Railfanning With Jason, 2021 Edition – Traingeek

These days, it’s hard to get together with people. You don’t want to spread anything and of course there are rules about gatherings. My friend Jason contacted me late in 2021 to let me know his family was going to be in Winnipeg over the holiday break to visit family, and asked if I was available to go railfanning.

I was a little hesitant, only because of COVID concerns. Jason is a good friend and I’m always happy to go see some trains with him. We ended up taking separate cars to meet up at Diamond one morning in late December and spent a couple of hours chatting from a social distance.

We had arranged to meet at 8 AM, but I ended up leaving early and arriving about 30 minutes early. I found an eastbound train blasting through the dark and grabbed a few pan shots as it went by.

I can’t decide which one I like better, so I am sharing both.

After that train rolled by, all was quiet. Jason showed up right on time, and we spent some time talking outside at a “social distance”, retreating to our vehicles when we became too chilled. I’m pretty sure it was colder than -20C so it was not a really comfortable temperature to be standing outside for long in.

It was well over an hour before a train came along. It was a westbound intermodal train led by CN 3231.

Can you feel the cold? 🙂

The train had a mid-train distributed braking boxcar to provide additional air for braking. The air hoses between cars on a train leak air when it’s really cold so additional compressors are needed to maintain air pressure. These red boxcars have a generator and compressor in them and are remotely controlled from the locomotive.