Lunch Time Train

I am fortunate that my place of work is beside a spur line that services a few local industries. Yesterday I was sitting at my desk when I heard the familiar sound of a train horn. At this point the train was about to cross 19^th Street Southeast. So I hurried to dress up for the outdoors, grabbed my camera and walked up the hill.

At my first position I snapped a few shots of the train crossing Barlow Trail. One of the crew jumped out to align a switch I assume is used as a derail in case freight car comes rolling down the hill. You can see the switch in the third picture. After the crewman jumped off the train slowed to a very brief stop and then started to back up back down toward 19^th Street. I have no clue why he did this as I don’t own a scanner yet to monitor any chatter. This is the first time I’ve ever noticed this happen before.

I decided to change position and crossed the street to try to get a better shot of it coming around the first bend. I would have stayed there to try to get a shot of him on the S but this time he was coming up the hill at a much faster pace then before and I had another position I wanted to try.

At the third position I was just shy of eye level with the engineer. I probably should have stood a bit further back to get a bit more angle and get a little more of 1567’s side. What can I say, I’m still pretty new at this. I also grabbed a few shots of a couple crewmen standing on the back deck of the caboose.

At about 3:45, they finally returned and I grabbed a couple shot from my desk of the cars they parked just before 19^th Street. This is the first time I’ve ever noticed this as well. If you look to the right, the rugged sillouette in the background is the Rocky Mountains and to the left part of Calgary’s downtown’s core.

Google Earth kmz file.

Cheers,