2001: A Chaplin Meet

I was going through some old prints of mine when I stumbled across these photos. I knew they were taken in Chaplin, Saskatchewan and fortunately I had scrawled the date (August 11, 2001) on the back of the prints.

I recall we were returning from Moose Jaw when we spotted a military train heading west toward Chaplin. I grabbed the train coming into the town here.

Nice wave from the conductor!

Note the "dual flags" unit leading and the St. Lawrence and Hudson unit trailing.

I don't know which country's military owned this equipment. I see it was marked for KFOR (the Kosovo peacekeeping force) but it doesn't look Canadian to me. I could be wrong.

The majority of the equipment was on flatcars. A set of autoracks was on the rear of the train, presumably holding the smaller vehicles.

They took the siding when they passed me, to meet an eastbound freight train led by CP 8521 and CP 8543.

Nice wave from the engineer of this train! There were friendly train crews in Saskatchewan that day.

PS I know the colours on some of these prints are a little "off". I fiddled with the white balance in Lightroom but I can't get them looking realistic so I elected to leave them as they were on the print.

Further reading:

• More military trains
• More Chaplin posts

A Different Kind of TOFC

Many readers will understand the usual meaning of TOFC - Trailers On Flat Cars. On the 8th I saw a different kind.

I was out and about in Winnipeg in the morning. First I saw CN 532 head south on the Letellier. I think the lead unit was CN 8927 but I could be wrong. Later, I saw a CN intermodal train roll west into Transcona. I didn't see the head end but it had a DPU and the engine on the end was CN 2533.

At the west end of Transcona, a CN intermodal was stopped, getting refueled by a tanker truck.


I went down to the south end of Symington and saw this very interesting sight.


There were twelve Leopard tanks and one engineering vehicle on the train. Tanks On Flat Cars!


They were on a train being shoved up the hump by CN 7513, among others. I assume / hope that these cars were cut out of the train and not sent over the hump! There was one engineering vehicle there too.


It was nice to see some of Canada's military together with my favourite hobby.

Fredericton Area Train Videos

I heard there were a couple of Fredericton-area train videos on YouTube. Here they are!

This one was a military train near Fredericton. According to the video comments, it was near Stanley. The power was a pair of M420s, one of which was 3521.


The second video shows a coal train, reportedly the last one in Fredericton, with 3553 as the power. There are about a dozen CBNS hoppers. You can hear the old rails creak as the engine rolls over them.


Very nice!