Dust On The Tracks. .East Of The Rockies

2816 Shakedown Trip To Carseland - Part 1

2011-06-03T21:39:00.003-06:00

If you wish to follow along in Google Earth, here is the kmz file for download.

May 13th, 2011

Sleep was restless!

May 14th, 2011

I arrived at the Canadian Pacific Railway Pavilion at 09:55 on the corner of 9th Ave and 1st Street SW. When I entered, I was greeted by two CP employees who directed me to walk up the main corridor. I have viewed this building only from the outside on numerous occasions in the past, but this day I would excitedly view the pavilion from the inside.

The interior of the pavilion’s main hall section was more spacious than I had expected. There is also a long portion of the building that is not viewable from the street but can be seen from the parkade where I parked my car. Yes, I parked on the top most level to view it from above, but was in a rush and did not take a picture.

The interior is all exposed structural steel construction with an aluminum curtain wall façade and dome in the main area. All the design specific structural steel and curtain wall mullions are painted black with a few gold accented decorative elements. Most of all other building elements are painted with flat off white which blends nicely in the background as to not detract your eye from the main elements of focus being the structural steel.

The design of the steel work in the pavilion is reminiscent of early train stations and gives you a feeling of being there back in time. This is especially noticeable when looking down the pavilion platform with the early CP coaches and business cars to each side of the central walk giving you a feeling of being on the platform boarding a train to a destination left to the imagination.

Here is the roster of all the coaches and business cars that were in the pavilion.

LEFT PAVILION TRACK
NO.	NAME	TYPE	BUILDER	DATE	NOTES
74	Mount Stephen	Business	CP	12/1926	other notes can be found in the Canadian Trackside Guide
85	Craigellachie	Dining Car	CC&F/CP	08/1931
78	Royal Wentworth	Business	CP	08/1926
77	Van Horne	Business	CP	05/1927
82	Strathcona	Business	CP	11/1927

RIGHT PAVILION TRACK
NO.	NAME	TYPE	BUILDER	DATE	NOTES
79	N.R. Crump	Stateroom	CC&F/CP	10/1930	other notes can be found in the Canadian Trackside Guide
84	Banffshire	Stateroom	NSC/CP	09/1926
71	Killarney	Business	Pullman	??/1916
73	Mount Royal	Business	CP	10/1927
95	unamed	Generator/Baggage	CC&F	11/1952

We boarded the train at 10:55 and after backing up and switching over to the main line, we were heading east.

The unfortunate part of the trip is that I never took one shot of the interiors of the coaches and others cars. My head really was not on straight that day and I really kick myself in the butt for that. Hopefully another opportunity will present itself in the future.

On our way out of the downtown core, I took a few pictures of the shoo-fly over 4th Steet SE. CP has relocated the yard that was here to just off the Manchester lead on the southbound line from the wye at 12th Street Tower. I will post more on this in a future post. Two of the lines have now been re-routed back to their original location which we were on one of them.

I attempted to catch 2816 on the curve coming out of the Depot from the downtown core, crossing the Elbow River and also crossing 8th Street SE. As you can see I have an issue with holding my camera straight when hanging out of the baggage car doors. My timing was also a bit late shooting the photo. We were now heading into Alyth Yard.

There were quite a few things to see once we were in Alyth Yard and viewing from the train gave an interesting perspective that one does not get to see very often if at all.

First up was one of the wye leads coming from the Manchester Lead on the south line heading to the Depot and west to BC. The building to the left in the first photo is called LocalMotive. It is an office building with several tenants and it was one of the design projects done by the firm I work with. The second photo is of the other wye lead coming from the Manchester Lead on the south line heading into and through Alyth eventually heading east. In the second photo, you can just see the 12th Street Tower on the far right. In the distance you can see the Calgary Tower in the left center and the new Bow Tower still under construction in the right center.

Next we came up to a trackside industry called Canada Malting. They produce, well simply put, malt for alcoholic beverages. You can see in the second photo that the facility is fairly large with several silos on one side and several large malt producing buildings on the other side. If anyone reading is a model railroader, this could be a good industry to model on a home layout if you have the room. I again show off my superior camera horizontalness holding abilities in the first photo. I guess the fact that I’m rocking back and forth in the baggage/observation car doesn’t help either.

The next industry we rolled past was ADM Milling which is not as large a facility as Canada Malting but still large enough. ADM produces wide variety of products from baking goods to confectionery ingredients to nutritional ingredients for snack foods. Again this could be a good industry to model on a home model railroad layout.

After the ADM facility rolled by I moved over to the other side of the baggage/observation car to see how the view was looking into Alyth Yard. Thankfully it was pretty open near the Pulldown Tower after we cleared a mixed freight train. It was interesting to see the innards of the yard or at least in part.

In the first photo below, you can see the mixed freight train that we cleared and what appears to be some kind of runaway train prevention system in yellow on the rails which I noticed on several tracks. The second photo shows the Pulldown Tower, the end of P yard, the end V yard and the end of the classification yard in the distance. Further back is N yard but it is not visible from this far back. In the last two photos you can see three SD40-2’s which consist of a former SOO locomotive 6609 to the left, 5731 and 5795 and to the right of them, CEFX 1039 which is an AC4400. You can barely make out the tracks of the Class Yard in the third photo beyond the old baggage car. I was not able to get any reporting marks for it. Between the baggage car and the white CP truck is V Yard and P Yard in the foreground which we were coming out of on P1 track I believe.

Something to note that is not seen in the above photos, there is a small yard with four or five tracks behind the Pulldown Tower which is mainly used to interchange with CN. The intermodal train that was behind the tanker train, on the far track in front of the Pulldown Tower, was coming in off of the wye from the north on the Red Deer Sub and running through Alyth and heading east. Those particular tracks are often used for this purpose.

If I remember correctly, the tank car train in front of the intermodal train had just pulled out of the Class Yard with two SD40-2’s pulling, 6002 and newly painted 6610 which is a former SOO unit. I think both trains were waiting for us to pull out of the yard.

In the first photo below, the bridge that is barely visible in the background from between the containers is on the interchange line connecting CN’s Sarcee Yard to CP’s Alyth Yard. CP also uses the line to service clients up in the Foothills Industrial area. The two lead units on the intermodal train were two SD90MACs numbered 9145 and 9104 at the front.

At that point we were just around the bend from Ogden Shops Yard, but you will have to read about it in part two!

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,

New Book To Buy: Trackside With VIA

2011-06-02T20:59:00.001-06:00

There is a new VIA Rail book available for purchase to one and all! The book is titled Trackside With VIA: The First 35 Years and it is self-published by Eric Gagnon. If you wish to purchase a copy of the book, the price of this White & Yellow gem is $25 CDN and ships free within Canada. Just print a copy of this Order Form, fill it out and drop it in the mail.

Mine is happily on its way to me! Get yours Today!

Eric is also the author an outstanding blog called Trackside Treasure where you can find a plethora of information and pictures from last few decades up to today.

Cheers,

2816 Shakedown Ride

2011-05-13T23:10:00.000-06:00

Unfortunately, it appears that I will not be chasing 2816 on her shakedown run to Carseland and back to Calgary. I will however be going along for the ride! A friend of mine asked if I wanted to join him as he is allowed to bring along a guest...

...I did not refuse.

In the words of Balki Bartokomous:
"Now we are so happy, we do the Dance of Joy! HEY! Dia, dia, dia, dia, da-dia, da-da-da-dia! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!"

Cheers,

2816 Shakedown Run

2011-05-06T23:43:00.001-06:00

Two little birdies told me that CPR's 2816 steam train will be coming out for a shakedown run on May the 14th. She will leave the CPR Pavilion in downtown Calgary at about 11:00 and will most likely make her way to Carseland and back to Calgary after turning around on the wye. I'm not 100% on the trip destination but it is the most logical.

That is the word so far!

Cheers,

C46, The Only Train On The Brooks Sub

2011-03-04T19:13:00.004-07:00

If you wish to follow along in Google Earth, here is the kmz file for download.

June 25th, 2010

Back in June, the model railroad group I’m with was thinking of making an appearance at an event in Carseland. I figured I would head out there early to do a bit of railfaning there. Unfortunately we were not able to attend the event due to various reasons. Unfortunately I had not read my emails for a bit as I was busy with other things so I unfortunately did not get the memo saying that we were not attending. I was out there…alone…quite literally as matter of fact.

After I found out via a reply to my questioning email to another group member on my Blackberry, I figured I might as well continue railfaning while I was there. Unfortunately I did not have my scanner so I could not get advanced notice of arriving trains. So I sat there in the heat waiting and waiting for the trains that would not come.

I also unfortunately failed to remember that there was no traffic on the Brooks Sub due to washouts and floods near Medicine Hat. So unfortunately there would be no through traffic on the Brooks Sub. At that point I decided to leave.

Unfortunateness is unfortunately unfortunate. Holy Shitballs Batman, say that three times fast!

Instead of following Highway 24 North, I continued West onto Township Road 221. A bit of fortune was with me this time. I could see the local switcher, train C46 which runs out of Alyth, on the West Carseland Spur switching cars for the Orica and Agrium plants which I posted about these two industries previously. The locomotive used this time to do the switching was 8886, an ES44AC.

After a few minutes of switching it headed into the Agrium plant. It was coupled to five covered hoppers with a bulkhead flat car on the tail end.

The first three covered hoppers marked JTSX are apparently owned by David J. Joseph Company (DJJ). They are in the metal, alloys and scrap metal recycling brokering business. Among their various services, they happen to own and manage a private fleet of open gondola railcars and operate a rail equipment leasing group with bulkhead flat cars, covered hoppers, aggregate hoppers, flat bottom gondolas and mill gondolas. Almost forgot to mention that they do railcar scraping and railcar parts reclamation as well.

RAILROAD	REPORTING MARK	TYPE
DJJ	JTSX 55373	Covered Hopper
DJJ	JTSX 46152	Covered Hopper
DJJ	JTSX 130753	Covered Hopper
ACF Leasing	ACFX 59197	Covered Hopper
PLM International	PLMX 129090	Covered Hopper
CN	CN 22341	Bulkhead Flat

After they pulled into Agrium they sat there for about 15 minutes, so I decided to resume my travels into Calgary to Alyth to see the new yard that CP built. That is another story.

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,

Haircut and Trains

2011-02-18T20:07:00.179-07:00

If you wish to follow along in Google Earth, here is the kmz file for download.

February 5th, 2011

I usually try to book my bi-annual haircut on a Friday after work as it is only ten minutes from the office, but this time I had to settle for Saturday. This meant having to make an unplanned trip into Calgary, but I would also do some unplanned railfaning. I was already close to being late so that meant no time to stop and take of any train I came across on the way.

As luck would have it, I did see three trains on the way and did manage to take notes of what I saw on the way in. First, there was a mixed freight train leaving Aldersyde heading south. Once in Calgary, there was a grain train waiting on the tracks at Zoo waiting to get into Alyth and further up at Beddington there was a mixed freight train leaving Calgary. The Zoo and Beddington stations are on the Red Deer Subdivision at Mile 1.3 and Mile 8.3 respectively.

I did manage to arrive on time with 5 minutes to spare. After the ritual chopping was done, I decided at the “spur” of the moment to head to Country Hills Boulevard. I don’t know why I decided this because I was not familiar with the area at all; I only knew that it crossed over the tracks at some point. As I drove over and past the tracks, I looked south to see if there were any trains around and there was. I drove on and turned around a couple intersections further down.

The gamble had paid off!

On my way back, there was a mixed freight and intermodal train pulling up northbound at a slow pace on the north side of Country Hills. On the south there was a cut of tank cars. Just when it seemed like I missed the train, it stopped and went into reverse very slowly. I spied a street on the west side of the tracks that looked like there would be a good vantage point to setup my mobile observational headquarters and headed in the direction trying not to violate any forward momentum crippling obstacles, at least not by much.

I ended up on Covington Road which runs parallel to the tracks for a bit and is also fairly elevated. There is also sufficient place to park the car on the side of the road and also plenty of space for one to setup a train observation post. I chose my spot, turned on the scanner, and snapped a few shots of the train backing up under the overpass at about 12:20 and then waited. Locos on this train were 9528 and 8536 both AC4400’s.

