Meeting Place

Late in the afternoon of February 29, I was rolling down Wilkes Avenue in Winnipeg to see if there were any trains about. As it happened, I overtook a westbound freight train (CN 301) with CN 5761 on the head end. I got ahead of them and shot them coming around the bend at Carman Junction.


Note the yellow-over-red Clear to Stop signal (rule 411) on the north track.

I jumped back into my car and headed west, intending to shoot them again somewhere near Diamond. I heard that another train was coming east so I headed to Hall Road just west of the Perimeter Highway. I pulled up near the crossing and jumped out to wait for the trains.

Hall Road is a good place to shoot eastbounds because it is wide open to the west. It is not good for westbounds because there are buildings close to the tracks on the south (sun) side. You have to step pretty close to the tracks to get a shot without all the junk on the right.... not safe when a train is coming! One could always cross the tracks and shoot from the north, but then you are shooting against the sun and that only works on cloudy days.

I saw that the signal facing the eastbound container train was a single flashing yellow light. If I'm correct, this is Advance Clear to Stop (rule 415) meaning the next signal is displaying Clear to Stop. The next signal for that train would be at St. James Junction so they had a few miles before having to stop.

Very soon the container train approached. It turns out this was CN 196, with CN 2264 on the head end.


Fortunately I was close enough to get the meet with my 55-250mm lens. I stepped in to get a few shots then retreated from the crossing before the train was too close.


I took off west to get one more shot of CN 5761 before giving up. As I headed out I saw CN 2335 pushing on the end of train 196, seen in between the cars of train 301.

Here's a closeup of CN 5761 approaching Diamond.


Grubby CN 2629 was the second unit behind 5761, and they had a GP38 as a third unit, CN 4790.

Here you can see they had a red-over-green-over-red signal. This one actually is Limited-to-Clear (rule 416), because there is an "L" plate on the signal mast.

Vale Locos in Halifax

A set of EMD SD80ACe locomotives for export arrived in Halifax on CN 120. These locomotives are destined for Vale's mining operations in Brazil. Vale is a very large mining company and its Brazilian iron ore operations are simply huge.

Dave shot CN 120 rolling through Truro.


CN 120 had four CN engines on the head end, followed by two Vale engines on their own wheels, a couple of freight cars, then several Vale engines on flatcars with regular freight cars in between as spacers.

David Othen shot CN 120 coming into Rockingham Yard.

Caleb Wentzell shot the engines in Rockingham yard. The light was great for these shots.


Here's Caleb's closeup of Vale 102.


The locomotives will be loaded on a ship and sent to Brazil to join the rest of the iron ore fleet.

Relocate the CP Yards?

Colourful Winnipeg Member of Parliament Pat Martin wants the Canadian Pacific Railway yard moved out of downtown, north to the new CentrePort area. The CBC article says that he favours redevelopment of the yard into housing, green space, recreation space and so forth.

Pat is well known for his tweets and outspoken views. He says there is a good business case to move it to CentrePort. In the interview it was stated that in 1980 the costs to relocate the yard were estimated at $80-$100 million, but the interviewer pointed out that environmental remediation was not included and these days that is very expensive.


Pat mentioned the federal "Rail Relocation Act", technically the Railway Relocation and Crossing Act, that can fund up to 50% of the costs of relocating railway tracks. I was unaware of this act.

Far be it for me to dump all over this idea, but I do think this would be a massive cost that CP would fight tooth and nail to avoid. I'm sure CP would be happy to build a new yard but would not be happy to pay for it. I know CP is moving out of Regina's downtown, but their yard in Regina is quite small in comparison with Winnipeg's. CP's main yard in Saskatchewan is in Moose Jaw.

I found it amusing that Pat called Canadian railways "the biggest welfare case in Canadian history." In the past they certainly were massive public works projects, given the size of the land grants they were given, but I would argue that today's transportation welfare cases are trucks, not railways. A debate for another time.

Pat says it's a "slam dunk natural." I am highly skeptical.

Dirty Pig

No, this isn't a rant against police.

I saw CN 111 heading west out of Winnipeg around noon on Thursday, March 15. I was waiting for the Canadian near Diamond. I had my Canon S3 on a tripod waiting to video it, and shot a few long distance shots of the approaching freight before turning the S3 on... and having it turn itself off and complain about low batteries. Drat.

CN 2676 was the lead engine, with CN 2677 behind it. Funny to see two engines in numeric order.


This was scrawled in the dirt on the rear of CN 2676.

I guess it was an editorial comment about CN's maintenance practices.

Farther down the train, CN 2663 was the first DPU engine.


