Railfan Stories

CN 8950 at East Elie

Often it pays to look at something from more than one angle. I almost missed a good photo opportunity because I didn’t consider every angle. In Search of Sunset Late one afternoon, I was in my house, wrapping up work and thinking about supper when I looked outside and saw a beautiful sunset developing. I … Read more

Two red trains meetingWintry freezing afternoonNumb fingers, warm heart Southward train, mixed freightFour engines, lifeless and coldTrail behind crazy eights. Switch is against themConductor braves the fierce coldSets the record straight Northbound train, mostly oilStuck on the sidelines for nowNow time to escape Smoking and rumblingLong gloss black snake tail trailingSteel monster heads north A … Read more

Canadian Pacific revealed five refurbished locomotives on November 11, 2019, painted in military inspired colours to honour the women and men of the Canadian and American armed forces. As I mentioned in my recent Cross Air Force off the List post, I’d seen four of those five locomotives. Now it’s five out of five. I’d … Read more

Conductor: “Clear signal.”Engineer: “Clear.”C: “It should be clear all the way past Meadows. RTC says we have a meet at Marquette. 298.”E: “Gotcha.” If it wasn’t so overcast, the crew of train 411 would have seen the sun rising as they left Winnipeg. As it was, the temperature was a cool -7 Celsius, not bad … Read more

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

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

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

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

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