In a previous post I mentioned that the trucks could be used as an identifier between the AC4400 and the ES44AC locomotives. I don’t know exactly why I said this, maybe because the photos that I referenced in my library showed it to be so. As you can see in the image below, these two AC4400’s use the two different truck types.

Finally at about 12:45 the voices on the scanner indicated that they were ready to head out. They received their instructions to advance to Harmatton at Mile 48.5 on the Red Deer Sub, wait for another train and restore switch positions when arriving and leaving. I was able to count 120 cars on this train plus 2 locomotives. It is unfortunate that weather conditions were not so good, there was blowing snow and it made the photos a tad blurry and hazy. In the last photo you can barely see the locomotives passing under Stoney Trail which is part of the new ring road.

After that I scouted out a few of the other side roads then figured I should head down to Alyth and see what was happening there.

When I pulled in to my usual look out spot at about 14:20, there was a grain train pulling in but in reverse. They backed in to track P3 and the crew disembarked. This could have been the train I saw earlier in the day, come in off the wye from the Red Deer Sub, back in and be ready to head out either west or south. The Locomotives on this train were CP 8855 and CEFX 1035, an ES44AC and an AC4400.

Here are a few shots of some of the more interesting hoppers on this train, in no particular order.

A few minutes after the crew drove away a trio pulled up on P2 and slowed down beside 8855. The three were CP 8709, CEFX 1023 and SOO 6057, an ES44AC, AC4400 and a SD60. They pulled up and headed around the wye to come back in on one of the far tracks and headed out of sight behind the grain train lead by 8855.

Sitting on the far siding were a few locomotives. The first three coupled together were 3035, 1125 and 8205, a GP38-2, GP35 and a GP9 respectively. 8205 is a former StL&H locomotive.

Here is a bit of interesting information about 3035 and 1125, they are is referred to as mother and daughter mated. 1125 is a control cab slug with its engine removed and replaced with ballast. Power for its traction motors come from 3035. The cab is also fully functional for control purposes.

Also back there coupled together were 1641, 1154, and 401034, a GP9, SW1200RS and a snowplow. 1154 is a control cab similar to 1125 but it is not permanently mated to another locomotive. This trio has been hanging around for at least two weeks now.

Behind them were 3069, GP38-2, and another locomotive which I could not get the number of but it was a GP9. You can see the top of its cab behind 1154 in the picture above.

A few minutes went by and the snow started blowing in and then at 15:05 a pair of CP locomotives types that I have not seen run in a while came out from somewhere near the diesel shops. They were a couple SD90MAC’s.

They disappeared just as quickly as they appeared.

As they were retreating, the hump was pulling out with 6611 and 6614 both form SOO SD40-2’s.

I took a couple shots of some hoppers and of a really weathered tank car in the hump.

After that I headed straight for home as the weather was turning bad with cold and blowing snow.

Here is a listing of the trains I saw that day.

TIME	TYPE	LENGTH	DIRECTION	STATION/LOCATION
10:45	mixed freight	N/A	southbound	leaving Aldersyde
11:10	grain	N/A	southbound	Zoo into Alyth
11:20	mixed freight	N/A	northbound	Beddington
12:50	mixed freight/intermodal	120 cars	northbound	Beddington
14:25	grain	N/A	northbound	Alyth
15:00	hump	N/A	pull out	Alyth

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,

Snowplow and Spreader Info update

2011-02-15T21:12:00.001-07:00

February 15th, 2011

After a comment left on my Snowplow, Spreader, SOO post by Steve Boyko from the blog Confessions of a Train Geek, I figured I should take a peek in my 2007 Trackside Guide and see what info there is in there about these two pieces of equipment. This is something I should have done in the first place. Oh well, better late than never I guess!

According to the guide, CP snowplow 401034 is a single track plow with wings and was built in November 1950 at CP Angus Shops in Montreal. Apparently all CP snowplows were built there. It was assigned to duty in Revelstoke.

The CP spreader 402853 was built in February 1928 by O.F. Jordan Company with Serial Number 698. It was built as a standard air-operated spreader type B for Ballast Spreader. The guide also says that it is assigned to Alyth(stored). It was numbered 406253 until 1930.

the CP snowplow 401022 that was to be sold for scrap/surplus on CP's website, it was built in October 1930 as a single track plow with wings. It was assigned to duty in Red Deer.Here is a link to the auction page. I can not guarantee how much longer it will be active.

Cheers,

Snowplow, Spreader, SOO

2011-02-04T19:53:00.002-07:00

January 28th, 2011

That Friday after work on my way to my watering hole, I spotted something of interest in the yard at Alyth so I decided to stop to check it out. It was a CP snowplow and spreader.

The light was not good, so the pictures are a bit blurred and I tried to compensate as much as possible without increasing my ISO too high to prevent any graininess.

When I arrived at my observational headquarters, the hump was just pushing past my objective. On the hump were 6611 and 6614, both were SD40-2’s and both former SOO locomotives having retained their numbers when repainted with CP colours.

On the far siding were a few items of interest, some more than others.

For beginners, idling on the siding were SOO 6617 and CP 6609 which is a former SOO loco. Both are SD40-2’s and both were coupled together.

Next in line was bulkhead flat car number CP 421202 that was coupled to the nose of 1641 which is a GP9. Coupled on the back of 1641 was a GMD SW1200RS numbered 1154.

After that were the most interesting items there that evening, a snowplow and a spreader. The snowplow is numbered CP 401034. After seeing an identical snowplow, CP 401022, on CP’s website that was dated 1930 and being sold as scrap, I’m assuming that this one is also 1930’ish. The spreader was number 402853 and the interesting part about it was that there was no cab on it.

After that the light was quite insufficient for anymore pictures, so I headed towards my favourite watering hole for some prime rib, a cold beer, some pool and random chit chat with friends.

Cheers,

CAT Heavy Equipment At Alderside

2011-01-29T04:22:00.000-07:00

January 15th, 2011

On the afternoon of the 15th, I was heading out to visit some family in Turner Valley. As I was driving down highway 2A, I was scanning the horizon to the east as I usually do when I drive that stretch. The MacLeod Sub parallels the highway down into and past High River to almost Azure, but CP only runs regularly up to the Cargill plant to do some switching. When I got near Aldersyde, something caught my eye immediately and it suddenly occurred to me that I had left my camera at home.

What I saw was 13 flat decks with some heavy equipment on them. There really was no point in stopping as I had nothing to view them with from a distance. So I figured I would grab a few shot on the following day and on my way home that night I made sure that they were still there. I was happy to see the silhouettes barely visible in the moonlight indicating that they had not moved.

January 16th, 2011

A bit after lunch time, I headed out to Aldersyde to see if I could get a few snap shots of the CAT equipment. So I went straight to the grade crossing at Aldersyde took a picture of 5954, an SD40-2, sitting on the storage track idling. The bad thing about it being winter with lots of snow around this area, you can’t just walk out into the field to get a half decent shot. Oh well, just have to wait until summer for the "half decent shot" season.

I then headed back to the highway and take some shots of the CAT equipment from there. Thank heavens for a 300mm zoom lens. I was able to get some decent shot and was also able to read some of the reporting marks and equipment model numbers. I would have to come back another day to try and get the reporting marks that I could not see. There were a total of 13 flat cars with various pieces of equipment.

I also took a few overall shots, but didn’t hang around too long as it was cold with a good wind chill. I was out there for about 3 minutes and my hands and face were frozen.

January 18th, 2011

The evening of the 18th, while on my way home from work, I was driving down Highway 2 and noticed the headlights of a train at Aldersyde. I had to drive all the way down to the Mazeppa turn off to turn around. When I finally got to the grade crossing CP 5954 and CP 9547, an AC4400, were shunting some of the hopper and tankers. As they were doing so, some of the flat decks went by and I quickly wrote down reporting marks, but still was not able to get all of the ones I was missing.

One flat deck with an interesting reporting mark did catch my eye. It was TZPR 300004.

After they pushed the flat decks back into the storage siding, they headed to the Cargill plant with several cars to do some shunting there. I headed home as it was dark and I was hungry.

January 20th, 2011

On the way home from work the evening of the 20th, I stopped by Aldersyde to see what was happening. This time I remembered to bring my scanner with me. It was dark and 5954 and her crew were nowhere in sight. I could hear a bit of crackle on the scanner which meant that they were already down by the Cargill plant. As for the CAT equipment, all I could see were some silhouettes on a siding on the east side of the mainline. It seemed as though they were on a downhill siding that I did not realize was still there. I wondered if that was where the equipment was to be unloaded.

January 22nd, 2011

Late that afternoon, I headed out to see if the flat decks were still around which they were but without their loads. I pulled out my note book and looked at my notes to see which flat decks I was missing numbers for. Two were missing numbers and two were missing a single digit. So I pulled out my camera, zoomed in and with the process of elimination was able to complete the inventory chart listed below.

RAILROAD	REPORTING MARK	LOAD
TTX	HTTX 93504	336D EXCAVATOR
TTX	HTTX 93862	345D EXCAVATOR
TTX	HTTX 93156	336D EXCAVATOR & 938H LOADER
TTX	HTTX 93035	938H LOADER & 336D EXCAVATOR
TAZEWELL & PEORIA	TZPR 300004	336D EXCAVATOR & 336D EXCAVATOR
TAZEWELL & PEORIA	TZPR 300030	336D EXCAVATOR & 336D EXCAVATOR
TTX	HTTX 97440	627G SCRAPER
TTX	HTTX 97461	627G SCRAPER
TTX	TTHX 97159	D9T DOZER
TTX	TTHX 92698	D9T DOZER
TTX	TTHX 97190	D9T DOZER
TTX	TTHX 98223	D6T DOZER
TTX	TTHX 92584	D9T DOZER

Here are some pictures of the flat decks I was missing the reporting marks for and another shot of 5954.

All but two of the flat decks were TTX owned. The reporting marks for six of them started with HTTX and the other five started with TTHX. With a little bit of research, I found the differences between the two flat deck types although they generally serve the same purpose.

The HTTX flat decks are “equipped with 38 heavy duty chains, with snubbers and turnbuckles, each secured to movable and retractable tie-down winches in 4 longitudinal channels, for transporting large earth moving equipment” and the TTHX flat decks are “equipped with heavy duty chains anchored to removable stake pocket castings. When tie-downs are removed, car becomes same as 60' car stencilled MTTX".

I quoted these explanations from a website that I recently found called Canadian Freight Cars and it has pretty extensive listings for CNR, CPR, Canadian, Private and Other. I found the definitions for the HTTX and TTHX flat decks in the "Other" category. There is a ton of information to be found on this site.

Another website that I refer to quite frequently to identify freight cars is called Canadian Freight Car Gallery. I like this database because there is a Reporting Marks Index which is very useful if you do not know who owns the freight car. After you find the reporting mark you are looking for, it brings you to another listing of freight cars for that reporting mark. Each listing here brings you to a page with a photo and other relevant info about that particular freight car such as manufacturer, year built and also the photographer, location spotted and date spotted.

The other two lat decks that are identified with the TZPR marks are from the Tazewell and Peoria Railroad which is a shortline that runs about 24 miles of track in Peoria County and Tazewell County in Illinois. It was acquired by Genesee & Wyoming Inc. in 2004. There is some information that can be found on their website and there is also a short blurb on Wikipedia.

Cheers,

Macleod Sub Auto Rack Storage - Part 3

2011-01-22T13:07:00.004-07:00

If you wish to follow along in Google Earth, here is the kmz file for download.

September 6th, 2010

This is the conclusion of the three part series of the Macleod Sub Auto Rack Storage. In part 2, I posted about the first 27 auto racks that were stored on the MacLeod Subdivision. Unfortunately for part 3, I am only able to show pictures and complete info for 2 auto racks and road names for most of the remaining 12 cars.

Back in September I was attacked by a hawk which prevented me from photographing the last few auto racks of the 39 in the second block. My intention was to wait until the first weekend of November. I figured that the hawk would be gone by then. I also wanted to get back out there to finish the job before the first snow fall, but a combination of time, work and scheduling did not permit this to happen. I had driven by a couple times after work to make sure that they were still there and figured I could knock off the last few over the Christmas holidays regardless of snow or not.