Oddly enough, there was a second DPU engine right behind 2663, ex-BC Rail engine BCOL 4645, yet another Dash-9. Four in one train!


I was interested to hear that they were detouring! They told the RTC that they were detouring through Dauphin (rather than going through Melville SK) and the RTC said they would pick up their pilot in Portage la Prairie. They need a pilot when the crew is unfamiliar with the territory, much like ships need pilots to enter unknown harbours.

CN had a 22-car derailment on the Rivers subdivision about 40km east of Melville at about 03:30 Thursday morning. VIA 1 and 2 were delayed so I never saw VIA 1 on Thursday.

Clayton Chaloner reported that he saw CN 101, CN 401, CN 111 and two others detour before the derailment was cleared. Canada Newswire reported that the TSB was sent. The Regina Leader-Post reported that the derailment site was clear by 6 PM Thursday and that the derailed cars were empty tank cars. 40km east of Melville is around Bangor or Atwater on the CN Rivers subdivision.

EDIT: Corrected engine type of BCOL 4645. Thanks Zartok!

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!

IRSI Layoffs

This can't be good.

Industrial Rail Services is laying off 85 workers. It is related to the LRC frame problem reported earlier.

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.

Death of a Bridge

Partial demolition of the Hiram Creek trestle, March 1 2012. Photo by Anonymous.

The old Hiram Creek bridge has come down. This wooden trestle, the highlight of the Salem and Hillsborough Railroad's train ride "back in the day", has been demolished.

The bridge had not seen passenger traffic since 2003, the last year of full operation of the railroad. In 2004 the New Brunswick Railway Museum operated trains up to highway 114 but did not go past the Weldon Creek (steel) bridge due to structural issues with that bridge and with this trestle. So the trestle sat idle for almost 10 years before its final removal.

The railway museum made the decision years ago to terminate the line at Weldon Creek. The majority of the rail line was leased from the province, who took ownership of it following CN's abandonment of the Albert subdivision. The NBRM released the majority of the line several years ago when it was determined that they would never raise enough funds for the repair of the two bridges.

I believe the bridge was becoming a safety issue. Also, you can see that the road was limited to one lane under the bridge.

The trestle was 209 feet long, and the deck was 44 feet above the roadway below. The railroad had a 7 MPH permanent slow order over the bridge and no brakes or throttle were to be applied while on the bridge. I remember the engine would sound very quiet as it coasted over the bridge.

Here's the bridge in happier times. One of the things that made the trestle special was that it was a curved wooden trestle, a relative rarity. Note the "escape platform" in the middle, a refuge for anyone caught on the bridge when a train came along.


I took the next two photos on June 29, 2002. There was a dinner train operating, but I don't know why they had both diesels operating. Here's RSC-14 engine 1754 running light over the trestle.


Next engine 8245 brings the dinner train back to Hillsborough.


Contrast the scene above to this photo (by Art Clowes) from Friday, March 9 showing the cleanup after the trestle removal. It's the same viewpoint.


I went over it many times when volunteering at the railway. Here's a video I took of the dinner train back in 2003. You can see engine 1754 drifting over the trestle starting at 1:25.

Farewell, old friend.

Slides for Sale

I have some surplus slides in my collection for sale. The complete gallery is here. I'm offering them here first to ye faithful blog readers. What doesn't sell is going on eBay.

I did not take any of these slides. I bought them quite a few years ago. I'm selling these because I already have slides of the same units from a similar angle. They were taken in the Maritimes in the 1980s. The names in the gallery show when and where the slide was shot.

The slides were scanned "as is" with no attempt to correct for exposure, composition, etc. A few of the scans show that the slides weren't mounted exactly straight in the scanner!

I'm asking $3 per slide, shipping extra. Buy 3, get 1 free.

They are going on a first-come, first-served basis... email me at steve@theboykos.com.

Saint John Potash Derailment

Potash derailment. Photo by Ron Grant.

 CN derailed some potash cars in Saint John early Tuesday morning. CN 594 was working the Courtenay Bay potash yard and several potash cars went on the ground around 1 AM. Four cars went over on their sides and eight others appeared to be derailed upright. No one was hurt.

Derailed cars and "spare parts". Photo by Ron Grant.

Potash derailment. Photo by Ron Grant.

The derailment happened behind Coastal Tire on Crown Street. CN 5756, CN 2660 and CN 5795 were on the potash terminal end of the train and were therefore trapped by the derailment.

CN 5756 and the rest of CN train 594 stuck behind the derailment. Photo by Ron Grant.

