CP 2816, Lethbridge To Calgary - The Chase Part 3

This is Part 3 of 3 and the final chapter of my chase of 2816 from Lethbridge to Calgary. If you wish to follow my adventure along in Google Earth to see my stops and travels, here is the part 3 kmz file for download.

October 09, 2008

I drove into Calgary on Highway 2, which turns into Deerfoot Trail within the city limits. When I arrived in Calgary, I headed for the wye near Alyth just off of Blackfoot Trail as I knew it would be coming from the McLeod Sub and head straight into downtown. It was just after 14:00 when I left Okotoks, and it only took me 40 minutes to get to where I wanted to be. I knew that I didn't want to go downtown as I would have to deal with rush hour traffic later on. About an hour later at 15:40, 2816 came rolling by on through the north leg of the wye.

After she went by, I got to talking with another guy who was there watching. He was trying to explain to me a good spot along the tracks to watch 2816 go into Ogden Yard. I had confused myself with another location near by. He graciously drove me to the location as I was following in my own car and pointed it out to me. It happened to be an old level crossing that had been blocked. to tell you the truth I never gave it a second thought before this. Fortunately the trek was not too far out of his way, and I thanked him for showing this new discovery to me. I will have to make use of this location more often in the future.

When I pulled up there happen to be another railfan there that I knew from hanging around Alyth Yard and another drove up not too long afterward. As we waited, there were several trains that went by. The first was a four engine mixed freight with a "red barn" as part of the power went by at 16:36. The power were all GMD being SD40 CP 5527, SD40-2F CP 9016, GP38-2 CP 3130 and GP38-2 CP 3030.

Shortly after at 16:45, a Railpower Genset or "Green Goat" teamed with another CP unit made an appearance and did some shunting into the Ogden Yard. The power units were RPRX 5407 and GP9 CP 1638.

More information on the Railpower unit can be found on Genset Locomotive Rosters.

A few minutes later, 16:57, a grain train rolled by heading into Alyth. The power was CP 9666, CP 9754 and CP 8642 pushing. All three locomotives are AC4400CW's.

Finally at 17:29, CPR 2816 made an appearance coming around the bend in reverse giving us a picture opportunity of Cedar Rapids and the Superdome.

She would go down a bit further and then switch onto the middle track.

Then she came back up and past the bend and switch to the far track to get to the switch leading into Ogden Shops Yard.

As 2816 was up past the bend, another unit in the tuscan paint theme made an appearance at about 17:40 with two other regular CP locomotives for power. They were pulling several auto racks into Alyth. The power was a GP38-2 CP 3084, a GP35 CP 1125 and a GP38-2 CP 3035.

I did manage to catch a few shot of 2816 going by from between two auto racks.

After that I whipped over to the other side of Ogden Shops Yard to grab a few more shots. While I was in the area, I figured I try and snoop around a bit to see if I could find something interesting amongst everything else on the tracks. I did manage to snap some pictures of a unit hiding behind some trailers. The number appears to be 7009 and later found it to be a Fairbanks-Morse H-16-66 locomotive in the tuscan paint theme. There Really are not very many of these left around. I found the information on North East Rails. If anyone can provide more information on this locomotive, I would appreciate it. I also took a picture of a trailer painted in tuscan.

After grabbing a few last shots of 2816 getting ready for hibernation, I headed to my watering hole for cold beer.

Soon after these last few shots, my batteries died. The one sort of good battery lasted a great deal of time considering I would turn off my camera after almost every shot. Also earlier in the morning when it was pretty cold, I would take it out and put it my pocket to warm up. One thing I learned is that next time I will make sure that my batteries are fully charged. Other than that I had pretty well prepared for the trip the day before. Besides the batteries, all in all the trip was a good one and pretty enjoyable. I really enjoyed my little adventure and look forward to doing this again in the future.

This is the end of part 3 of the chase and I hope that you have enjoyed the adventure. I do apologize for the long spread between postings of this adventure, but sometimes life gets in the way.

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,