I drove out there late afternoon one day after Christmas to check the conditions and snow build up, but as I came over the hill they were all gone. I was not overly thrilled at this discovery. All the signs indicated that they were moved sometime in December when the snow was on the ground and probably not too long before the holidays at that.

It’s too bad that I did not get to finish this “inventory” as it was kind of fun to do. I had also intended to do the same to a few blocks of coal hoppers other rail cars that were stored on the Lomond Spur out by Herronton, but they were all taken away back in late September.

Here is the partially completed list of what the last few auto racks.

RAILROAD	REPORTING MARK	TYPE
BNSF	TTGX 997504	Bi-Level
NS	NS 110274	Bi-Level
FERROMEX	TTGX ?	Bi-Level
NS	TTGX ?	Bi-Level
CONRAIL	TTGX ?	Bi-Level
?	TTGX ?	Bi-Level
NS	TTGX ?	Bi-Level
?	TTGX ?	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX ?	Bi-Level
CSX	TTGX ?	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX ?	Bi-Level
CSX	TTGX ?	Bi-Level

Here are the last two pictures that I have of the auto racks that were stored on the MacLeod Sub. The Norfolk Southern car is a bi-level articulated AutoMax carrier. That was the first time I ever saw one in real life.

As a final thought, the next time I set out to do something like this I'll think back to this experience and finish the job as quickly as possible.

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,

An Hour At Alyth

2011-01-14T20:16:00.055-07:00

If you wish to follow along in Google Earth, here is the kmz file for download.

April 2nd, 2010

One Sunday back in April, I was observing some action at Alyth at my usual location. I was only there for about an hour, but did manage to see the hump backing in, one train arriving from Edmonton, two trains leaving Calgary heading west, and a few locos hanging around.

I arrived at around 16:30 and as I was arriving, the Hump in the process of pushing a train over the hump into the classification tracks. Someday I would like to be able to see a hump operation in action, but I know that my chances are very slim. The lead on the hump was 6612 with 5795 both SD40-2's. An interesting bit of info is that 6612 use to be a former SOO locomotive.

As the hump was pushing in, a train lead by 9635 started pulling out heading west. There were a few auto racks at the front and the remainder of the train was intermodal. About halfway through was 9540 and that was all for locomotives on this train. It wasn't an overly long train which would explain only two locos. I would assume that the train would probably pickup another locomotive or two somewhere along the way before they reached the spirals at Field in British Columbia. Both locomotive were AC4400's.

After it had gone by, I spotted a familiar paint scheme. Over by the diesel shops were FP9A's 4107 & 4106 and F9B 1900. 4106 & 4107 are the main power for the Royal Canadian Pacific passenger train. Also by the shops were CEFX 1050, CP 9753 and CP 8275, two AC4400's and a GP9. And further into the yard you could see the hump still working and another set of SD40's waiting, but they never came out while I was around and was not able to identify road numbers. Notice the blue sign indicating that track P$ if closed as there are people either inspecting or working on some of those tankers, or some other reason.

From out nowhere a team of locomotives, 8646 and 8837, in reverse were on the track heading into the wye and more than likely to turn around to latch up to a westbound train. Here is an opportunity to identify the differences between an AC4400 and an ES44AC locomotive as the two look very similar. If you look at the second picture, there are two major differences between the two locomotives. The first is the trucks and the second is the radiator hood. You can also notice the rear headlight is a single on 8646 and double on 8837, but this may not be for all railroads as some have their own preferences for headlights. There may be a few other subtle differences, but the trucks and the radiator are the two visibly major ones.

Sitting there all alone on one of the far tracks was an Alberta grain hopper number ALPX 628373 with the "Take an Alberta Break...visit Medicine Hat" slogan. It must have been a bad order or something. You can find a fairly extensive list of all the Alberta grain hopper at Barraclou.com

About ten minutes later, a container train came in off of the wye from the north. A couple AC4400's, CEFX 1047 and CP 8604, were in the lead of this one.

I took several shots of some of the containers as well for modeling references.

After quite a few well cars there were a few box cars and hoppers and a block tankers of which I also photographed for modeling references.

As the train was going by, 8646 and 8837 showed up reversing to somewhere in the yard out of sight.

About another ten minutes later, another train was leaving the yard heading west with 8834 and 8606 pulling, and 8524 at some point in the middle. This train was all intermodal. As the train was pulling out, a couple other railfans showed and we chatted for a bit.

On one of the maintenance tracks on the far side, there were 6 locomotives that had been sitting there since my arrival. They were 5793, 3110, 3084, 9779, StL&H 1625, and 1696. Their types were SD40-2, GP38-2, AC4400, GP9 and GP9. Steve Boyko from the blog Confessions of a Train Geek saw 1625 in Winnipeg at the diesel shop there and posted a picture on his blog. He updates his blog frequently, so there is no shortage of good info to read and videos to watch.

As I chatted with the other railfans, they mentioned that there was a KCS unit around the back side of the diesel shops. They said that there were a couple clean SD70's at Sarcee Yard. I said my goodbyes and headed out to see if I could find the KCS unit.

When I did find the KCS locomotive, I couldn't get a really clear view of it. The three pictures below are the best I could get. KCS 2500 is a GP40.

Apparently KCS 2500 was on loan to CP as a test unit. It and 27 other SD40's and GP40's were converted to SD22ECO Locomotives and refitted with the 710ECO diesel engine. The EMD 710 engine was used for its "record of reliability and service ability in rugged locomotive applications" as is stated in a KCS news release. You can read details on the KCS website.

After that I headed up to CN's Sarcee Yard for Some New CNery to spot those SD70's.

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,

Some New CNery

2011-01-09T09:23:00.010-07:00

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,

Lunch Time Track Work

2011-01-03T08:48:00.013-07:00

October 5th, 2010

I decided to head down to Alyth Yard at lunch to see what was going on for train traffic. When I got there, there was no hump and no waiting trains. There was however a track maintenance crew working on the ballast down from the 12th Street Tower. I pulled out my camera and started shooting.

There was no action coming from the tamper so I turned to the ballast regulator who was spreading and, well, obviously regulating newly dumped ballast. Those suckers sure make a hell of a lot of noise. The attachment on the front is basically used to spread the ballast. Inside are many long rubber rods, I think they are rubber, that are attached to a spinning shaft. And as you can see in the second picture, rocks bounce around as it was spreading the ballast more evenly for the tamper. In the third picture the driver is making use of one of the “wing” plows to spread ballast.

Further up past 12th Street Tower were 3 ballast dumpers. I couldn’t get the complete reporting marks for all three, but the first one is CP 455162, the second is CP 4553## and the third is CP 455###.

These two pictures show the difference in the newer ballast and the existing lighter ballast.

The ballast regulator had stopped what it was doing for a few minutes and I saw that the tamper revved up and started moving towards me, so I walked down to meet up with it. In the background of the first picture, the two guys standing are the surveyors. One is behind the tamper’s laser levelling equipment and is holding the receiver of an RTK GPS surveying system. The little white space ship above his head is the GPS receiver mounted on a surveying rod. The control pad is out of sight. In picture two, the tamper is about to vibrate the ballast into place at one of the many switches in Alyth Yard. In the last picture the rods are still vibrating as they are pulled out and lowered a second time.

Shortly after that, an intermodal train came through from BC heading to the Sheppard Intermodal facility. In the lead was CP 8873 followed by CP 9732, an ES44AC and AC4400 respectively. Bringing up the rear was CP 8517 which was an AC4400.

I took several shots of some of the containers and also a few of some of the couplers as they flew by. The last two pictures of the couplers are interesting. They are used to keep sets of three well cars always coupled together. I knew they existed but never really noticed them before or ever thought of looking for those particular types of well cars. That is until I bought a set of Walthers 3 unit CP well cars when I was attending the Edmonton model train in September with my model railroad group.

As the train was going by, one of the supervisors that was talking with the tamper crew, walked over to me and said that rail traffic was really busy that day. Before he could escape me I took the opportunity to ask what exactly they were doing. He told me that they were doing preventative maintenance before winter on the track ballast and raising it up by 6 inches to raise the switches out of the “holes” or the low areas. This is so water does not collect and freeze at the switch leads and operators. As some may know, because of the chinooks, Calgary goes through some pretty drastic freeze-thaw cycles, sometimes a couple in the matter of a few hours. Temperatures can below 0 Celsius in the morning, 15 Celsius in the afternoon and back to below 0 again. After the ballast work is done, a surveying crew surveys the rails to make sure that the rails are at the right elevations.

I then asked him why the ballast was a different colour that the current ballast and where did it come from. He explained to me that with all the derailments and washouts that apparently there is a serious shortage of ballast, so the ballast that they were using that day was recycled ballast. It was just dirty from being dug up and would wash off after a couple rainfalls. As they dig up old ballast from removing unused switches and abandoned lines, they run it through sifters to remove the small unwanted rock, then ship it to where it is needed. By that time the train had gone by and he then indicated that he had to go check up on the other crew.

There were two locations that came to mind immediately as to where that ballast probably came from and both are on the MacLeod Subdivision. Some of it is probably from near the Azure grain elevator where they’ve removed the rail ties and dug up the ballast. This happened sometime between May 2010 and September 2010. The other location I’m thinking about is further south on Highway 2 near Nolan. Back in July I was heading to a wedding in Lethbridge and noticed that there were work crews digging up ballast and sub-roadbed.

The following two pictures taken back in September show the reclaimed grade crossing near Azure. The first photo is heading towards High River and you can see the auto racks I posted about back in September and October. The second is looking towards Azure and you can just see the top of the grain elevator.

Just before I left I took a shot of some of the workers driving spikes after the tamper had gone by.

At that point I was running out of time and headed back to the office.

Cheers,

Happy New Years!

2011-01-01T13:21:00.003-07:00

January 1st, 2011

Happy New Years! I hope everyone has had a safe New Years Eve and for the year 2011 to be to good for all.

Cheers,

My Camera Gear And Other Stuff

2010-10-10T21:01:00.000-06:00

I figured I should write up an entry about what gear I have and carry around when I'm out photographing trains or other train and railroad related subjects.

My Camera body is a Nikon D80 10.2Mpx. It is a great camera and I've had no problems so far. Since I shoot in RAW only, I do wish the buffer was a bit bigger up to 9 or 10 compared to 6 or 6+1 as I like to call it. There is a small pause between the 6th and 7th shot. The D80 uses SD cards so my main card is a Sandisk Extreme III 8GB that holds near 800+ shots in RAW even though the display initially shows 655. I also have a Sandisk Extreme III 2GB card and Sandisk Ultra II 1GB card.

I own 3 lenses at the moment. My first lens is a Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 18-70mm 3.5-4.5 G ED, which came in a kit with the body. My second lens is a Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-300mm 4.5-5.6 G ED VR II. At the time, this lens was about $525 CAD and is a pretty good investment if you're looking for a fairly decent zoom lens. My most recent purchase is a Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 12-24mm 4 G ED, although I don't expect to take very many train shots with this lens. I bought more for the wide angle feature for photographing landscapes and buildings like grain elevators. Maybe I'll try to catch a prairie train shot with it. This one was just over $1000 at the time of purchase.

I also have the MB-D80 vertical grip with two batteries which gives a combined estimation of 5000 shots before I have to recharge the batteries. I usually average between 3000 and 3500 depending how long I leave the camera on, if I'm using the flash, do alot of playback, or playing around with settings in the menu. Cold is also a factor on charge life and reduces the life of the batteries fast. They do regain some of their charge if you can warm them up. Although the MB-D80 does add weight with the extra battery, it is handy for it's vertical grip functions making it less awkward to shoot and of course the extra power longevity.

One purchase that I'm happy about is my Uniden TrunkTracker III model number BC246T. It is capable of holding 2500 channels on average. It depends on how much information I use in the tag to identify the frequency. It was a bit more than what I wanted to pay, but was worth it in my opnion. Besides it was the only choice I had that was decent.

Other items of interest are a Kenko 67mm circular polarizer, an infrared remote shutter release Nikon ML-L3, a pair of compact binoculars, some cleaning supplies, extra Sandisk SD cards.

