Recently my wife texted me that on the way to work, she saw a train carrying windmill blades. That was unusual enough for me to get off the couch to go look for it.
She said it was northbound along Pembina (the CN Letellier subdivision), so I took a guess that it went to Symington Yard. I drove all the way around the yard but I saw nothing unusual there.
As I finished my circumnavigation of the yard, I spotted a potash train pulling out onto the St. Boniface spur / Terminals Cutoff track. Most trains entering or leaving Symington at the northwest end do so through Beach Junction, but the Terminals Cutoff track is a more direct route. It is used to interchange with CP and also for the occasional through train.
I went to a parking lot on Marion Street to await the train. It had a pair of ex CREX leaser locomotives on the head end, sharp looking locomotives in their silver livery with blue noses and yellow stripes.
The train slowly pulled past me across Marion Street… then stopped. Eventually it started backing up again, pushing all the way back to Symington Yard. I guess they were doing some switching!
The facility in the background is owned by Darling Ingredients, which collects used cooking oil and other animal fats and turns them into biodiesel fuel.
The train was moving slowly enough that I was able to relocate to Maginot Street and run over to photograph them crossing Lagimodiere Boulevard.
I don’t think I’ve photographed a train here since the “caboose train” from the 2017 CN Family Day in Winnipeg.
Here they are pushing past the entrance to Symington Yard.
That was a fun little chase!
Just One More Thing
I just read You Are Not What We Expected by Sidura Ludwig. It was… not what I expected. But in a good way.
I was expecting a novel, but instead I read a collection of loosely related stories, bound together by an extended family and a general sense of… sadness? Bad luck?
It’s not a cheerful book but I wouldn’t say it is sad, either. It’s real. People dealing with real challenges, family issues, health issues, the whole shebang.
It was more than what I expected.
Great shots, Steve! Fun to see action on that line. Did you ever connect with the windmill blades?
Hi Jeff, no I never did see the windmill blades. I understand they went to the Fort Rouge yard, then went west overnight.