VIA Rescues CN

On Thursday, March 7, CN had a small derailment in their Transcona yard in Winnipeg. The lead engine and first car of westbound CN 115 derailed while coming into the yard, blocking the CN Redditt subdivision at around 7 AM. The rest of the train blocked a busy street (Ravenhurst) and the east Perimeter Highway. This also trapped VIA 1 and a couple of freights (CN 101 and CN 111) east of Winnipeg.

Radio station CJOB 68 had their chopper in the air and took some nice aerial photos of the scene. From the photos it appears that there was a sideswipe but I am told it was a simple derailment.

Perhaps the two CN engines (led by IC 2701) were there trying to hook on to the train to pull it into the yard. I believe the derailed engine was CN 8848.

I drove up to see what I could see. I decided not to go anywhere near the derailment site, as the traffic would be crazy and based on the location I would probably not be able to see anything. I drove up Deacon Road to avoid the Perimeter and then headed out Dugald Road (route 15) toward Dugald. Very quickly I found VIA 1 stopped on the main line at Pineridge Road. The strange thing was that they only had one engine.


When I was taking pictures, a taxi came up with a new crew and they boarded the train. There were six deadhead cars on the train.

I guessed that the lead engine had been sent to help clear up the derailment scene, being the closest engine to the incident on the east side. I drove over to the Deacon Road intersection and sure enough, there was VIA 6446 on the end of a container train.


I went to the crossing and watched them slowly pull the train eastward. Quite a pull for a single engine!

Once they had pulled it far enough, one of the engineers dismounted to uncouple from the train.


Once that was done, they headed east toward the Canadian. Note the EOT / FRED / ETD back on the coupler.


They crossed Deacon Road and kept on going.


I hopped back in my van and returned to the Canadian to catch them coupling up.


Reunited and it feels so good...


Note the VIA Rail truck by the crossing.

That was fun!

Other news articles: Winnipeg Free Press , Global Winnipeg

See Also

• CN Derailment on the Letellier subdivision
• CN Derailment Downtown Winnipeg

Transcona Work in Progress

CN operates a repair shop in Transcona on the eastern edge of Winnipeg. This sprawling shop used to be much busier, but it still hosts a locomotive repair shop, a car shop and a maintenance of way shop.

On September 24 I drove along Pandora Avenue West (Route 37) and found the locomotive shop. I stuck my camera through the fence and shot a few of the locomotive bits hanging around the outside of the shops.

The visible units there were CN 2649, CN 5545, CN 5717, CN 5788, and CN 8019. Some looked better than others!

Apparently CN 5717 was involved in an accident in Quebec in late summer 2009. As you can see from the above photo, a part of her is still around. Here's a shot of CN 5717 as she came into Symington back in September 2009.

Another thing to note about the above photo is the many old wheel sets hanging around, and the shiny new ones on the right side of the photos.

Below we see CN 5545 missing a very important part.


CN 8019 was also missing her diesel engine.

There was also a collection of hoods and axles visible.


Now that I know there are some shots possible, I'll have to keep an eye on that space!