All of the above fits neatly into my Crumpler Six Million Dollar Home carry bag.

Two other items that I would not be able to live with out is my tripod and ball head. Apart from their normal positions, the legs can be spread out to almost flat. Although I do have to slide out the neck all the way and switch it to a horizontal position. In a stand up position with the neck fully extended, I can just manage to look through the view finder and can barely read the control display on the top.

The list:

Nikon D80
Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 18-70mm 3.5-4.5G ED, 67mm diameter
Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-300mm 4.5-5.6G ED VR II, 67mm diameter
Nikon AF-S Nikkor 12-24mm 4G ED, 77mm diameter Aspherical
Manfrotto 055X Pro tripod
Manfrotto 488RC2 ball head
Kenko 67mm circular polarizer
MB-D80 vertical grip
2 Nikon EN-EL3e batteries
Sandisk Extreme III 8GB SD card
Sandisk Extreme III 2GB SD card
Sandisk Ultra II 1GB SD card
Nikon ML-L3 infrared remote shutter release
Uniden TrunkTracker III BC246T
Extra AA batteries for scanner.
compact binoculars
cleaning supplies
Crumpler Six Million Dollar Home carry bag
Canadian Trackside Guide 2007 Edition
2 different map books of Alberta
A black journal spiral bound notebook
Pens

Cheers,

Macleod Sub Auto Rack Storage - Part 2

2010-10-02T10:20:00.015-06:00

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

September 6th, 2010

Last time I posted about the first block of auto racks in storage on the MacLeod Subdivision. This post will list the first 27 out of the 39 auto racks from the second block further south. I’m only posting about the first 27 cars because when I was out there taking pictures and writing down notes, I was attacked by a very agitated hawk. I wrote about this back on September the 6th about my experience that day.

I started at the south end of the block and worked my way north from Township Road 182 (594th Ave) on foot. There are a few clumps of trees along the way which made difficult to take pictures of some of the auto racks. It had rained the day before and the grass had not had time to entirely dry out in the thicker areas, so by the time I got to where I stopped, I was soaked from the knees down.

Below are my notes in list format of the railroad name, reporting marks and type for the first 18 auto racks. The order of the list depicts the order of the auto racks as they are on the track starting with the first auto rack north of Township Road 182 with UP TTGX 995204 and ending with BNSF TTGX 965095.

RAILROAD	REPORTING MARK	TYPE
UP	TTGX 995204	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 604313	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 991678	Bi-Level
NS	TTGX 996582	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 991757	Bi-Level
CN	CNA 712721	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 991277	Bi-Level
NS	TTGX 980664	Bi-Level
CSX	TTGX 253344	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 255721	Bi-Level
CP RAIL	TTGX 981526	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 516921	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 965046	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 982758	Bi-Level
CONRAIL	TTGX 963142	Bi-Level
CONRAIL	TTGX 970789	Bi-Level
CSX	TTGX 931189	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 159847	Bi-Level
TFM	TTGX 994737	Bi-Level
CONRAIL	TTGX 603753	Bi-Level
FERROMEX	TTGX 158413	Bi-Level
TFM	TTGX 995796	Bi-Level
TFM	TTGX 995651	Bi-Level
CSX	TTGX 152538	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 994965	Bi-Level
BNSF	TTGX 997339	Bi-Level
BNSF	TTGX 965095	Bi-Level

The following photos of the auto racks are ordered similar to the list above in a left to right, up and down direction.

You will notice that in the last photo the doors facing me on either end of the auto rack are opened. It appeared to be the same for the remainder of the auto racks.

Soon after those 27 auto racks, the agitated hawk was starting to get aggressive so I high tailed it out of there to come back later in the fall when nesting season is done and he’s gone for the winter.

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,

Elevator Music - Azure

2010-09-18T10:01:00.050-06:00

If you wish to follow along in Google Earth, here is the kmz file for download.

May 9th, 2010

Back in May while I was out driving around looking for something to photograph.

Back in May I took a drive out in the Southwest area of High River looking for something to photograph and that is when I first saw the auto racks. Since I had yet to investigate anything train related south of town I decided to do so. I never took any pictures of the auto racks that day. At that time the rails south of Township Road 182 (594th Ave) had been removed but the ties remained. In the distance peeking over the crest of a hill I saw recognizable shape, got distracted and went to photograph it instead.

That shape turned out to be the Azure grain elevator. According to the blog Vanishing Sentinels, this elevator was built in 1927 for the Alberta Pacific Grain Company. It was closed in 1962 and is now privately owned.

Here are a few pictures of the Azure grain elevator.

Here are a couple more shots from the base of the elevator in sepia.

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,

Yellow Near Sparwood

2010-09-12T12:30:00.001-06:00

If you wish to follow along in Google Earth, here is the kmz file for download.

June 20th, 2010

Back in June I was in Elko British Columbia for a weekend long bachelor party for one of my friends. I was aware that the Cranbrook Sub was close to where we were going to be, but I had not made any plans to do any serious railfaining as we were all going to be pretty busy having so good fun that the best man had in store for us.

On the second day, we were on the Jaffray golf course and I was taking pictures of everybody, I'm not much of a golfer. I knew there was a rail line in the area but didn't know that it was so close to the golf course. As we were on the fourth or fifth hole, I could see the top part of the first distinctively yellow UP locomotive come out from behind the trees. I don’t recall how many there were or if they were all UP locomotives. I do know there was more than one. The weird thing is I never heard the train coming which is what surprised me the most. Unfortunately I never got a picture of the train as I was busy trying to photograph action shots of some of the other guys swinging their clubs.

On my way back home, just past Sparwood I saw the tail end of a stationary potash train. When I got to the lead end, I saw five yellow Union Pacific SD90 locomotives. I just had to turn around and take some pictures.

The interesting thing that I noticed as I was taking pictures, was that the locomotives were identified on the cabs as SD9043AC which apparently are SD90MAC’s produced with the smaller prime mover as I later found out from a friend. Also on the cab were the words “UNDER WARRANTY”.

After doing a bit of research, I found some info on Wikipedia about these particular SD90’s which is quite interesting. EMD introduced the SD90MAC in 1995 with the 6250hp (4660kW) 16 cylinder H engine which proved to have some technical problems. So EMD shipped the locomotives with the 4300hp (3210kW) 16 cylinder 710G engines and assigned the model SD90/43MAC. Apparently railroads were given the option to upgrade to the 6250hp engines, but rarely done because of reliability issues with the engine. You can read more about the SD90/43MACs and SD90MACs on the Wikipedia page.

UP SD9043AC
EMD Designation	SD90/43MAC
Prime Mover	EMD V16 710G3B
Power Output	4300 hp (3210 kW)

Here are some individual photos of the five SD9043AC locomotives. The Locomotive numbers are 8306 in the lead, 8268, 8260, 8289, 8277. Notice that 8306 is the only one with the trapezoid window shade and the other four have rectangular shades. Also, 8260 was the only locomotive not facing forward.

Here is a shot of all five locomotives hooked up to the potash train.

It is very exciting to see locomotives from other railroads that you would not otherwise see without having to travel, most times, a fair distance from home.

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,

Open Season on People - Hawk Attack

2010-09-06T16:40:00.002-06:00

I was out railfaning this morning on the MacLeod Sub and while I was photographing some autoracks and taking down reporting marks I heard this hawk screaching up in the sky. He would glide towards me at about 50 feet from the ground and turn around. I never thought anything about it cause he was also circling ovehead. I thought maybe there was some critter in the tall grass that he was trying to catch. I went along with my business but was keeping an eye on him.

As I was getting closer to this clump of trees further ahead, it was about 6 auto racks ahead of me, he was getting more agitated and more screechy. I figured that I was probably getting close to a nest or something. He was circling and sort of doing some swooping now. This was starting to get pretty serious. I got to about 2 rail cars away from the clump of trees, and noticed that that he was coming towards me at about 20 feet off the ground, I thought to myself, "Shitballs Batman! This guy is very pissed!" and he dove at me in the blink of an eye. I ducked and put my note book over my head. He came so close that I heard the wind rush by from his swoop. Guess what I did? I took my last picture, wrote down the reporting marks, and got the hell out of Dodge!

He must of figured that I was leaving cause he immediately ceased his attacks and flew into the clump of trees with a couple final screeches and was quiet. I'll have to go back later this fall when nesting season is done. I still have 11 auto racks to photograph.

Let this be a lesson to all you railfans out there or to anyone for that matter, if you hear a noisy hawk, observe what he does. If he seems to be agitated by your presence, don't piss him off, get the hell out of there and come back another day.

Cheers,

Macleod Sub Auto Rack Storage - Part 1

2010-09-05T18:15:00.000-06:00

If you wish to follow along in Google Earth, here is the kmz file for download.

September 4th, 2010

CP has pretty well abandoned most all of the MacLeod Sub south of the junction with the Aldersyde Sub near Aldersyde except for about 16 or 17 kilometers of track to service a couple industries and to use as storage for some auto racks south of High River.

Apparently the auto racks were being stored near Cayley, I assume due to the economic crisis a couple years ago. This is according to some info from a friend and to an article last year in the local newspaper The High River Times. The way I read it, they were moved further north on or around July 30th of last year I believe. I’m guessing it was probably because CP wanted to remove a section of rails from Cayley heading north which they did to about up to Township Road 182 (594th Ave).

Thursday after work, I drove out to see if the auto racks I spotted back in May were still in storage on the remnants of the MacLeod Sub south of town. I was in luck! They were still there.

Yesterday morning I had plans to first go photograph something I’ve been wanting to photograph for some time in the morning sun East of High River, but unfortunately the morning sun was not cooperating. Instead I drove south out of High River on Range Road 291 (88th Street East), heading towards the stored auto racks.

There are two blocks of auto racks there, the first block consists of 18 cars and the second further south has 39 cars. Yesterday I only took notes and photos of the first block located South of Township Road 184 (562nd Ave) and West of Range Road 291 (88th Street East). Below are two photos of the first 18 cars stored on the MacLeod Subdivision south of High River.

Below are my notes in list format of the railroad name, reporting marks and type for the first 18 auto racks. The order of the list depicts the order of the auto racks as they are on the track starting with the first auto rack immediately south of Township Road 184 with NS TTGX 975698 and ending with UP TTGX 974468.

RAILROAD	REPORTING MARK	TYPE
NS	TTGX 975698	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 981886	Bi-Level
UP	ETTX 908451	Tri-Level
BNSF	ETTX 801284	Tri-Level
UP	ETTX 201504	Tri-Level
SOO	SOO 515802	Tri-Level
CONRAIL	ETTX 908796	Tri-Level
CSX	ETTX 802335	Tri-Level
UP	SP 516572	Tri-Level
SP	SSW 80650	Tri-Level
UP	TTGX 930194	Bi-Level
CSX	TTGX 603491	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 982516	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 979691	Bi-Level
CPR	TTGX 988453	Bi-Level
BN	TTGX 940983	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 973463	Bi-Level
UP	TTGX 974468	Bi-Level

The following photos of the auto racks are ordered similar to the list above in a left to right, up and down direction.

After I finished with the first 18 auto racks I decided to do the other 39 another day and drove a bit further south past Township Road 182. I noticed that since my last wanderings back in May of this year, sometime between then and now, all the rail ties have been removed south of Township Road 182 (594th Ave). Prior to May, only the rails had been removed.

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,

Happy New Year!

2010-01-02T21:12:00.001-07:00

Month 00th, 2009

Happy New Years to all! I hope that everyone had enjoyable and safe celebrations.

Cheers,

Lengthy Absence From The Blog

2009-12-28T23:30:00.000-07:00

December 28th, 2009

2009 has not been a good year for me in the way of railfaning and blogging. I had 29 posts in 2008 and only 6 in 2009 including the “Happy New Years” and this one. I’m not going to get into details about my personal life on here, but I will say that I was a little down in the dumps for a while, reduced my extra driving a bit to save some money, and also bought and moved into a condo in High River about a month ago.

