Show to Show

Here's a few trains I saw while en route to shows - the Railway Days show at the railway museum in Winnipeg, and the Manitoba Mega Train model train show.

VIA 1 / Canada 150

VIA 6436 in Winnipeg

My family and I went down to the Forks in Winnipeg on September 16th for a late lunch at the Original Pancake House (recommended!) and to visit the Railway Days at the Winnipeg Railway Museum.

I noted that the Canadian was still at the station, two hours after its scheduled departure. This didn't surprise me a lot since it has been chronically late all summer, often by several hours if not more. I took a quick trip up the stairs beside the Forks to take a few shots.

There were a bunch of people around in high-visibility vests and "Canada 150" wrapped VIA 6436 was apparently being detached from the train. You may recall that I saw VIA 6436 trailing on VIA 1 back in May.

VIA 6415 and 6409 at the Winnipeg station, with supervision

VIA 6415 and 6409 remained on the train at the station. The Canadian appeared to be cut in two, as is normal for the long summer trains. I went back to the Forks Market to rejoin my family, and noted VIA 6436 heading east toward Beach Junction, maybe to turn on the wye there. I didn't see it again.

Railway Days

After lunch, we headed into the VIA station and climbed the stairs to the Winnipeg Railway Museum. It was nice to tour the museum again and see old friends and new exhibits.

The Countess of Dufferin steam locomotive was looking as nice as usual.

We walked around the museum and I spent a few minutes talking with Daryl Adair of Rail Travel Tours. They've had a setback with the cancellation of trains to Churchill - a staple of their business - but Daryl has adapted with some fall foliage runs on the Budd RDCs between Sudbury and White River in Ontario, and some other Canadian rail tours. Check out their web site for more information!

After that we entered the train shed to see what VIA had left to be toured.

It turns out that we had Evangeline Park and Chateau Argenson on display.

Inside the dome

The view from the dome was nice but it would be better out on the rails!

Sadly BNSF wasn't exhibiting their unit and caboose that day. I guess they needed to use it!

Fall Foliage

Fast forward to October 1 - I went out early in the morning to try to catch some fall foliage action before heading to the Manitoba Mega Train Show.

I went over to the CP Emerson subdivision because it has some nice trees along the right-of-way.

Fall colours but no train!

I waited there for about half an hour but nothing showed up, so I headed north toward the show.

On my way there, I stopped at the CN Rivers subdivision and noted a green light facing east... and a headlight in the distance.

I set up at one of my favourite spots, at Carman Junction, but I decided to shoot the side of the train rather than my usual head on photo. My reasons were twofold - I wanted to include a bit of fall colour, and it was morning sun so the westbound train's nose would be quite dark.

Here's CN 8952, 2613 and 2116 heading up the container train as they rounded the bend at Carman Junction.

A touch of fall colour

It's not very impressive fall colour but it's hard to do better in Winnipeg!

I decided to get one more shot, so I headed west and got ahead of them before they reached Diamond. This time I put the 70-200mm lens on to get a more head on photo, since there was no foliage out there to include anyway.

Glint shot of CN 8952

I elected to process this as black and white because shots from this angle with the sun off the side of the train tend to lack colour anyway. I could have saturated the heck out of the photo but it wouldn't have looked very realistic.

The train looked pretty good from the side here, too, even without fall foliage.

Containers under a blue sky!

I headed off to the model train show after that. Read about it here!

Thanks

Thanks to the hard working volunteers at the Winnipeg Railway Museum for putting on the Railway Days show every year. It's great for people to be able to experience railways of the past and understand more about how the railways of the present work.

Also thanks to the organizers, presenters and vendors at the Manitoba Mega Train show for another great show!

See Also

• Manitoba Mega Train Show 2017
• Manitoba Mega Train Show 2016
• BNSF 2761 / Railway Days 2012