As railfans, we get caught up in the details of locomotives and train operations. "Is that an ES44DC or an ES44AC? Check out those giant radiators on that Tier 4 locomotive."
Sometimes we have to stop and smell the roses... or sunflowers, in this case.
I was out looking for trains a few evenings ago, and I found one getting ready to leave CN's Symington Yard in Winnipeg. I set up for a "meh" shot - the light wasn't great - and then this hump yard set of power rolled in the way... so they got to be in the picture instead.
Hump Power Photobomb
Moody
It's funny how shooting into the sun really strips the colour from the image. When processing the photo above, I decided to make it a black and white image as there wasn't a lot of colour anyway.
Contrast that with the image below, taken half a minute later but facing away from the sun.
Lots of colour
Colour galore!
I've noticed that the SD40 sets of hump yard power seem to be used more often than the older GP38 sets, so I have been trying to photograph the Geeps.
(I've left off all the letters and numbers after the GP38 and SD40 units, as I don't really care. I believe the SD40 units used for hump service are SD40-3s and these GP38s might be GP38-2 units, but I often get those details wrong and they really don't matter to me. If you like those details, great! There's room for everyone in this hobby)
I drove around to Symington Yard proper.
GrainsConnect
GrainsConnect hoppers in Winnipeg
I spotted a line of shiny grain hoppers in the yard, so I took a few telephoto shots of them.
They are GrainsConnect hoppers. Presumably they are for GrainCorp's grain terminals in Maymont, and Reford, Saskatchewan. They are building two more, in Huxley and Vegreville, Alberta. Of course, GrainCorp also owns Canada Malting, which has a few grain elevators across the prairies.
I found it interesting that these cars all have "dents" in the same place. It must be part of the manufacturing process as I can't imagine they all got banged up so soon.
Not really a dent, I assume
Driving back toward CN Navin and the southeast corner of Symington, I saw that the train I saw earlier was on its way. I headed east on the Trans-Canada Highway (which parallels the CN line for quite a few kilometres), looking for a good location to make a photograph.
I was mindful of the sun's position, mostly behind the train, so I thought a side shot would be better than a "glint" photo toward the sun. When I spotted a field of sunflowers next to the tracks, I knew I had my location. I exited the highway and drove around the field to position it between me and the tracks.
Not long after, CN 3062 East came rolling along.
Sunflower Central
Passing Petro Canada
I fired off a series of frames as the train came rolling past. The photos toward the sun weren't as good as the "going away" photos, but I do love those sunflowers.
I liked the lead photo of this post the best. Here's one more, where I focused on the sunflowers and not the train.
Yellow Tide
They weren't going super fast, and I had a feeling they were going to do a meet at Lorette siding just down the line.
Sure enough, there was a train waiting on the main line.
Meet at Lorette
CN 3042 at Lorette siding outside Winnipeg
CN 3042 West was sitting on the main line while CN 3062 East went around them through the siding. I'm not sure why 3042 wasn't in the siding - maybe they didn't quite fit.
Meet complete
Once the train passed, the crew of 3042 returned to their locomotive. I didn't have any time to sit and wait for them to leave, so I took a few more photos and went on my way home.
Local railfan Taylor Woolston provided this narrative of a recent railfan adventure he had in the greater Winnipeg area... via bicycle!
Railfanning can sometimes be boring, with a lack of good or interesting power, and sometimes a lack of trains in general. Hoping that my luck might change for the better, I went railfanning on Monday, May 30th 2016. OH BOY. In my opinion, this was one of my best railfanning days ever from an overall point of view (Not just because of 1 train). Let's start from the beginning.
Every second school day, I switch between half days and full days. Today was a half day and I hadn't railfanned for awhile, so I decided to bring my railfanning equipment to school and go out right after school at lunch. I decided to head northeast, into the St Boniface area of Winnipeg.
I checked out the Greater Winnipeg Water District (GWWD) rail yard along Dawson Road, and noticed that the gate for the road into the yard by Messier Street was open. With that, I thought there might be a possibility of seeing the GWWD operating. They have 2 MLW RS23's, and seeing them operate is always a treat, but they aren't easy to catch.
After checking out the yard, I continued on and ended up going to an area where the GWWD crosses CN's "X Tracks", which takes trains in and out of CN's big and busy Symington Yard with 3 tracks to work with. The GWWD crossing creates a triple diamond across CN's tracks. There is a hill that parallels CN's tracks, which is where I set up.