Although I did not get around to railfaning very much this year, I did get out to do some photography closer to home on several occasions. I do feel like I’ve let those who have been reading this blog down this year with the lack of posts. To you the readers I apologize. I do have about a dozen or so posts that I need to finish up in the back log including my expedition of the Mayland Height Spur. In 2010 I do hope to get back on track (pun absolutely intended) and get things going again. Hopefully by then I’ll have been settled in my new place and have everything sorted.

Cheers,

Hang Out At Alyth

2009-10-05T22:00:00.004-06:00

October 2nd, 2009

On Friday I did something that I haven’t done in several months. Railfanning! Man did it feel good to do it too. I wasn’t flying around the county side chasing down some train, I was just casually hanging out at Alyth yard checking what was going on.

I got there around noon, parked my car, grabbed my camera and walked along a grassy area on the backside of a warehouse parallel to the tracks. I got near the end and there was a guy sitting in a CP pickup truck, I think he was a yard foreman. When I came near he asked me if I was out take train pictures and I said yes. He went on to explain that he was waiting for container train to come in so he could take readings on the fuel tanks to determine how much fuel the train had consumed from its previous stop in Fields.

He explained that CP had been experimenting with longer trains lately. I know not the reason why except to move more freight. Earlier this summer, they experimented with 10,000 foot long grain trains. Now they are experimenting with 10,000 foot and longer container trains.

The day before, Thursday October 1st, train 110 came through and was a 12,000 foot container train on it’s way to St Paul, Minnesota via Winnipeg from Vancouver. It had five locomotives total, two at the front, one about a third in, the other about a third from the end, and one pushing at the rear. On Friday the 2nd, I got to see train 110 roll by, a 10,500 foot container train, which was the one that the yard foreman was waiting for, with four locomotives total. There were two at the front, one about half way and the fourth pushing in the rear. This train had the same destination as the train 110 from the previous day.

The locomotive roster was 8702 in the lead, an es44ac, followed closely by 9824, an ac4400, then lagging further back were 9750 midway and 8514 pushing, both being ac4400’s. In the first photo, the building you see in the distance to the left is 12th Street Tower. I wish I would of thought of getting a car count on this train. I’ll have to keep my open for the next 10,000 foot 110.

Shortly after that, the hump made its appearance at about 12:30. At the lead end was 6603 and 5795, both SD40-2’s, then there was 75 cars in the string and 6612 at the end another SD40-2.

When it stopped half way on its return in and didn’t move for a while, I decided to get and oil change and tire rotation done on my car.

When I returned shortly before 16:00, the hump was already pulled out. I didn’t get a car count but it was well over 70 cars judging by were the two lead locos were and the fact that I couldn’t see the other locomotive at the end.

I walked down to the end of the grassy area again, and on my way back I saw some headlights coming down. It was a loco trio with a sandwiched SOO unit. Locomotive 3124 was the first, then SOO 4420 and then 3115 at the end. All three were GP38-2’s. They went several times doing some switching. From what I could tell it seemed like they were making a train or two.

There was a crunched up Government of Canada grain car in the hump.

As the hump made another stop as it was pulling in, 8217 pulled up from around the wye. It stopped and waited for the switch to be thrown so it could make its way up and around the hump to end up on the eastern side of the yard and head towards the diesel shop.

At 16:10 the hump that was already out was finally on its way in. Pushing the cars into the hump were 6611 and 6065, both are SD40-2’s.

At 16:20, a local switcher was coming in from the north line with 7 tankers. The locomotives were two GP-9’s numbered 8232 and 1568. The north line comes in on the far side of the hump track. Most of the switches in the yard are controlled from the tower, so they waited a minute and were on their way to the yard that is near the downtown core to which the name eludes me at the moment.

About ten minutes later, a couple locos came out from the classification yard. They rolled back and switched around the hump to end up in one of the diesel shop tracks to be prepped for the next shift. The two locomotives were a GP38-2 numbered 3066, and 3013 being a GP38AC.

There was no action for about twenty minutes, then another hump being pulled out by a familiar looking 6603 and 5795 came rolling by. I can only assume that 6612 was probably on the other end. I could only count 71 cars visible to me. This trio pulled out a hump in my presence earlier that afternoon.

When they didn’t move for a good length of time, I decided to call it quits and said my good byes to a fellow railfanner and his wife who showed up about an hour prior. I then finished my day with a visit to my watering hole for some friendly chit-chat, a game of stick, a hot bite to eat, and a cold one down the gullet.

Cheers,

Yard Shots, NBEC 587 And VIA Ocean 15

2009-02-02T22:37:00.003-07:00

I was going to go into Calgary on Saturday and photograph the switch derail and industries along the Mayland Heights spur that runs across the street from my place of work, but as I was checking my gear and getting ready, I noticed that one of my batteries was at 0% and the other was at 4%. It takes about two and a half hours to charge each battery. So I'm postponing my expedition until next Saturday. As a substitute, I bring you another installment from my holidays in New Brunswick this past summer. I hope you enjoy.

August 20th, 2008

It was Wednesday afternoon at around 15:30 and overcast. I wasn't really trying to catch a train that day, I was just wandering around taking pictures of the Bathurst Yard area which is on the Newcastle Subdivision. So I started off at the Golf Street crossing and the first couple I took were of the line heading towards Nepisiguit Junction.

The left track is the main line and the two right tracks are mostly used as storage sidings. Eventhough the middle track does continue on up to the other end of the yard, there is a switch on the station side of Golf Street to bypass this portion of the track back onto the main line. The crossing shown in the first photo is at Squire Green Drive. From what I have observed, the portion of the middle track west of Golf Street is mostly used for storage and temporary staging. The portion east of Golf Street is used to make up trains departing Bathurst heading east, as well as dropping off trains or blocks of cars that may be destined to go to Brunswick Mines, Belledune, Beresford or Chaleur Sawmills.

My next two shots are directed into the main yard area. From my observations, the switch in the foreground is used mostly as the entrance point into the main yard sidings and also divides the middle track in two. The switch is located just east of Golf Street. The siding in the first photo going off to the left, use to be the shop track back in the CN days. I have no idea if that shop building is still there today. The track also leads to a couple other sidings that seem to be used for storage as well. There use to be a scale on the siding between the switch and NBEC 1851, but that is no longer there apparently. In the second photo you can see two other sidings that are also used for storage.

The next photos are taken near the VIA station and show the main area of the yard. You can see in the background of the first photo, some cars on the back sidings. You can clearly see in the third photo that the main yard is four sidings deep plus the main line. The AOK hoppers are bound for Brunswick mines full of cement to back fill the stopes with a mixture of taillings. The covered gondolas are also bound for the mines and will be filled with extracted ore and sent to the smelter for final processing.

From this point on I'd like to mention that the remainder of my photos are out of chronological order when shot and may appear that I've jumped back and forth from one spot to another.

My next three shots are just east of the VIA station. The first photo shows the retaining wall where I was standing for my next few pictures. The second photo is looking west towards Golf Street. There is a NBEC office in the VIA station and it is beyond the wall where the big white Bathurst sign is. The third photo is a close up of the second. This is just speculation, but it seems that at some point in the past that there may have been a siding beside the retaining wall which was possibly used to off load some local freight.

For these next three shots I'm still on the top area of the retaining wall. In the first photo it shows the main yard extending up to the bridge over College Street where it narrows down to two tracks. You can also see a couple of sidings which only the one on the right is still in use and is used to store locomotives. The second photo shows a close up of the two of three remaining sidings. The third photo shows the now dismantled third siding. I remember this siding being used in the CN days to fill gondolas with scrap metal which was loaded from the platform you see in the foreground.

For this next series, I had walked further down towards the College Street bridge to photograph the switches leading to these sidings. The first photo shows where the bridge is and the switch on top of it. In the second photo, you can see that the frog has been removed and replaced with solid rail, but the points leading to the nearest siding have been left behind. In the third photo you can now see the remnants of the third siding. The frog and points are still in place but the rail has been removed. The last two photos are of the sidings and the yard heading back toward the station.

These next two photos are from one of my previous New Brunswick postings. and the third photo was taken 11 days after this outing. The photos were taken from the St. Anne Street bridge towards the College Street bridge. I'm using them here since they show the west end of Bathurst Yard. This part of the yard has three sidings. The one to the far right is used for storage/staging and the middle track is used for staging for outbound trains heading west. If you look closely in the second shot, you can see a switch at the far end. Shortly after that is the College Street bridge. The third shot is another angle of the sidings before the bridge. Without the view interrupted by freight cars, you can see the beginning of the third siding in the western part of the yard. You can also see part of the St. Anne Street bridge in the background.

That afternoon at around 16:45, NBEC 587 returned from it's trip to the Irvco Spur. with a load of cars. Locomotives 1868 and 1813, both RS18's in case you did not know, were the power for this train. The car you see immediately behind 1813, is one of the ore hopper destined to head to brunswick mines for a load.

After that I went home for supper, but I did end up going to Nipisiguit Junction to catch the the VIA Ocean 15. Unfortunately the light was diming due to the overcast sky and my pictures ended up blurry.

Well that's it for this one. Hopefully you enjoyed this one. I think I have one or two more posts of my New Brunswick holidays, so stay tuned.

Cheers,

Super Saturday Surprise

2009-01-25T21:12:00.001-07:00

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

May 3rd, 2008

I had wanted to get up bright and early to try and maybe catch a couple of trains in the early morning sun. Unfortunately, I only woke up at around 7:30. By the time I got my coffee and bagel at Tim Horton’s in Okotoks, it was 8:30. I still had not made up my mind as to where I wanted to go at this point. I was about to turn south to head towards Vulcan and suddenly changed my mind and head towards Shepard. CPR has an intermodal yard in Shepard, so I figured I would try to catch some eastbound trains.

I drove north on Highway 2, east on 22x and then north on Shepard Road. As I arrived in Shepard at about 9:20, an Eastbound was already on it’s way out. I decided not to chase this one down and head for the intermodal yard. I turned west on 114th Ave, parked my car at the corner of 68th and 112th Ave and walked the rest of the way up the dirt lane. I took a couple of minutes to take a picture of some ducks in a pond. Notice some of the Canadian Tire containers in the background. There was probably close to two hundred of them there at the depot.

I took a few pictures looking down into the yard and also looking towards Shepard. There were 5 trains waiting to be unloaded and an auto carrier train in the distance.

As I was taking my pictures, when one of the yard workers drove by on a quad and stopped. At that point I thought I was in trouble, cause I was a little further up on the access road to get a good view for my photographs. We exchanged greetings and then to my absolute surprise he asked me if I was looking for the “steam train”. I was unaware that 2816 was going to be out and about that day. He told me that 2816 was going to leave Alyth yard at approximately 13:00.

This was absolutely great news!

Since I had a few hours to spare, I decided to go roaming around the Shepard Industrial Park area for a bit. The track coming from Ogden Shops follows the irrigation canal and into Shepard Yard. I ended up at a grade crossing on Shepard Road just off of Barlow Trail. I took some pictures of the double tracks heading to Shepard Yard and also heading towards Ogden Shops and Alyth Yard. I was also snapping some pictures of a switch on a spur leading past a chain link fence gate to an unknown industry. I was trying to be creative with the shots of the switch, you know, practicing a bit.

Has I was snapping my pictures, I heard the distinct sound of a train horn. I managed to catch a container train lead by 8893 followed by 9122 heading East at 10:25 with 8758 on the push. The pictures are a bit blurry.

CN was also at work on the other side of the irrigation canal. Unfortunately I was not able to get the engine numbers.

I made my way to a spot along Alyth Yard just off of Blackfoot Trail. A freight train led by 8534 and 9525, rolled by at 10:50 heading southbound towards Lethbridge. A couple GP9’s came by at 11:20 heading downtown. At 11:35, a container train left heading west probably towards Vancouver. This was lead by 9615 and 9546. I didn’t get any pictures of these trains unfortunately as I was looking in my map books trying to figure out the best location to catch the steam train.

At around 12:00, I figured that I should start heading out and get into position. On my way out of town, I made a quick stop at Ogden Shop for a few minutes to see if there was anything interesting around the yard. I managed to see some rather old coaches on a siding, and I also caught a glimpse of a couple of F units in the yard. Both locomotives were in the tuscan & grey paint theme. The first was CP 1400 a FP7A and the second CP 1900 a F9B.

