When I went to Ingolf, Ontario to see the CPKC Holiday Train, I made sure to leave early enough that I wasn’t rushed to get there ahead of the train. That allowed me lots of time to do a little railfanning along the way.
While passing CN’s Symington Yard in Winnipeg, I saw a Hyster container handler putting containers onto a waiting train. It was interesting to see this vehicle do its work. I imagine it must have a lot of ballast to be able to reach so far with a container on the end and not tip over.
Rolling beside the arrow-straight CN Redditt subdivision, I saw signal indications that told me a train was approaching. As I entered the town of Dugald, I saw the train crossing the highway several kilometres ahead of me. Fortunately I was able to pull off and set up quickly for this shot of the train passing the Dugald grain elevator.
CN 3264 was the locomotive on the tail end of this rather long doublestack container train.
I paused in Anola to top up the tank in my car. There aren’t many gas stations – if any – past Anola so I thought it wise to fill ‘er up.
After I filled the car up, I glanced at the east facing signals and saw a green-over-red indication, meaning a clear signal for an approaching train. It didn’t take long for CN 8885 to lead the charge through town.
The late afternoon sun looked great on the nose of this westbound train.
I arrived at Ingolf a good hour before the Holiday Train was scheduled to arrive.
It ended up being about 15 minutes late. In the interim, CP ran a hotshot container train through Ingolf ahead of the varnish, with a CP locomotive on the point, trailed by a Kansas City Southern locomotive. The conductor gave a nice wave to the spectators as the train hurtled by.
When I left the Holiday Train at Whitemouth, I headed south to rejoin the CN main line to head west to Winnipeg. I saw that a CN train was due into Elma so I set up at a rural crossing to record its passage.
Needless to say, I didn’t get the engine number!
It was a great evening of train watching and drone flying and chatting with railfan friends.
Those tracks are so darned straight ! Seems to go on forever. I enjoyed the shot of the container train that passed before Santa; the little girl waving , cute.
I miss curved track, to be honest! The kids were very excited about everything.