The Road to Regina, Part 2

This is part 2 – read Part 1 of the Road to Regina

After I crossed the border into Saskatchewan, I passed through Langenburg and Churchbridge. Melville was on my mind, but before that, I went to Bredenbury.

Bredenbury

The town of Bredenbury, Saskatchewan was known for its Christmas lights for nearly two decades, until the lack of volunteers forced them to turn the lights out in 2013.

My reason for visiting Bredenbury was the large CPKC yard in town. Bredenbury is the namesake and end of the CP Bredenbury subdivision from Minnedosa, Manitoba, and the start of the CP Wynyard subdivision.

Bredenbury is a division point, so there are maintenance facilities for track and refueling for locomotives, and what looks like a bunkhouse for crews. The yard was full of potash cars, which should be expected given that a couple of Mosaic mines are nearby.

At the east end of the yard, a wye connects Bredenbury with the CP Yarbo subdivision.

The Yarbo subdivision runs south from Bredenbury to just past its namesake town. It exists to serve Mosaic potash mines near Esterhazy: K1, K2, and K3 which was completed in 2022. Potash is big, big business in Saskatchewan and the cars in Bredenbury support that.

A quick backtrack brought me to highway 15, the road west to Melville. On the way, I made a little detour to…

Waldron

The tiny town of Waldron, SK is on the CN Rivers subdivision, the main line between Winnipeg and Melville. I wasn’t there for railfanning, but that’s what happened anyway.

When I arrived, in steady rain, there was a west-facing intermodal train stopped on the south track while an eastbound general freight train rolled on past.

It looked like the crew of CN 2249 West were inspecting their train, as the conductor and a trainee were walking along the train and periodically checking cars.

I photographed the grain elevator, the reason for my detour, and took some shots of the CN train as well.

Time was a-wasting, and I was getting wet, so it was on to…

Melville

Melville was named for Charles Melville Hays, the president of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. The GTP built the second transcontinental railway in Canada (after the CPR and before the Canadian Northern) and Melville was a large division point. It still is, I guess, with the CN main line continuing west through Saskatoon as the CN Watrous subdivision, with a smaller branch line from Melville as the CN Yorkton subdivision.

Melville still hosts a large yard, somewhat visible from the highway 10 overpass west of town.

I wrote about its impressive railway station already.

Melville was briefly the largest community in Saskatchewan in 1939, due to the arrival of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in June 1939. Sixty thousand people greeted their Majesties as they stopped on their Royal Tour of Canada. So many people showed up to see them that their Majesties decided to extend the planned 10 minute stop to several hours.

There are far fewer people in Melville today, and nobody was greeting me when I arrived. I drove around a bit and took a few photographs. I soon realized that the eastbound Canadian was running late and was due into town shortly.

It didn’t seem like there was any good way to photograph the train at the station itself, so I went west of Melville to find a convenient crossing. Unfortunately, the skies opened up again.

A freight train came rolling in from the west in pouring rain. I was moderately soaked taking the photo below.

I was dampened but my enthusiasm for VIA wasn’t, so I set up at a crossing and waited. It didn’t take long.

The Canadian

While I set up, the rain stopped and the sun came out. The railfan gods were smiling on me.

The train was visible several miles down the track, but it was coming on fast. As it approached, I saw that one of the ditch lights was out on VIA 6414.

The crossing arms came down, the bell started clanging, and twenty seconds later VIA 2 came rolling past, with the engineer waving from the right hand window.

The train looked great in my little pocket of sunshine.

The stainless steel gleamed against the dark sky.

Mere seconds after GLACIER PARK passed, my phone lit up with a text message.

It turned out that Daryl Adair, owner/operator of Rail Travel Tours, was on board the Canadian accompanying a tour. You may recall that I worked with Daryl on a bus/rail tour of Northern Ontario in 2023, riding the Agawa Canyon train and the White River RDCs.

It was funny that he happened to see me!

Here’s the video.

After Melville

Excited after my successful recording of the Canadian‘s passage, I headed southwest from Melville on highway 10 toward Regina. On the way, I stopped in Balcarres and Fort Qu’Appelle… and we’ll get to that in part 3.