Northbound at Jubilee

Back in May 2020, I was midway up Pembina Avenue in Winnipeg and I had an hour to kill. Why not go to the Bus Rapid Transit station stop by Jubilee Avenue? Doesn’t everyone?

Seriously, though, I did want to see it as I hadn’t been in the area since the shelter was completed. That area used to be a decent area to railfan in, as it is next to the CN Fort Rouge yard.

It is also adjacent to Portage Junction, the intersection between the main line (CN Rivers subdivision) and the line south to the US border (CN Letellier subdivision). In times past, this was a very busy place with the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific running passenger trains through here from the USA.

The new Bus Rapid Transit line has a series of very modern and sleek stations along the line.

The stations feature awnings for the platforms along with some indoor seating. There are large displays showing the approaching buses and their times to arrival.

Here’s the map of the “BLUE” BRT line.

I spent some time taking photos of buses.

There’s a two lane walking/biking path that runs along the BRT line and it was fairly well used when I was there.

Here’s a longer distance view of the whole station. A number of condos and apartments have sprung up in the Fort Rouge area over the past decade.

While I was walking around, I started to hear a low rumble in the distance. Could that be a train?

It sure was!

It was train CN 533 coming north from the border, returning to the city.

I took a few shots of the approaching train with the long lens on my camera. The photo below shows them coming off the wye at Portage Junction. The CN Rivers subdivision curves off to the right and you can just glimpse the Beaumont BRT station in the distance on the far right.

I hadn’t photographed in this area since the BRT stations were put in, so I took the opportunity to try some different angles and see what worked. I liked the shot below with the train crossing the Pembina Highway.

They weren’t going very fast as they started to enter the Fort Rouge yard.

I quickly jogged over to the Jubilee station to photograph them there. I wasn’t the only one running there!

I got there in time to frame up the photo below.

That was my favourite photo from the series.

My time was up, so I headed out. An hour well spent, in my opinion.