After waiting for a while, CN 347 showed up and crawled out of the yard on track X3 and stopped short of the diamonds. Their power was CN 8921 (SD70M-2) and 2408 (C40-8M).
Shortly after, a GP38-Slug-Slug-GP38 set pulled across the diamond with a string of cars and stopped, then pushed hard back into Symington and disappeared.
After waiting for a while, a CN van (no, not like a caboose) came up to the head end and dropped off the conductor. Shortly after, CN 347 took off heading west.
After they passed, I waited for a while with nothing going on. Suddenly, I got word that the Central Manitoba Railway (CEMR) wanted to enter Symington. I decided, with almost no chance of seeing the GWWD, to ride up to Dugald Road, where an overpass crosses over the CN X tracks, to make absolutely sure that no other trains block my view of CEMR, and to get a different perspective.
I packed up, rode up to the nearby street, Lagimodiere Blvd, and went towards the overpass. However as I crossed the GWWD, I saw something that made me slam on the brakes..... TRAIN! A GWWD train returning from the Deacon Water Treatment Plant!
I turned around and went back to the triple diamond and set up faster than a cheetah on steroids! (are there railfan cheetahs? - Ed)
Unsurprisingly, they had to stop before crossing over CN. I decided to go back onto the hill and set up there.
As I was doing so, I heard something - the unmistakable sound of a GP9RM working hard. At first I thought it was the CEMR train, but it turns out it was a CN local bringing some cars into Symington. CN 281 (Yard Slug) and 7214 (GP9RM) led the freight into the yard.
Just a few minutes after the local cleared, the GWWD got their signal crawled across the diamond towards their yard with 3 tanks in tow. The unit they were using today was #202.
The last time I saw this operation, I learned that they drop off the tanks from Deacon onto their interchange track with CN, and pick up ones that CN has left for them. Knowing this, and the fact that they don't exactly go very fast through here, I decided to wait a few minutes for CEMR to hopefully arrive.
Sure enough, a few minutes later the CEMR train rolled into Symington with CEMR 4002 and 4000 (a pair of GP9RM's) in charge.
After the CEMR roared past, I started what should have been an easy chase of the GWWD, but my rear tire picked the perfect time to burst on me, meaning I was now stuck on foot, rolling my bike around. I zigzagged through a couple of side streets before getting to where the GWWD crosses Dugald Road, with a couple minutes to spare.
After having dropped off the tanks from Deacon and picking up the tanks from CN, they now had 5 tanks with them, and brought them towards the yard. In order to get the tanks into the yard correctly, they have to stop short of the yard, and use a siding to run the locomotive to the other side of the cars.
Without even fully retracting the tripod, I ran with the bike as quickly as possible to where the GWWD crosses Dawson Road and Messier Street. The Dawson Road crossing is incredibly shallow, with the rails being in the road for almost 54 metres (176.5'). Compare that to the Messier Street crossing, where the rails are in the road for only 15 metres (50').
By the time I got to the crossings, covered in sweat as it was a hot day, they had coupled the locomotive to the other side, and the conductor was walking up towards the road to manually activate the crossing, protect it and ride the tanks into the yard.
As the conductor rode across, he asked me how I was doing, and I gave him a big thumbs up! Once they dropped the tanks in the yard, the conductor deactivated the crossing, and they ran the unit back to the engine house, ending another hard day of work.
Once I was done worrying about the GWWD, I now had to worry about getting home. I was around 5 km (3.1 miles) away from home, and was on foot with a bike in bad order, and that's just the direct distance. I have a cellphone, so I could have called my dad to get the car bike rack out and give me a lift, but I decided to brave it out and go home on foot.
As I crossed the nearby CP Emerson Subdivision, I saw a northbound freight coming, and it was not far away at all! I had just a minute or two for setting up a shot. It wasn't very good, but oh well.
It was a fairly standard freight with nothing special on it.... until the end that is. On the end, there was a HERZOG tie train attached. The head-end of it was HZGX 187.
Once it very slowly crawled past, I made my way home after a great day of railfanning, even with the epic tire failure.
Thanks for the great guest post, Taylor! He also recorded video of many of these trains:
Railway photographer Mark Perry photographed two of the CN slugs purchased by NB Southern in Winnipeg and gave me permission to post them here. Thanks, Mark!
Note the raised headlights on ex-CN 269, absent on 501. As I said before, the 2xx series slugs seem to be used for road service and industrial switching, not for humpyard work, so they need visible headlights for crossings.
NB Southern has purchased four CN slugs. The four are CN 251, CN 269, CN 501 and CN 508. Two are currently in Winnipeg (CN 269 and CN 501) and the other two are in Edmonton.