The NB Southern wreck crew was on site by 11:30 AM and CBC reports that by 4 PM six of the eight derailed cars were back on the rails. The spilled potash was being removed at 7 PM and the track is expected to re-open by mid-afternoon on Wednesday.

Repairing the damage. Photo by Ron Grant.

Thanks to the gang at RailsNB for all the news and to Ron Grant for providing the pictures.

This Day, 37 Years Ago

CN 1912 looked good in its CN noodle in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Ken Annett shot this slide on March 6, 1975.

A High Speed Chase

Back on the leap day, February 29, I went up to CP Makwa just west of Winnipeg. As I approached the track from the south, I saw a westbound Canadian Pacific Railway freight train heading out of town. By the time I exited the highway and got on highway 221, the train was a good kilometre or two ahead of me. "No problem," thought I, "we'll just chase it for a bit and catch it at Meadows." I was thinking I might get a sunset shot there again.

The highway is 100 km/hr except for in the towns, so I made good time up to Rosser and then had to slow to 50 km/hr (or so) before getting back up to speed. West of Rosser the highway goes away from the track for a bit and then comes back near Meadows. As I approached Meadows it was clear that this train was going like a bat out of hell and I was gaining on it very very slowly. The railway speed limit is 60 MPH and this train had two engines and only about 20 cars so it was easily maintaining the limit.

It was clear I wasn't going to get any shot at Meadows - I was still behind the entire train - so I set my sights on the next elevator, at Marquette. After slowing briefly through Meadows it was back up to speed. The sun was setting and the light was getting poor by the time I was approaching Marquette. By this time I was just coming up to the rear of the train so there was no catching this train!

32 kilometres... for nothing. Well, not really. It was exciting (if a bit frustrating) but I chose to look at the plus side. I had never been to Marquette, so I spent ten or fifteen minutes and took some photos. The Paterson grain elevator was an obvious choice.


Then there's the signals at mile 29.1, taken by basically turning around after taking the above photo.


As I was leaving to head back to Winnipeg, I noticed a caboose off the highway.


According to the Trackside Guide (2012 edition available now!), this is ex-DWP 79167 (Duluth, Winnipeg and Pacific). It was originally a Canadian Government Railways (CGR) boxcar built in 1918, then it became CN 409036, and was rebuilt in 1957 to become a caboose. I see this has electrical power so maybe it is being a fine clubhouse.

One more shot of the grain elevator before I leave you.

VIA Unhappy with LRC Refurbishment Speed

CBC is reporting that VIA Rail is not happy with the speed that Industrial Rail Services is refurbishing the LRC cars.

A VIA spokesman said they should have received 27 refurbished cars but at present they have only received 10. IRSI's president, Richard Carpenter, said "there's been all kinds of challenges."

Recently IRSI sent layoff notices to many of its workers after structural problems were discovered in some of the LRC cars' floors. It turns out that VIA is going to proceed with refurbishment work so the layoff notices were premature.

I wonder what is going on?

VIA was careful to state that they are happy with the quality of the work and passengers like the new LRC cars.

Canadian Pacificana

1958 ad for the Canadian Pacific Railway train "The Canadian"

If you love Canadian Pacific, then you need to check this site out. Canadian Pacificana plans to "one day be the ultimate tribute to the history of Canadian Pacific's passenger travel divisions."

The site's owner, Peter Marshall, has big plans but it is well on its way. The site has a tremendous collection of CP's ads, postcards, and other ephemera.

Readers know that I like ephemera and I collect a lot of it, albeit mostly timetables and train orders. I do have some advertisements and I have a few CP ads online. Mr. Marshall's site is candy to someone like me.

Go check it out!

Hat-tip to John over at CP Rail Manitoba and Minnesota for the link.

Recent VIA Trains

Here are two VIA trains that I haven't blogged about.

First up is VIA 1 on February 13th. I shot this one from the overpass by mile 10 of the Rivers sub. I wanted to get some height but I'm not happy about the pole line in the foreground.


I'm also not happy about the tilt in this video. I had checked it briefly but obviously not well enough. Do listen to the end of the video to hear the crew call the signal and the hotbox detector.


I already mentioned the VIA 1 from February 23. The next was on March 1!


After a friendly wave from the left-side engineer, they headed off into the... cloudy gloom.

VIA Accident Update

Tom Griffith, the lead investigator from the TSB for Sunday's derailment in Ontario, gave a short press conference this morning. You can view it on CTV News. CTV has three separate parts: the conference, an interview with Tom Griffith, and an interview with Emile Therien, past president of the Canada Safety Council.

