Some New CNery

If you wish to follow along in Google Earth to see my stops and travels, here is the kmz file for download.

April 2nd, 2010

After having spent an hour around Alyth, I headed to CN’s Sarcee Yard up oon 50th Ave to follow up on a sighting tip. While I was at Alyth, a few other railfans had showed up and told me that there were a couple nice new and clean SD70’s and a couple dirty ones.

I parked in a corner of the Esso Truck Stop parking lot and couldn’t have timed it better. As I was parking the car, the 50th Ave crossing signals were already flashing. Coming from the north were three locos and and string of about 20 rail cars. Leading was 8867 with 8885 and 7078 close behind, two SD70M-2’s and a GP9.

I found it pretty odd that three locomotives were used to pull some 20 cars. A multitude of scenarios ran through my head as to why, and the best I could think of was they arrived with a much longer train and performed a few switching manoeuvres before the end of the shift.

As they went by, I snapped a few shots of the stacked containers, you know, for modeling purposes.

They pulled up past me to clear the second switch down leading into the yard for which they were blocking traffic on Barlow Trail. Once the switch was thrown, they proceeded to back into the yard. I assumed that they were dropping the string at the intermodal part of the yard since they were pulling a few stacks.

I decided to change location and a place to park somewhere closer to the other locomotives I had seen further into SarceeYard when I first arrived. So I ended up parking in a driveway on 3oth street and walk down from there. Sitting there on the tracks were a GP9 and two SD70M-2’s numbered 7077, 8890 and 8912 respectively. The SD70’s were so clean and shiny. The sign of use was a bit of dirtiness on 8890’s rear nose.

Of all the more recent locomotives from the past decade, i have to say that the SD70's are one of my favorites. To be more specific, those with the newer style nose, the SD70ACE and SD70M-2.

A few minutes later the loco trio that I saw when I first arrived pulled up on the far track and sat idling. At that point, I figured that the action was done and I had seen what I wanted to see, so I headed straight to my usual watering hole for a satisfying cold one to end a satisfying afternoon of railfaning.

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,