I knew there was an overpass on 22x over the tracks, and I knew that this was where I wanted to be. I arrived there at about quarter to one and shortly after my arrival as I started to pick the perfect spot on the hillside, a stack container train came rolling by. The power was 9117 in the front and 9107 close behind. Both locomotives are SD90MAC’s, and pretty grimy looking as well.

Then I waited, and waited, and I was getting hot, and also started getting thirsty.

Finally at 14:22, I could hear the whistle of 2816 in the distance near Shepard. Behind her tender was another FP7A locomotive CP 1401.

Here is the photograph I took of 2816 that day on RailPicture.Net.

The consist was:

CP 2816 "Empress" 4-6-4 Hudson
First Tender, 12,000 gals Water, 4,600 gals Diesel
Second Tender 23,000 gals Water
CP 1401 FP9A Diesel Locomotive
CP 29114 , A box car used as a tool car (CP cars all solid maroon color)
CP 96 Power Car
2 CP Coach car of which I missed the identification marks
CP NSR9107 Baggage Express
2 CP Coach car of which I missed the identification marks
1 Business car of which I missed the identification marks

After they had gone by, I headed back to Alyth Yard to see if there was any action going on. There wasn’t very much happening except for an empty potash train coming in. The empties were led by locomotives CP 8886 and CP 8782 both being ES44AC’s. These trains are usually pretty long. If I can remember, next time I’ll have to take a car count.

One of CP’s tampers was on the same siding as the Sperry unit that usually hangs around there. There was also a ballast regulator behind the tamper but I didn't get its number. The number on the tamper was TP2760.

Three GP38-2’s numbered CP 3033, CP 3023 and CP 3034 had returned from turning around on the wye and were in the process of switching onto the idling track.

Other than that, there was a slew of idle units hanging around. The closest to me were CP 9679 and CP 8503, both of which are AC4400CW’s which they later turned them around on the wye and moved them toward the diesel shop at Alyth.

Three SD40-2’s numbered as CP 5910, CP 5981 and CP 5965 were sitting on the usual idling track, as were three GP38-2’s numbered CP 3062, CP 3093 and CP 3046.

Shortly after the hump came out I left cause it was pretty long and slow. The power was CP 5495 an SD40m-2 and CP 6603 an SD40-2.

Although I never did catch as many container trains as I had initially wanted to, the day was a great success. I finally found my way to my oasis for a cold brown brew.

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,

Lunch Time Sortie

2009-01-12T19:35:00.014-07:00

At Lunch yesterday, I took a little trip down to Alyth Yard and not much was happening there. I didn't even see the hump. I did see however a CEFX unit sitting one of the stub ended tracks tagged on the butt end by a CP unit of the same type, AC4400CW's by GE. The CEFX unit numbered as 1036 and the CP unit numbered as 9633.

I have seen several CEFX locomotives in Calgary over the past year or so. I'll have to look through the archives and see if I have pictures of any of them and post them up here.

Cheer,

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T14:53:00.002-07:00

As my first post of the New Year, I like to wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2009. I hope that all celebrations last night where enjoyable and safe as mine.

Cheers,

Jason Chamberlain

Friday Off Meets Weekday Railfaning

2008-12-28T18:05:00.001-07:00

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

June 27th, 2008

I left the house in Turner Valley at about 8:00am and stopped in Okotoks at Tim Horton’s for a coffee and bagel to go as I usually do before heading out on an adventure. Since this is one of the rare opportunities that I have a week day off, I wanted to head out to Carseland to see if I could grab a couple of pics of one of my friends who happens to be an engineer for CPR. He does daily weekday runs to a couple of chemical plants out that way. By 8:30 I was on the highway heading east towards Carseland on Highway 7 to Highway 547 and then North on Highway 24.

I arrived in the general area at around 9:15 about 8 km past Carseland. The two plants in the area both receive shipments of Nitrogen and they are Orica and Agrium. After a quick Google search when I arrived home that night, I found out that Orica produces commercial explosives and Agrium produces fertilizer. I could see Agrium's railcar yard, but Orica's was behind their facility and was not easy to see.

I proceeded to scout around a bit to see what was in the area for photo taking spots. There is no shortage of level crossings in this area, but not all were that great. Some were not as level with the road and were too elevated for my liking or there just wasn’t any place to park my car. I stopped at one crossing to take a few pictures of a pair of signals and of a grain elevator.

From there I headed north on a dirt road and turned west on Township Road 222. As I was driving, I noticed a blocked road leading to a crossing. I decided to keep going and return a bit later. I arrived at another crossing just north on Twp Rd 222, and took a few more pictures of some other signals. After a few minutes I headed back the way I came.

On my way back I stopped at the blocked road. This was one spot in particular that pleased me. This abandoned crossing was dismantled and the road to either side was barricaded. It was a nice location because I could position my tripod anywhere and not worry about being run over by a vehicle. I later returned to this location on the south side of the tracks.

There was also a white tail deer hanging around in the area.

I headed back toward the first set of signals and down toward Agrium and Orica. I wanted to get to the abandoned crossing from the south side as I could park my car about 75 feet away from it which was alot closer than the 300 feet on the north side. I was almost up to the two plants and just happened to look north and saw a westbound stack train slowing down. I booted it to the crossing just north of Twp Rd 222, but it had stopped way back.

Just before noon I heard the blast of the horn coming from Shepard. After a quick look back, I saw the headlights and they were coming up pretty quick. Thinking this was my engineer friend, I tried to race back to the abandoned crossing, but I was not fast enough. Thankfully it wasn't him. I did however manage to get some pictures of one of the 2010 Olympic locomotives, number 8861, in the middle of the westbound stack train heading for Shepard that had stopped for the eastbound stack train.

About 15minutes later, my engineer friend rolled by with his train. The engine was a GP38 unit number 5867 and was hauling 17 cars made up of various covered hopper, cylindrical covered hoppers and tankers. They were headed toward the wye leading to the two plants I mentioned above.

When they moved nearer to the wye, they had switched off three tankers onto one of the legs and proceeded to do a little shunting. After kicking off a covered hopper, they kicked another two covered hoppers toward the three tankers on the wye leg. After that they proceeded with some more shunting.

I took a picture just after they went by of a bridge that had been around since 1930.

After a few pictures of them shunting, I then moved to a different location further down the tracks to the west.

I zipped on over to a crossing on Highway 797 about 2.8 km south of 22X. I was quite pleased with this location because the ditch is almost flat and level with the road. Also, there is plenty of space to park a number of cars here and to set up a tripod or two.

At about 1:30, an Eastbound mixed freight train with the lead power being a GP38-2 numbered 3049, followed by another GP38-2 numbered 3094 and then CEFX 102. The train consisted of mostly of hoppers and tankers and came crawling by at a snails pace. This was great because it allowed me to grab a ton of pictures of it. In all there were 4 trains that went by between 1:30 and 3:00 pm.

About 45 minutes after the eastbound 1:30 train, a mixed freight train lead by a GE unit numbered 9772 rolled by. This unit had a number of odd features on it. It had what looked like bolts along all edges and corners. I didn’t get a good look as it was barreling by at a good speed.

At around 2:50, an intermodal train with two power units leading and one pushing at the back went by heading east. All three locos were ES44AC units. The two leading numbered 8813 and 9809 with the pusher numbered 8746.

About 10 minutes later, my engineer friend went by with a dozen covered hoppers and tank cars heading back to Alyth yard in Calgary. After that, I decided to head to my watering hole to cool down a bit and then headed home.

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,

Railfaning Around The World - India

2008-12-27T08:36:00.011-07:00

I wanted to share a discovery that I had made about a year ago. I had done an extremely quick search on Google for "railfan blog" and one result quickly caught my attention. I think at that time it was like fifth or sixth down on the search results list. The name of this blog was Platfom 7 - A Railfan's Blog. The blog is maintained by a fellow called Binai K. Sankar and he writes about railfanning and busfanning in India. He also maintains in conjunction with his blog, a photo gallery which contains his railfanning photos on Fotopic.net called Railway Junction.

It is interesting to see what types of locomotives that are being used and operated on a daily basis in another country halfway around the world. I did notice that most of the diesel locomotives have high nose hoods. I am interested to know who is the manufacturer of these diesels. Also, you will notice that just about every locomotive number is five digits compared to our North American four digit numbers. Also they have a naming system that identifies the type of train it is suppose to be which he explains in one of his posts.

I you have a few minutes and are looking for something different to read, then I suggest to take a look at this interesting railfan blog.

Cheers,

Two CP F Units At Alyth

2008-12-26T09:51:00.001-07:00

November 10, 2008

I went down to Alyth Yard on my lunch and as I was crossing the bridge over the tracks on Blackfoot Trail, I caught a quick glimpse of two F units but didn't catch the branding as I was trying to keep my eyes on the road. I thought to myself outloud in my car "Yes! What a wonderful lunch hour this will be".

Once I arrived on location, I saw immediately that they were CP F units, 4106 and CP 4107. Unfortunately they tagged on each end by some GP9's. From what I was able to find out, 4106 and 4107 are part of The Royal Canadian Pacific train. Both units are FP9A's and were former CN/VIA units.

The were five other units that were tagged on to 4106 and 4107 at each end. One unit in front of 410 and four in front/behind 4106. The first was GMD GP9 1524 and the other four were GMD GP9 1693 and 1551, followed by EMD SD40M-2 5495 and 5497. As you can see in the picture, 1551 had some of her access panels open.

Also, 1648 and 1507 had arrived in the yard with a few scrap metal gondolas and some other freight cars.

On the one siding closest to me, the near side of the access road in the pictures above, there were three deck cars and another of these 'A' frame cars similar to the one in my post titled "Union Pacific In Calgary" on September 26th, 2008. In a response to that post sent to me in an email, the A-frame cars are used to transport prefabricated switch sections to where they are needed. The a-frame was CP 421892 and the three deck cars were CP 507134, CP 507185 CP 507170.

Just past the Blackfoot overpass, There seemed to be some track work going on. I'm not sure if what they were doing was repairing and replacing ties, or if a section of track was being removed completely. I can't seem to find a decent shot in my archives for comparison, and now that there is snow on the ground, it will be difficult to see.

Something else grabbed my attention off in the distance of the yard. It was a massive ring of someking in a stack well car.

References - 4106 & 4107:
WCRA Railway News: July 2007

Cheers,

CP 2816, Lethbridge To Calgary - The Chase Part 3

2008-12-24T18:45:00.003-07:00

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,

Wind Chilled Railfaning At Alyth

2008-12-22T23:10:00.002-07:00

In case you were wondering, I never made it out to chase the CP Christmas Train on Sunday December 14th. The combination of the previous night's snow storm, bad road conditions, extreme cold weather prevented me from doing so. Maybe next year.

On to today's cold adventure.

This morning I figured I would go out and do some railfaning since the snow was still fairly new. It was cold out when I went out to brush my car here in Turner Valley, but it was even colder out in the open near Alyth Yard. With a wind chill of about -32 celcius, I did not stand out there very long before I decided to railfan from the inside of my nice warm car.

While I was there I did get some pictures of a business train heading into downtown. I believe that these are some remnants from the Christmas Train, since you can still see the light strings on the cars. If anyone has the consist of this year's Christmas Train when it was in Calgary, I would appreciate if you could drop a line or two in the comments.

Before they could head off, one of the yard crew and two crew members from the train crew had to get out on the tracks and sweep the snow from some of the switches. To start, switch Y25b was stuck with snow build-up and was "grinding" away trying to close. They cleared that one and Y25a into P Yard through Y25b to P1 & P3 tracks. Then they moved to a couple more further back towards 12th Street Tower. I think the train was on P1 track. If anyone know the tracks at Alyth, please post a comment to clarify my assumption.

At 14:06, the train was able to leave. It is unfortunate I was not able get to a better position so to avoid the poles and boxes. But it was cold outside and the inside of my car was nice and warm.

The business train consist included:

CP 1539
CP 96 Power Car
Ernest "Smokey" Smith, VC - CP 102 Business Car
N.R. Crump - CP 79 Business Car
Mount Royal - CP 73 Business Car
Strathcona - CP 82 Business Car
CP 401750 - Concert Stage Car
Van Horne - CP 77 Business Car
Killarney - CP 71 Business Car

I also managed to get some snap shots of various freight cars for future modeling reference.

