Back in June, I felt like going for a long bicycle ride, and I brought my camera with the “long lens”. Why not?
My bicycle has a pair of saddlebags on it for carrying groceries or whatever else I choose to bring along, so I stuffed my little camera bag in there and headed out.
Eleven or twelve kilometres later, I ended up overlooking CN’s Symington Yard. There was a lot going on.
Most interesting to me was a lone BC Rail survivor, BCOL 4646.
By this time, twenty years after the acquisition* of BC Rail by CN, most of the BC Rail rolling stock and locomotives have been parked or scrapped. However, there are still a few locomotives marked for BC Rail still roaming around. 4646 is one of them and I think 4653 is another.
* I know, I know, “acquisition” isn’t the right word. CN has leased the freight operations of BC Rail for 60 years.
While I watched from the Fermor Road overpass, the hump crew was doing what they do – shove cars up the hump, uncouple them at the top, and let them roll on down the hill to the computer-selected track.
There isn’t a good public place for a clear view of the cars rolling down – although you can loiter on Plessis Road and see them fairly well – but the monotony of the shove is strangely calming.
Soon CN 2875 came rolling out of the yard and came to a stop near the overpass. The conductor got off and lined a switch, then they continued their work.
The work goes on, all day, every day. People moving freight. Steel wheels on steel rail. The trains must roll.