Mounted Patrol gentlemen on their way to greet the passengers. I think it's great they do this. It must add to the experience.

There are lots of little touches around the area.

I decided to try a little HDR photo of RMRX 8014 under the Red Bridge.

I processed this with the new HDR functionality of Lightroom 6 (reason 6 why you need Lightroom?). I think it turned out OK. I like the glint from the rails. I'd like to see more detail in the shadows and there's a couple of glitches, but it's not bad for a first try.

It was clear they were going to be there for a while, so I moseyed over to the pedestrian bridge over the CP main line and photographed CP 3074 sitting there with the local caboose collection.

CP has a building on the south side of the tracks for their crews. I noticed this rack set up to hold the FRED/EOT devices. Pretty nice!

I decided to get the Rocky Mountaineer crossing the South Thompson River again, but from a different angle. Kamloops has a great park by the river and there is a walkway that juts out into the river a bit. From there I waited for the train to roll across the bridge... backwards, this time.

That was fun! I went back to the CP line to get a ground level photo of CP 3074 over the fence.

Thanks for reading!

In my next post, I'll write about another day of Rocky Mountaineer photos and return to Tranquille for more CN action. Read on!