May Surprises

Often when we go trackside, we get exactly what we expected – one or more trains, led by common locomotives and featuring the same ol’ same ol’ freight cars. Sometimes, though, we get something different. May 5 I recorded CP 7005 West passing the Viterra grain elevator near Rosser early on May 5th. The train … Read more

Strangers in Town

Here are a few “oddball” locomotives that have visited the Heart of the Continent, aka Winnipeg. Most of these are what we railfans call these “foreign power”, meaning locomotives that belong to railway X but running on railway Y’s rails.

School in the USSR

When my family lived in Moscow, USSR between 1977 and 1979, my sister and I went to a school called the Anglo-American School of Moscow. This was a 5 story concrete building that housed students from English speaking embassies, so this included Canadians, Americans, Australians, British and so forth. We were both attending grades 6 and 7.

I Drove All Night, Part 3

Recap: I set out late on May 7 / early on May 8 to photograph the Milky Way, photograph the grain elevator at Oberon at night, and see some trains. I drove from Winnipeg to Oberon and Brookdale, just north of Carberry. The sun has finally come up. Let’s continue. After taking my selfie at … Read more

I Drove All Night, Part 2

I had to stop at the G3 grain elevator near Bloom to take a few photos. I didn’t want to linger – night was ending soon – but I wanted to photograph it night. I set up the tripod and took six shots at various exposures and let Adobe Lightroom merge them into one image.

I Drove All Night, Part 1

I’ve been trying to photograph the Milky Way for some time now. My wife and I have gone out aurora chasing a few times this spring and, although we have had success photographing the aurora, I haven’t been able to see the Milky Way. I think the two main reasons why we didn’t see it is because the moon was out, and we didn’t stay out late enough.

CN Regina Terminal Car Control Manual

This is the CN Regina Terminal car control manual dated June 15, 1981. These manuals were issued to employees, and depict the CN track in the city of Regina, Saskatchewan. They include details on what customers were served by which pieces of track, and all tracks had a designation to allow CN to track rail … Read more

A National Disgrace

I had another post scheduled for today, but it was just a post about trains and that’s not terribly important to me right now, given the discovery of the remains of 215 children buried at a former residential school in Kamloops, BC. What I feel is important is to take more than a moment to … Read more

Current Projects May 2021

I thought it might be time for an update on some projects I’ve been working on. This is a way for me to be accountable to myself and also to convince myself that I actually accomplished something since my last update in late November.

10 Questions for Ian Cole

Three Super 7s on the Ohio Central Zanesville local crossing the Muskingum River bridge in Zanesville, Ohio. Photo by Ian Cole.

This series is modeled after the “Interesting Railfan” series in Railroad magazine from years ago. I’m asking each railfan 10 questions, some standard and some customized for the particular person. I hope you enjoy it. (See all in the series). I put 10 questions to Ian Cole, who goes by “CTP_Trains” on Instagram. I’ve admired … Read more