The four were part of a long list of units for sale on CN's web site this summer.
A little history of these units:
CN 251 was converted from a GP9 in 1990.
CN 269 was converted from an MLW S3 in 1991.
CN 501 and CN 508 were purpose-built as slugs in 1978 as CN 261 and CN 268 and were renumbered in 1990.
You may recall that NB Southern bought a CN slug, ex CN 519, and it is now NBSR 008.
I understand the four slugs needed some work before they were road-worthy. I don't know when they will be heading east but I expect it won't be too long.
Personally, I've only seen CN 501 (my picture above), both times working the hump at Symington Yard here in Winnipeg. Two 5xx slugs are paired with two GP38s to work the hump yard. The 2xx units are usually paired with a GP9 or GP38 and work industries, as far as I have seen.
I saw a fair number of trains on Thursday, January 17... seven, I think.
It started in the morning when I was driving to work. A local CN train was working the cement plant off route 90, in what is known as Fort Whyte. Remanufactured GP9 CN 7254 and slug CN 200 were paired up and working via remote control. I ended up standing on a snowbank to shoot over the fence for this shot.
Note how the sun was just barely high enough to light them up!
EDIT: I was wondering what the "T" on the side of CN 7254 was for. Gord Hilderman of cnrphotos.com kindly told me that "The T stands for Trimmer locomotive, shims are placed between the top of the trucks and the bolster so the pilots and fuel tank don't hit and get caught up in the group retarders at the hump." He went on to point out that there can be an "H" instead like CN 7211 (photo, blog post). Thanks, Gord!
At noon, I went out to try to catch the Canadian. Since it doesn't run on Saturdays during the winter any more, Monday or Thursday are the only days to catch VIA 1. I went down to St. James Junction to wait for them. Soon enough a headlight showed to the east, but it was CN 101, not VIA, coming at me. I stood on another handy mound of snow to shoot CN 2257 leading the train.
That was the sole engine on the head end, and there was no more power until CN 8963 brought up the rear.
Right after that, a CP local came rolling north on the La Riviere subdivision. The light is always wrong for a northbound here, but I did the best I could.
It didn't seem like VIA was coming, so I headed out, but not before catching a glimpse of the CEMR train heading to Carman Junction. It had CEMR 4001 leading and CEMR 5396 trailing.
On my way home from work, I caught a glimpse of a CP local heading south on the La Riviere subdivision at route 90. It had CP 1590 and CP 8205 leading some tank cars for the gas facility near the Perimeter. A few minutes later, I spied CN 2549 East rolling along the Rivers subdivision, so I picked a spot to stop and I snapped this photo.
It had a lot of potash cars on the head end, but the rear was mixed freight. The second engine was CN 2106 and the third was BCOL 4644.
I heard that VIA 1 was coming... very exciting! I headed down to Carman Junction to wait for it. In the past few days a CN maintenance gang has been replacing rail on the south track around miles 8-10 and they were just heading to the stub track just west of the Perimeter Highway. It was interesting to hear the hotbox go off over and over. "CN detector. Rivers sub. South track. No alarms. Speed. 8 miles per hour. Temperature. Minus 19 Celsius."
Soon enough the Canadian's headlights were visible in the distance. They approached, and in a flash they were past on the north track and heading out of town.
As I mentioned, I was in New Brunswick this past week. On Sunday June 19 I flew out of Winnipeg at 8 AM. On my way to the airport, I stopped at CN's Rivers subdivision and found an eastbound train coming. It turned out to be CN 8956 on the head end with Dash-8 CN 2421 trailing.
Anyway, on to New Brunswick. In CN's Island Yard I found CN 4132 and 4141 shunting. I have seen very few of the CN 4xxx GP9s. The 70xx GP9s were much more common in New Brunswick.
After viewing that and the Herzog ballast train with CN 2512 and CN 5694, I met my family for supper. Afterward, I headed over to the NB Southern yard on Dever Road in the evening. I went to the west end first, and found NBSR 2318, slug NBSR 008 and NBSR 9802 shunting there.
I watched them for a bit then went to the east end of the yard. Imagine my surprise to see the Herzog train's engines there. As I watched, CN 5694 and 2512 rolled up to the shop, presumably to get serviced before their trip back up CN's Sussex subdivision to Moncton and beyond to drop ballast.
That's NBSR 9803 and NBSR 2610 beside them, and I think NBSR 3701 on the other side of the shop building. Caboose NBSR 422990 is just off the right side of the photo.
