CAT Heavy Equipment At Alderside

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,

Snow Storm Saturday Train

I braved last Saturday’s snow storm to go to Okotoks and fill up my car with gas before going to a company function later tonight. But first, I grabbed a coffee and bagel at Tim Hortons. After I left the Shell station, instead of turning right onto Riverside Gate to head back home, for some reason I decided to keep going east on South Railway Street up to Centre Avenue and probably east on Elizabeth Street to see how close I could get to the steel truss bridge, and then head home.

As I crossed over the grade crossing on Centre, I glanced down the tracks and as luck would have it, there was a train coming in from the west just before the crossing on Northridge Drive. Fast thinking had me turn down Daggatt Street to snap a shot of this train just after what I think used to be a small grain elevator in the past. To my surprise, this was a really short train. As I don’t yet own a scanner, I couldn’t monitor which train this was or where it was heading. Two power units, CP 9513 & 9808, and a bulkhead flatcar with a load of pipes went by at about 13:20. But where is the rest of the train? Before I get to that, back to finding out about the bridge.

I headed east on Daggatt, turned right onto, take a guess at what this street is called, North Railway Street and drove to the end. The bridge is still about a quarter mile down the tracks and the only way to get to it is to walk there. But with the snowy weather conditions, and the fact that I wasn’t prepared to go trudging through the snow, the shot from where I was would not have turned out. Now to go find the rest of the train!

I headed back west toward Highway 549 by way of Lineham Drive, South Railway Street and Northridge Drive in search of this “lost” train. I wasn’t sure how far it would be, but I was prepared to go as far as De Winton about 20 km north. As I came to the crossing on 549, I noticed the butt end of a gondola car. I arrived at another crossing not too far down the road and noticed that 7 cars were separated from the rest of the train to allow passage through the crossing. I went through the crossing and turned around. I grabbed a few photos of some of the cars here.

All I could do now was sit and wait until the power for this train came back to grab the rest of his load. So I grabbed a coffee at Tim Hortons and parked my car in the driveway of truck and RV wash bay that is right beside the tracks on Elizabeth Street. I reviewed my 2008 Calgary & Southern Alberta Street Guide Atlas to see if I could pick out some good locations in Calgary and other towns and read through some of the user guide for my new camera and proceeded to wait. Elizabeth turns into Highway 549 further down the road. I knew where I wanted to try my next couple shots, which was just down the road from me. The snow was still coming down pretty good.

Finally at about 15:30 I heard the horns blowing at another crossing further up. Time to move to my third location and get into position. This location is pretty nice as there are plenty of trees in the back you can get close proximity to the tracks and there is place to park you car across the road. There is also a hillside across the road which would be nice to get a higher angle, but it unfortunately fenced off. The train blew by at 15:35.

I drove back to my second location to grab some shots of the train hooking up the separated train back together and this is where the brown stuff hit the fan! As I was turning around as I did earlier, I drove ahead too far and my right front tire went over the edge just enough to say that I was good and stuck. Fortunately there was guy driving by on the main road that noticed I was stuck. His name was Nick and he was more than happy to pull me out just so he could test his new tow rope. Thank you Nick. The unfortunate part of this whole incident is that I was caught on the wrong side of the tracks and couldn’t get ahead of the train to grab a few snap shots down by the steel truss bridge in Okotoks. Oh well, better luck next time.

I was wondering if that load of pipe went to Alderside so I headed out that way. As I was driving down Highway 7, I saw the lights of a westbound train coming from Alderside. I pulled a u-turn in the middle of the highway and made my way back to my third location just west of Okotoks. CP engines 8521 and 5746, an AC4400CW and an SD40-2, passed by at 16:36. I then proceeded to make my way back toward Alderside.

Once I arrived at the crossing in Alderside, I noticed bulk flat car pipe load on the north side along with a cattle car on a siding. Further down the track to the south, some other cars on another siding. After taking some pictures here, I figured it was time to head back home as it was getting late and the light was failing. The salt melted roads were starting to freeze and would most like get very slippery. Needless to say, I didn’t go to my company function due to the worsening road conditions.

Google Earth kmz file.

Cheers,