An Hour At Alyth

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,

CP 2816, Lethbridge To Calgary - The Chase Part 3

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

October 09, 2008

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Goggle Earth kmz file.

Cheers,