Take-away points:

• The "black box" was installed in another engine and all its contents were read.
• VIA 92 had stopped at a station stop and was accelerating since that stop.
• The brakes were operational but were not applied.
• VIA 6444 was going 67 MPH through a 15 MPH crossover switch.
• The switch was properly lined to transfer the train between tracks.
• The train's speed was the cause of the derailment.

The big question, of course, is why they were going so fast? It seems obvious that the crew were either unaware they were going to cross over or had overlooked that during the station stop. The TSB's job now is to determine what signal(s) the crew saw, who was operating the locomotive, and if possibly why they accelerated well past the speed limit.

CTV's interviewer seemed startled that there is no external "oversight" on the train's speed. She seemed to believe that there was some mechanism or human overseer that watched the speed of all trains and could intervene if necessary.

Such a technology exists, and it is called Positive Train Control (PTC) in North America. It is not implemented anywhere in Canada to my knowledge, and although it is mandated to be implemented in the USA by 2015, it is very doubtful that that target will be reached. It is complex and very expensive to implement.

PTC could have prevented this accident. However, if you think of it, we do not have any similar system in place for other forms of public transportation like buses and aircraft. The onus is on the driver / pilot / engineer to know the speed limits and follow them.

Emile Therien implied that Transport Canada's implementation of Railway Safety Management Systems (SMS) (essentially self-inspection of the railways) beginning in 2001 has resulted in more accidents. Statistics (and oddly, the current president of the Canada Safety Council, Raynald Marchand) state that SMS has resulted in fewer accidents. SMS makes the railways and employees more accountable for safety, rather than depending on periodic federal inspections, and it makes sense that it would make the railways safer. Transport Canada still provides the regulations.

There's also a CTV story on the conference. CBC has an update on the conference and the class action suit(s).

There is a web site set up to express condolences to the family and friends of the crew: http://www.viatrain92.com/

Makwa

Tim commented on my post about CEFX 1050 and the sunset, asking if my interpretation of the red-over-green-over-red was correct. I had said it was "LIMITED TO CLEAR" (Canadian Rail Operating Rules #416) but he pointed out (correctly) that it would be that only if there was an "L" plate on the signal mast. If the "L" is missing then it is rule 422, "MEDIUM TO CLEAR". The difference is only in the speed limit. LIMITED=45 MPH and MEDIUM=30 MPH.

I looked at signal 112 today and it does not have any plate on it, so a red-over-green-over-red indication on that signal means MEDIUM TO CLEAR.

I had a look at the detailed track diagram for the area, "CP MAKWA".

CP MAKWA

The signal I was talking about was 112, the three headed signal facing west. The crew would have seen signal 134 first, and I believe it was showing green over red, rule 405, "PROCEED" it should have been showing yellow over green, rule 407, CLEAR TO MEDIUM.

Signals are numbered by mileage, with an implied decimal point to the left of the last digit. So signal 112 is at mile 11.2 and signal 134 is at mile 13.4. In cases where there are more than one track, the track name is appended, like 111N and 111S.

The mileage is not precise because you could have two signals facing opposite directions on the same mast, but they have different numbers. For example, signals 133 and 134 could be on the same mast (they aren't).

When the Rail Traffic Controllers (RTCs) give out blocks to maintenance crews, they often use signals to indicate the limits of the authority they are giving. For example, "from signal 133 to signal 112".

While doing the research, I found an interesting article on Canadian signals. Check it out!

EDIT: Thanks Jeff Keddy for pointing out what signal 134 should have been showing.

Fuming

Event recorder in VIA 6429

The Star is reporting that lawyers Harvey and Sharon Strosberg have filed a class-action suit against VIA and CN for $10 million in general damages from the recent VIA accident.

These specialists in class action suits are experienced in such matters, according to the National Post, as they pressed a suit against VIA and CN for a derailment in 1999 near Thamesville, Ontario. According to the TSB report, VIA 74 ran through switches lined and locked for the reverse position. I remember this accident and the TSB report makes it clear that CN was negligent. (TSB = Transportation Safety Board)

The National Post article says Ms. "Strosberg said her office had received a handful of calls from passengers." I wonder how they got their number?

People are entitled to some compensation based on the level of inconvenience or injury, but I find it repulsive that the suit was filed two days after the accident. I'm not a lawyer but surely some finding of fault from the TSB should take place before a suit is filed.

Speaking of the TSB, they have deployed a team and have the "black box" (it's red) and are already investigating. The investigator in charge is Tom Griffith, a very experienced investigator with the TSB who also has considerable rail experience. He's quoted several times in this CBC story.

The Star has a vivid video of VIA 6444 being righted.