Dark Times With Caleb

Late last summer, my good friend Caleb Wentzell was in Winnipeg for a while, doing some training with CN. I picked him up one evening for a different kind of train-ing… watching trains!

We decided to head down the Sprague subdivision to see if we could find a train while there was still some light in the sky.

We drove down to the Dufresne grain elevator. We waited around for a little bit, and fortunately a train came along!

CN 3177 East

The sun was just barely above the horizon at this point (8:30 PM).

I took a little pan of the DPU as it went by. You can see my video camera on the tripod by the tail end of the locomotive.

There were some ballast cars in the elevator siding, including this rare Wisconsin Central remote ballast car.

Here’s the video of the train – which turned out to be A438.

After the train passed, we continued on to the automated rail inspection portal near Ste. Anne, hoping to see another train.

Sunset

The sun set while we were at the portal, but sadly no more trains came along. At least we were able to take a few silhouette photos. Prairie sunsets are so pretty.

Several Days Later…

Caleb came over to my house one evening to operate on my model train layout. He ran all my trains like a pro – since he is a professional railroader!

After we finished driving trains, I took him back to the hotel he was staying at. On the way, we swung by Navin at the southwest end of Symington Yard.

There was an oil train waiting to leave the city. We hung around for a few minutes, and eventually they got underway.

The train had a UP locomotive (8812) behind CN 2657.

The tail end had BCOL 4647, painted in CN colours.

I’m always happy to see Caleb, and I’m glad we saw a few trains too!

Just One More Thing

Check out Caleb’s Flickr page for some fantastic photography!

Also see:

• 10 Questions for Caleb Wentzell
• Chasing CN (406) With Caleb
• CN 121, Day and Night