I then headed down towards the Pulldown Tower to grad a snap shot of the yard map posted there.

Other than that there was a lot of chatter on the scanner which was hard to follow as there were probably a dozen different conversations going on at various intervals cutting into each other. I then decided to head to the hobby shop and spend my $50 VISA gift certificate on three Walthers CN Pulpwood Flat Cars.

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,

Weekend Snow Storm = No Xmas Train Chase

2008-12-12T18:34:00.006-07:00

Unfortunately, this year I will not be chasing the CP Christmas Train from Red Deer to Calgary on Saturday and possibly Calgary to Banff on Sunday. With today's snow storm continuing into tomorrow afternoon, road conditions currently are not the best and will only worsen. A usually 1 hour drive home took me over 2 hours, and I left work at 3:15 this afternoon.

Yes the train will leave Calgary on Sunday, but I just don't want to chance it and possibly get myself in a situation if conditions don't get better...unless the sun really hits hard. I was quite looking forward to seeing the train this year as it would have been my first time. I will however remain optimistic for Sunday.

Cheers,

CP Holiday Train Coming Soon

2008-12-07T22:37:00.006-07:00

After having read Eric's December 2nd post on his site Trackside Treasures, which I enjoy greatly for it's historical content and photos, he mentions CP's Holiday Train at the end. I decided to look it up and possibly chase it this year. This train goes across Canada and helps collect food donations and money for local food banks along it's travel.

According to the schedule, the trains is currently on route to Broadview, Saskatchewan for a 13:00 show. It should arrive in Medicine Hat on December 9th. It will make it's way north from there up to Edmonton on the 12th, then head south and end up in Calgary on the 13th. Afterward, it will make it's way west into BC.

Depending on the weather I may chase it from Red Deer to Calgary on Saturday and possibly Calgary to Banff on Sunday.

Cheers,

Alyth Yard Hump In Action On YouTube

2008-12-04T20:38:00.002-07:00

I found this video on YouTube of the Hump Train in action at Alyth Yard in Calgary. I found pretty interesting to see how this is done.
Alyth Yard, Classification Hump

I also found one of a hump yard retarder in action. I'm not sure where it is located though, but still interesting.
Railroad hump yard, master retarder in action

The links will take to the owners YouTube page. I'm sure you know how to make your way back to here later on. :)

Cheers,

CN 5600 @ Alyth

2008-12-03T21:24:00.000-07:00

At lunch time today on my way back to the office, I saw something interesting idling in Alyth Yard. n one of two tracks stub ended tracks near 12th Street Tower. What I saw was a CN unit with two CP units tagged on to each end. I didn't have time to turn around right then, so I was hoping that it would still be there after work. Fortunately for me it was.

The unit in question is an SD70I, CN 5600. The SD70I was fitted with rubber gaskets between the cab and the body to isolate it from excessive noise from the prime mover. Apparently there were only 26 of these models produced all for CN from numbers 5600 to 5625.

The two other CP units were a SD40-2, CP 6061 and a SD40-2F, CP 9010. The SD40-2F was basically a SD40-2 with a full width body and nicknamed as "red barns". There were only 25 units builted all for CP in 1988 and 1989. All 25 are still in service today.

I'm curious as to what the two stub ended tracks are referred to. There are usually a number of idling engines on either one or both of these tracks almost at any given point in time. Would these be called "team tracks"? If anyone familiar with Alyth Yard, please do comment on this.

SD70I references:
CN Lines: CN Locomotives - Active
Wikipedia: EMD SD70 Series

SD40-2F references:
Canadian Pacific Railway Diesel Locomotive Roster: Locomotive Roster and Photo Archive
Wikipedia: EMD SD40-2F

Cheers,

CP 2816, Lethbridge To Calgary - The Chase Part 2

2008-11-30T22:08:00.002-07:00

This is Part 2 of 3 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 2 kmz file for download.

October 09, 2008

Shortly after the crew had finished with their maintenance in Champion at around 11:48, 2816 started chugging steam and was on her way once again headed for Calgary. So of course I couldn’t resist the urge to get back in my car and happily continue the chase.

About 8 km out of Champion, I saw a few people standing on top of a hill on the East side of the tracks. I figured this would be a good spot to get a higher vantage point but not so high as to be on it’s way to being an overhead shot. I was able to catch a few shots of Cedar Rapids after they went by. I also wanted to know if it was worth coming back to this spot for possible future railfanning trips.

When I got back on the highway, I saw the dark smoke and figured she must have had a speed restriction going through Kirkcaldy, which gave time to catch up quickly. I snapped some shots of 2816 will I was driving down Highway 23. I wasn’t actually looking through the camera. I leaned it on my arm and aim blindly then snapped a few consecutive shots. Some turned out not too bad, but a few are not so great. Some were of only half the train one way or the other as I would aim to far ahead or to far back.

Not long after having passed Kirkcaldy she was starting to speed up again. I then stopped on the side of the highway where the tracks were coming back to parallel the highway and caught a couple shots. She went by at about 12:09. This was just before arriving in Vulcan.

I quickly jumped back in my car and booted it to Vulcan snapping a few more free aimed shots from the car. These would be the last ones until I would arrive in Blackie as I didn’t make into position in time at Vulcan. So I turned my car around, got back on Highway 23 and headed for Blackie.

I could barely see 2816 going cross country when I was on Highway 23 which turns east about 18 kilometers north of Vulcan. If you continue north it turns into Highway 24. I arrived in Blackie about 10 minutes before 2816 did and was greeted by a freight train waiting on the west side of the crossing for 2816 to arrive and take a siding in the yard at Blackie. The power was CP 9570, 9700 and 5946, two AC4400CW and a SD40-2.

Once 2816 arrived at 13:02, they started on their way through and 2816 soon followed.

Only one more stop before heading for Calgary and that was the steel truss bridge in Okotoks.

A I was leaving Blackie another railfan, by the name of George, asked if he could follow me into Okotoks as he wanted to photograph 2816 crossing the bridge as well. I had met him back in Champion, and at one of my stops along Highway 23 before Kirkcaldy. We also bumped into each other in Vulcan. He was a very nice guy and works for a Historic State Park as a Railroad Restoration Worker for Railtown 1897 in Jamestown, California. I’ll have go there someday.

We arrived in Okotoks about 15 to 20 minutes before 2816 did. I had never walked to the bridge before so we parked our vehicles in a car wash parking lot on the corner of North Railway Street and 370 Ave. We walked along the tracks for 5 minutes and were there. I took my shot from near the north end of the bridge and he went on the sand spit in the Sheep River. I think that I should have gone with him as I probably would have had a better shot. I’ll have to remember that next time when they supposedly take her back out in 2010, but I will blog about this another time. After they went by I ran up the bank to catch a rear view of Cedar Rapids.

As we were leaving town, I noticed from between the buildings that they had stopped in town along Daggatt Street. I stopped for a quick snap, George continued on, and then I headed to Calgary.

This is the end of part 2. I hope you are enjoying the adventure so far. I will be pretty busy next weekend, but I will do my best to have the conclusion of this adventure posted.

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,

CP 2816, Lethbridge To Calgary - The Chase Part 1

2008-11-23T23:41:00.000-07:00

This is Part 1 of 3 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 kmz file for download.

October 09, 2008

I woke up at about 05:30 that morning, washed up, got my gear ready, and was out the door and at Tim Horton's getting a coffee by 06:00. I wanted to catch 2816 coming across the high level bridge and wondered what kind of a shot I could get from down below. After driving around down in the coulees for a half hour and almost running over a couple of deer, I dismissed the idea as I could not get a good enough view and angle, so I decided on a shot from the west side of the coulees would be good.

I went and filled my car up, took a look at my map book and headed west on Whoop-Up Drive, north on University Drive. I ended up in a community where all the streets ended in “wood”. I finally found an access between a couple houses leading to the coulees. After walking around a bit, the view was great but I was way too far away from the bridge. There happen to be a couple people walking and I asked if there was easy access to the next ridge over. There was. I then ended up in the next community over where all the streets began with “Heritage”.

I found the access path to the coulees and at about 07:45 I setup my camera on a ridge a bit southeast of the path. At this point it was cool out and I quickly realized that my batteries did not like the cold to much. It also didn’t help that I forgot to charge them up the night before. I had one battery at 0% and the other at 38% when warm. In the cold it would drop to about 21-18%. Not a good scenario. So I kept the good one in my pocket to keep it warm.

At about 08:10, 2816 had not come by yet and I was getting cold. So I packed up and headed towards Lethbridge Yard to see what was going on. I got to about a kilometer away from Coalhurst and I saw 2816’s steam in the distance. I turned into Coalhurst at about 08:30 to catch a couple snap shots of her backing into Lethbridge.

I jumped into my car and headed back to Lethbridge to get into position for when she came across the high level bridge back towards Calgary, but not without stopping quickly at a nearby Tim Horton’s in the community where all the streets began with “Heritage”. When I arrived back at the location of the ridge, I saw that in my absence about 20 others had all picked positions to take photographs including the exact spot where I had initially setup. So I picked a spot that looked pretty out of the way from the others and others out of my way. At about 09:12, steam was puffing out the sides and 2816 started to move.

I then ran back to my car and headed to Lethbridge Yard to get an overhead shot. I got there about 10 minutes before 2816 arrived at 09:56. It’s unfortunate that in one of my shots I managed to catch one of the railing supports in the bottom right corner. I did manage to catch the Cedar Rapids car as they were pulling into the yard on the thru track.

I proceeded to drive down the highway a bit and catch a few more shots of 2816 leaving the Montana Subdivision at Lethbridge Yard heading north on the Aldersyde Subdivision. I just wished I would have stopped a bit sooner, but it was a last minute decision.

Since 2816 was now going cross country for a bit, I booted it to my next location of interest. My next stop was at Nobleford off of Highway 23 about 2 kilometers east on Highway 519. Just before arriving at Nobleford, there was a dirt road heading south, I turned down it and came to an old approach at one time crossing the tracks. At 10:20 I took a couple pictures here just before she went under the overpass. Now that I think of it, next time I should try from the north side of the overpass for when she come out from under it.

Next stop Barons.

On my way to Barons, I noticed on the map that the tracks were about to parallel Highway 23 and came up to an approach that was inline with the second curve in the ‘S’ curve. Wasn’t the only that had the same idea. Three other vehicles stopped as well. I knew I had about 5 minutes before 2816 came along and if I stopped here I would have to boot it fast to Barons to catch another picture there, so I positioned my car for a quick getaway. I didn’t really have to do this in the end as it appeared they had slowed down until they would clear the curve and Barons.

After snapping my shots, I headed for Barons.

As I was arriving at Barons I took the first exit and was glad that I did, because there were a few people at the second one. There was also a dirt road paralleling the tracks which I did not want in the picture. I drove in carefully as not to kick up too much dust. As 2816 came through at 10:40, she was moving along pretty slow and I thought that they might stop in Barons, but kept on going. I did manage to get that dirt road in the picture of the Cedar Rapids going away.

Carmangay was the next stop to grab a few pictures and on the way in, I was following the CP Police truck through town and notice a steel bridge. I thought to myself, out loud, I need that bridge in my picture. From where I was I couldn’t see an easy access to the other side. A quick look at the map showed a possibility on the other side of the creek. Once I arrived on the other side, I came up to a field entrance and didn’t want to go driving through it with my car, although it had been swathed already, and it was still pretty far to walk. A guy in a truck came up from behind and drove right in, and I assume he probably got a good shot. I think I would have had better luck accessing the bridge from the highway. I ended up driving on to a crossing. After she had crossed I ran up and tried to get a direct rear shot of Cedar Rapids but they were moving pretty fast by this time and it was already pretty far in the distance.

Arriving at Champion, I again got off at the first exit and took a couple shots here. There was another person here talking with the CP Police guy.

Slow was the pace as they passed me and pulled into Champion at 11:30 for a pit stop. I was already in my car and on the highway when I notice them stopped and turned down the next road to go see what they were doing. After I walked up they were already giving 2816 a grease and lube job.

