The BC Rail Heritage Unit

BC Rail heritage unit CN 3115

I mentioned in a recent post that CN had five locomotives specially painted to honour the railways they acquired since their 1995 privatization. Naturally, railfans chimed in with their opinions, the railways don’t care, and the trains keep rolling. Ahem. The word circulated that CN 3115, the BC Rail “heritage” unit, would be leading train … Read more

Oil Trains on the Sprague

Train passing through Ste Anne automated rail inspection portal

It looked like a beautiful Sunday morning, very nice for railfanning… sunny and blue skies galore. I hit the road and headed toward Symington Yard, intending to take a look and see if I could find the “heritage” CN 7600 that was at the shops earlier. Those plans were derailed replaced by a single red … Read more

Cross “Air Force” Off The List

As many railfans know, the Canadian Pacific Railway painted five of their refurbished SD70ACu locomotives to honour the armed services of Canada and the US. Each are painted differently to represent different branches of the militaries and/or time periods. The five are CP 6644 “D-Day”, CP 7020 “NATO green”, CP 7021 “Sand”, CP 7022 “Navy”, … Read more

A New Angle

Winnipeg is half encircled by the Red River Floodway, which can divert most of the Red River around the city during times of flooding. It was expanded after the 1997 “Flood of the Century”. I’ve included the handy map from Wikimedia above. Remember that the Red River flows from south to north, coming from Fargo … Read more

Just Like Halifax

When I heard that CP 119 was coming into Winnipeg with the CP military “navy” locomotive CP 7022, and a Union Pacific locomotive as well, I decided to try to catch them coming into the city. Although it had been blustery and rainy all day, there were some glimmers of sun. As I drove east … Read more

Can’t Reach It

Along with trains and grain elevators, I like bridges. Back in the days when Google+ was still a thing, I ran the “Bridges Over Tuesday” circle where people posted photos of bridges on that day. I have a lot of photos tagged “bridge” in my Adobe Lightroom catalog. Manitoba doesn’t have a lot of significant … Read more

The British Are Coming!

Well, going, anyway… I received a hot tip that there was a CN train in Symington Yard in Winnipeg, waiting to go east, with a string of military equipment on flatcars. I gulped down my supper, grabbed my ready-to-go camera bag, and hit the road. I had to drive a quarter of the way around … Read more

A Study of Signals

I got up early on my birthday to do some trackside night photography. I wanted to take some long exposures and maybe include a train or two in them. My alarm went off at 04:30 and I was out the door shortly after 5 AM. I had decided to visit the CN Rivers subdivision, as … Read more

VIA’s Churchill Train, Coming and Going

I was out looking for trains on my birthday this year. I spent the morning doing a little night photography and chasing the GWWD train. In between, I managed to capture VIA Rail’s Churchill-to-Winnipeg train and later the Winnipeg-to-Churchill train… by accident. Coming I was doing some night photography by the signal lights at mile … Read more

The GWWD From Above

I had my 53rd birthday this week. I know it’s not as impressive a milestone as passing the half century mark, but it’s something to be noted and appreciated. Every day is a gift, and I appreciate that I am still here and able to enjoy life to the fullest. That being said, the pandemic … Read more