Just to the left of that photo is the rest of the yard.
There's a lot going on in this photo. On the left you can see the hulk of NBSR 3700, leased caboose CN 79624, and you can just see the number board of NBSR 9802.
On the right you can see NB Southern's passenger train. In the background is a set of wood chip cars with an open top Sunbury chip truck beside them.
That was the extent of my railfanning that week. I spent the rest of the week in St. George, far away from any trains!
CN 7530 and set work the Symington hump yard in Winnipeg, Manitoba
The engines that work the hump yards never get the respect they deserve. These are engines that work hard, constantly shoving long strings of cars up a steep hill, only to go back down the hill and do it again with another string. I thought I would take a few pictures of these unsung heroes.
On May 29, 2010 there were three sets of engines working the hump at Symington Yard in Winnipeg. The pictured units, CN 7530, slugs 500 and 523, and CN 7513 were shoving their cars up the hill. The two end units are GP38s modified for humpyard service. CN 500 and 523 are slugs, aka "daughters" or "calfs" that have electric traction motors but no diesel engines. They get their power from the "mothers" aka the humpyard GP38s. Slugs are used in low speed operations like shunting because the diesels and their generators produce more power than one locomotive's traction motors can use.
Humpyard units are generally remote controlled. That allows the operator to stand at the uncoupling end and have the units shove the cars at his/her beck and call.
One thing I did not know is that the two GP38s in the sets are not identical. One is the "lead" and the other is the "trail" unit. The remote control receiver is in the lead but the "trail" is likely just MU'ed to the lead so they work together.
Some of the humpyard dogs are pretty beat up. Look at CN 7530 up close... or is it 7534?
CN 7530 turning back into CN 4734
The paint is so bad on CN 7530 that you can see its former number, 4734, showing through. 20 years after being renumbered, hard living is renumbering the engine back.
Note the light above the bell. This flashes, indicating the unit is remotely controlled.
The second set at work was on the back track on the hump, and I didn't catch any numbers except for CN 7521.
The third set was resting beside the hump.
Hump yard set at rest in Symington yard
CN 7528, CN 504, CN 501, and CN 7509 were having a rest.
Clearly CN 7509 was recently repainted!
CN 7509 in Winnipeg, Manitoba
Note the operator on the top of the hump above 7509. He has his beltpack to remotely control the dogs.
I hope you have enjoyed this introduction to the "humpyard dogs" at Symington Yard. These dogs don't get any petting, but they work hard anyway!
After work on Wednesday, I drove up to Fredericton to visit my mom and a good friend of mine. I drove up through Grand Bay-Westfield because I wanted to see if anything had changed in the eight or so months since I had been through there last. The answer: nothing much. :)
However, I did hear about an eastbound freight coming in. I wasn't sure exactly where I wanted to stop, so I was indecisive and moved a couple of times. In the end, I was just about to move again when I heard the horn of an approaching train at Brittain Road in Westfield. I set up quickly and took this video:
NBSR 2318 and slug 008, together with NBSR 2319, pulled a fairly short train of gypsum empties, centerbeam flat empties, and a single boxcar. I was glad to see the slug, finally.
I returned to Saint John at close to midnight. As I was driving past Island Yard, I spotted a train coming into the yard from the west / north. I drove up to where a new overpass is being built by Russell Street and set up. Soon enough I heard the bark of an SD70M-2's horn as CN 8864? and CN 5770 brought a potash train past on the way to Courtenay Bay. I believe this was train 594, which is run occasionally using CN 406's power to ferry potash cars.
They came to a stop so the conductor could cross the street and line the wye switch toward Saint John.
Since it was just before midnight, it was time for me to get to bed to rest up for the next day's work.
I saw a strange sight just before supper on Friday (Oct 23). I saw a CN westbound beside the Perimeter Highway on Wilkes Avenue, with ordinary units CN 2256 and 2682 leading... but they had GP9 7243 and slug 203 trailing!
This is an interesting one. NBSR 2319 and 9801 are pushing a single NBSR green boxcar, 401624. Notice the window in the top corner. I wonder what this boxcar is for?
Here's NBSR 2318 with calf / slug 008 in the McAdam yard.
This is an interesting one, with the train silhouetted against the sunset. NBSR 9801, 2318, slug 008, and 2319 were the power on September 22, 2009.
A friend shot NB Southern's new slug 008 in Mattawamkeag, Maine on Saturday. He very kindly allowed me to post a few photos here. He got a really good shot of 008!
