Saturday, January 14, 2012

CN 532 With Three Engines

CN 8862 in Winnipeg
I caught the daily Winnipeg-Emerson train this afternoon, pretty much by accident. I'm glad I did, because the train had three engines, the most I've ever seen on train 532. Normally CN 532 runs with only one engine, but on some occasions it has two.

I saw them slowly crossing Bishop Grandin, so I went south down Pembina Highway to try to get ahead of them. I went to the Markham Road crossing and had only a few seconds to check my camera settings before I had to shoot. The shots are ISO 500-640 so they have a bit of grain to them.

Modern SD70M-2 CN 8862 was the leader, followed by elderly SD60 CN 5524 as the middle unit.
CN 5524 in Winnipeg

Illinois Central SD70 IC 1020 brought up the rear.
Illinois Central IC 1020 in Winnipeg

The train was fairly long but it didn't seem long enough to warrant three engines. Maybe they were expecting a long train from Emerson?

7 comments:

One Man Committee said...

One thing that I've wondered about the Letellier and Emerson subs is how much of the traffic is domestic as opposed to US-bound on BNSF trains. Judging by the small yards in Emerson and Noyes, I'm guessing that it isn't much?

One Man Committee said...

(of the latter, that is)

Canadian Train Geek said...

Very little. There are few customers between Winnipeg and Emerson on either the CN Letellier or CP Emerson subdivisions. For both, there are a couple of grain elevators and CN serves a canola plant in St. Agathe.

Unknown said...

I saw CN 532 with 3 engines today.

Canadian Train Geek said...

Hi Taylor, cool! Was it a long train to have 3 engines on it?

Unknown said...

I don't think it was long enough to need 3 engines. I have a video of it here, taken at Rockman St: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C32Zvt4wW0Q

Canadian Train Geek said...

Hi Taylor, that was some old power on your CN 532!