Activity in Thompson!

I mentioned in my last post about Thompson that Wednesday (March 7) was a busy time in the train yard.

First thing in the morning, this engine was at the north end of the yard.


HBRY 3001 is obviously an ex-CN unit, based on the sergeant stripes. It's a GP40-2LW. I didn't have time in the morning to do more than take this shot... oh, and this shot of caboose HBRY 79851.


It was coupled to a boxcar and some trailers-on-flatcars.

At noon I went back to the yard because I knew the VIA train should be there. Little did I know there were... *two* VIA trains.


I *think* this was VIA 692 from Churchill. It was backed right up to the south end of the yard. It was the standard length, two engines, baggage car, two coaches, diner, and Chateau car.

As I watched, Château Verchères was backing up on the same track.


They pulled up to within a couple of car lengths of VIA 6405, then the step boxes came out and passengers disembarked.

I walked the length of the first train to get the full consist and then did the same with the newly-arrived train. Here's its consist.


VIA 6409 was the lead engine on that train.


They had seen a fair bit of snow and ice on their trip...


I didn't have time to hang around (again) but it was nice to see those trains there... given that I've seen them often enough in Winnipeg.

I came back late in the day and HBRY 3001 was still there, down by the yard office and coupled up to the caboose and a few cars.


The light was failing and I had to go (story of my life) so that was the end of my train day in Thompson. I'm glad I saw what I did!

Thompson, Manitoba

I was in Thompson, Manitoba last week, and saw a glimpse of the Hudson Bay Railway. Thompson is at mile 30.5 of the Thompson subdivision off the main Hudson Bay Railway line from The Pas to Churchill. VIA Rail's trains 692 and 693 (ex-Hudson Bay) have to back up in one direction because there are no turning facilities in Thompson large enough. If you've seen my photos or video of the Hudson Bay you may have noticed a large light in the rear of the last car... exactly for this reason. There is a wye at "WINGATE" just outside Thompson but the curvature is too sharp for passenger cars.

The rail line comes from the east into Thompson and the yard is oriented more or less north-south, although it slants more like NNE to SSW. The VIA Rail station is at the south end.


Looking toward the rest of the yard:


Pretty empty! At the north end of the yard, there is a small yard office, a couple of loading platforms for flatcars and a variety of rolling stock. An ex-CN snowplow HBRY 55376 was on a back track.


The Hudson Bay Railway owns a fair bit of its own rolling stock. There are a number of boxcars like this long boxcar, HBRY 73680.


Both that boxcar and HBRY 446589 below are obviously ex-CN. 446589 was built in March 1957.


I had no idea that the Hudson Bay Railway offered trailer-on-flatcar (TOFC) service, but here it is. I saw Gardewine North trailers being loaded onto these HBRY flatcars.
 

There were regular flatcars and bulkhead flatcars in the yard as well, all lettered for the Hudson Bay Railway. I saw tank cars there too, lettered and labeled for private tank car fleets.

The major freight customer in Thompson is the nickel mine at Vale (formerly Inco). They receive some chemicals via tank cars, as well as ore from the Voisey's Bay deposit in Labrador. The ore is coming to Sudbury and to Thompson because the processing facility in Labrador is not scheduled to come online until 2013 according to Vale. I don't know Vale ships the finished nickel out by rail or not.

Vale has a Titan railcar mover (PDF) to shuffle cars around, and it looks like they interchange with the Hudson Bay Railway at the end of the HBRY yard. At one time Vale had a narrow gauge G8 and up to three RS-18s according to Colin Churcher, but they were all sold in the 1990s.

Esso and Petro-Canada both have facilities near the yard to take fuel from tank cars.

Tuesday was very quiet there but Wednesday was a beehive of activity. I'll describe that in another post.