This is the end of part 1. I hope to have part 2 posted next weekend. Lets see if I can do it on time.

Google Earth kmz file.

Cheer,

CP 2816, Lethbridge To Calgary - The Night Before

2008-11-11T09:15:00.002-07:00

Well, it's been just over a month and a bit and I'm now finally posting about my 2816 chase. I finally hunkered down and took a really good look at my shots. This post is about the night before the chase back to Calgary. I'll post about the chase this coming weekend.

Has I mentioned in my post on October 2nd, I was taking the 9th off from work to go down to Lethbridge and chase 2816 back to Calgary. I left on the evening of the 8th and had a nice surprise when I arrived at Lethbridge Yard that night.

October 08, 2008

My evening started after a two hour drive when I arrived in Fort McLeod. It was about 7:30 by then and it was dark out. So I turned down what appeared to be 21st Street and took Third Ave until I got to 13th Street. Once on 13th, I saw about 20 to 30 white box cars that appeared to be crew quarters and such. I then turned down to 12th Street and headed west on that until just past the grain silo and turned around. Amongst the many grain hoppers, I saw more of these crew quarters on one of the far tracks. I decided to head out and back on the highway towards Lethbridge. To my regret I didn't take any pictures of the crew cars. I'll have to go back someday when it's light out.

As I'm driving down Highway 3, I'm thinking to myself that I'm not really familiar with the area and wondering where I was going to find 2816. Well, just as I finished that thought, I saw a large billowing plume rising into the night sky illuminated by the surrounding lighting. I had found her!

I turned off at Highway 509 and drove across the bridge over the tracks and down a road paralleling the tracks and into a parking lot. I couldn't believe it, a yard with a parking lot beside it. At this point I was excited that I could get so close to the train. I walked up as far as the gravel-pavement transition beside two others, a man and a woman, who were there admiring the sight as well. They told me that if I hung around with them that there was a good possibility that I could get a tour of a couple of the cars. I was so excited from when I first arrived that I had left my camera in the car. I ran back to grab it quickly and waited with them. About 15 minutes later I was on board one of the coach cars.

The unfortunate thing is that some of the photographs are a bit blurry because the shutter speed was slow as lighting level was low and I didn't want to use a flash and risk washing out everything in white. I wanted to try and capture the mood. It didn't quite work out for some pictures. I used the flash only in really low lighting areas.

Interior shots of CP 5534 and CP 5503 coach cars.

Interior shots of the First Class car NSR 3103 "Wisconsin Valley"and #53 "Superdome".

Interior shots of Skytop Lounge #800040 "Cedar Rapids".

Interior cab shots of FP9A CP 1401.

Exterior shots of 2816 drives and front.

Time lapse shot of "Superdome" and "Cedar Rapids".

After all the fun, I headed for Lethbridge to look for a Holiday Inn Express. I kind of got lost for about 20 minutes. After driving around for a bit, I finally found one and went to bed.

The consist was:

CP 2816 "Empress" 4-6-4 Hudson
First Tender, 12,000 gals Water, 4,600 gals Diesel
Second Tender 23,000 gals Water
CP 1401 FP9A Diesel Locomotive
CP 1900 F9B Diesel Locomotive
CP 29114 , A box car used as a tool car (CP cars all solid maroon color)
CP 96 Power Car
CP 110 “H.B. Bowen, a 8 duplex Rmte, 4 Br, 6 Rmte sleeping car (with one roomette converted to shower)
Milwaukee Road #31 “Minnesota River” 8-4-6 Sleeper (with one Roomette converted to shower)
CP RPCX 5534 Coach Car
CP RPCX 5503 Coach Car
Milwaukee Road NSR 3103 “Wisconsin Valley”, “First Class” car with furniture type seating, plus a kitchen/food service area.
Milwaukee Road #53 “Superdome” (full length dome car, ex-Milw. Rd car built by PS in 1952)
Milwaukee Road #800040 “Cedar Rapids” Skytop Lounge (Parlor Observation - built by Milw. Rd. in 1948)

Some consist inforation from: Railroad.net

Google Earth kmz file.

Cheers,

Don't Try To Outrun The Train

2008-10-13T19:20:00.016-06:00

I had promised to a few people that I would have pictures from Thursday's 2816 chase from Lethbridge to Calgary. I apologize for not fulfilling my promise. With thanksgiving this weekend, I was a bit occupied. Please be patient, it will come. It was an awesome chase and there's also an interesting bit to the story.

I did come across this video clip I found in Canadian Railway Observations September's newsletter issue of a semi truck getting hit by a CN intermodal train. From the article in the newsletter, the power was an SD70M-2 and an SD75I.

Sources:
Canadian Railway Observations (C.R.O.)
Web Page - www.canadianrailwayobservations.com
September 2008 Edition - PDF

Break.com
Video Clip - Semi Truck Tries To Outrun Train

Cheers,

CP 2816 Empress Steam Locomotive Last Run

2008-10-02T19:07:00.008-06:00

I found out yesterday that CP 2816 Empress will be returning from Vancouver arriving in Calgary on October 9th via the Crowsnest Pass. I unfortunately missed her departure from Calgary. Therefore, I'm taking next Thursday off from work to get some pictures of CP 2816's last run of the year and possibly, from what I understood, the absolute last run ever or at least hopefully only for a few years. Apparently the diesel F units, FP7A 1400, FP9A 1401, F9B 1900 will be barned as well. I believe 1401 and 1900 are this trip with 2816.

First, news that NBEC was acquired by CN, and now CP is supposedly putting a few of their engines in storage. This is not fair as I don not nearly have enough pictures of these.

If anyone can confirm, correct me or add to any of this, please do so.

Cheers,

Union Pacific In Calgary

2008-09-26T16:34:00.014-06:00

I had the day off from work today. Along my travels I stopped by for a quick visit with some friends of mine at one of my former employers down by CP's Alyth Yard in Calgary. The back door to the warehouse was open, and a flash of yellow caught my attention as I walked by. Lo and behold, idling on a side track was a Union Pacific SD9043AC numbered 8298 coupled to CP 9708 an AC4400.

There was a crane and flat car with 'A' frame racks standing on the deck sitting on another siding. I wasn't able to determine if the frame was part of the car or not. If anyone knows, don't be shy and please leave a comment.

Cheers,

First Glimpse of CFQC 3000

2008-09-12T20:21:00.019-06:00

August 25, 2008

I was in Bathurst for a week and on the 25 I caught my first Glimpse of CFQC's RS-18 number 3000 pulling into the station yard at around 14:15. It is a very nice, well kept and surprisingly clean engine. I caught some pictures of it at the station and at the Golf Street crossing shunting some cars after it came in from Belledune with a load of three lumber cars.

As 3000 was shunting, CFMG 6908 and NBEC 1821 had started up and were idling on one of the rear sidings. They came out onto the main line and headed past the station to the siding by the St. Anne bridge.

I whipped over to the bridge to watch 6908 and 1821 hook up to the train that 597 put together and becoming NBEC 403. The consist was a mixed freight train with some woodchip cars, box cars, covered gondolas, tankers and the lumber cars that CFQC shunted earlier. At around 15:10, NBEC 403 had finally left but unfortunately I did not chase it to Beresford.

Engine 1851 was also at the station parked on one of the sidings that was used to dump scrap metal into gondolas back in the CN days about 12 to 13 years ago if memory serves me right.

Cheers,

Fixed Picture Link

2008-09-06T20:05:00.005-06:00

Well, I'm back in Turner Valley, Alberta. The flight was pretty good. We got in early last night at around 20:30, about 30 minutes ahead of schedule.

I fixed a link in my post "VIA Ocean 14 Instead of NBEC 402" from August 30th. The broken link was that of the Yoho Park car picture which would bring up the picture of 6426 and 6412.

Cheers,

From Beresford to Blue Mountain Pit

2008-09-04T19:06:00.034-06:00

This will be my last post in New Brunswick as tomorrow morning I will be leaving for Calgary. I think I still have two more to post after this about NB and then it will be back to posting about trains in the Prairies and Rockies. Actually I should be able to do a couple of outings to chase CPR 2816 Empress. For now back to todays adventures.

The day started by waking up early around 8:00 in the morning. I had not planned for another full day of railfaning for today, but it ended up being just that. The other full was on the first of this month with a post to come. I did however miss 3 trains, NBEC 402, NBEC 587 and VIA 15. At around 8:45 I went to the station to find out if VIA Ocean 14 would arrive on time and quickly found out that it would arrive at 9:20. After snapping a few shots in town, I jumped in the truck and booted it to Nepisiguit Junction. This not so much a good place to catch the 14 anymore, as there seem to always be some bulk wood cars on the siding. The consist was VIA 6400 in the lead with new paint scheme, 6406 Spiderman, 16 cars and Evangeline Park tailgating.

At about 12:30, I heard what sound like a very large diesel engine. I jumped in the truck to go see what was at the station. It was the Bathurst yard switcher 597, NBEC unit 1849. I was sitting in front of the station with the engine off. I took a couple of pictures and headed home to eat. I also noticed that it started to make up a train for the incoming 403 later this afternoon.

At around 13:30 I headed back to the station hoping to catch 587 coming in, but instead it was 597. I later found out that it had dropped 3 bulk wood cars in Beresford on a siding by the propane dealer. At this point my sister was chasing with me, and this is where I got my new scanner setup as well, a uniden BC246T. Not a bad little piece of equipment. It was a little more fun now, as I could finally know what everyone was up to. We quickly found out that 597 was shunting and getting things ready for 586.

So we hung around for a bit more since we heard on the scanner that 403 was coming in, and it showed up around 15:20 to pick it's load. I was surprised to see that it was only the power, CFMG 6908 and NBEC 1868. So it went by to hook up to the front of the train that 597 had put out earlier. We headed for the St. Anne bridge to take a few shots.

Some shots from the bridge of 403 coupling to the train bound for Campbelton.

My sister heard on the scanner that they would be leaving in about 10 to 15 minutes, so I figured we would head out that way at a not so "speedingly" pace. When we got there there were 3 bulk wood cars on the siding there waiting to be off loaded. All CFMG cars with numbers 690107, 690154, 690174. Shortly after a wood truck showed up and started to off load the cars.

About 15 minutes later, 403 came rumbling by. The consist was 42 cars, 12 of those were wood chip cars. There were also a total of 7 center beam flats, 13 gondolas, 6 cement hoppers, 1 tank and 3 box cars. After it went by we went home for supper.

At around 18:50, we heard the diesel engines but not the scanner as the volume was way down. I figured that this was 586. We headed out again and went to meet it at Nepisiguit Junction. There were still 5 bulk wood cars of which I didn't get the numbers. The power was CFQC 3000 and NBEC 1821. The consist was 31 ore hopper, 3 covered gondolas, and 6 cement hoppers.

I jumped in the truck to meet it at the first crossing on my way to Blue Mountain Pit.

Then we went to Blue Mountain Pit. The light was getting dim and I was hoping that I would not have any motion blur. Alas, this would not be the case. You can see the blurring on the handrail at the front of 3000. This was unfortunate, but all in all it was a good day of railfaning.

See you back in Calgary!

Cheers,

VIA Ocean 14 Late Arrival

2008-08-31T15:49:00.011-06:00

August 21, 2008

I got up at 7:30, washed up quickly and walked up to the train station to meet VIA 14 the Ocean coming in. I soon found out that it wasn't arriving until 11:40. Late again! It was 1 hour late when I came in from Halifax on the 18th. NBEC must be doing some maintenance work on some of the tracks.

I came back later and grabbed a few shots as it was pulling into the station. The lead was 6421 with 6406 the Spiderman unit following. The sky was nice and blue that morning. I didn't get a car count, but I imagine it would have been about 16 or so.

After that I made a last minute decision to catch it up at Nepisiguit Junction. I was hoping that the CFMG wood cars were gone already. When I arrived I noticed that the first two CFMG wood cars that I wrote about on the 19th were gone, but alas, there were 4 new ones on the siding and blocking most of the view. I didn't bother getting the numbers or marks as I was frustrated with them. I decided to stay and grab some shots of 14 anyway, and make the best of it. Eangeline Park was on the tail end.

Cheers,