Rail Weekend

I decided to venture out and do a little bit of railfanning this weekend, since I won't be able to do very much of it during the week for the next few weeks.

Saturday

Anyway, I ventured into Saint John on Saturday morning to see what was going on, rail wise. I met up with Dave for a few hours, and we chatted about odds and ends, mostly rail related things. While in the city, I snapped a few pictures.





As Dave and I chatted, I noticed the local getting ready to head over, so I decided to get my camera out and grab a video.

Afterwards, I noticed the CN crew getting into the shop to get ready for their 405 run. I didn't bother sticking around. At around 1:40pm, Dave and I went our seperate ways. I decided to head home to Rothesay. Knowing that I could hear the clearance call from my house, I had no worries about missing it.

At around 4:45pm, 3 hours later, the RTC finally gave their clearance for 405. Knowing that it was getting dark, I decided to venture over near the Rothesay train station to catch a shot of CN 405. The lighting was crap, but I can't control those things.

CN 405 passed with an IC2700, 5349 and 2567 with a rather large train, especially for a Saturday. Here's the video of the Local and CN 405 on my "Super Saturday".





Sunday

Sunday was a rather quiet day. I decided to stay at home and get stuff done around the house, while keeping the scanner close by. At about 2:50pm, CN 405 got their clearance from the RTC. I knew that I wanted to try and get the shot at someplace different. I decided to head over to the Hammonds River bridge, since it was actually still light outside.

I arrived at my location. It's a nice spot just off the Hampton road. You can walk right down near the water. About half an hour after I set up, CN 405 came through, with the same power as Saturday.



The weekend turned out rather well.

Nice Day For A Video

I had gotten off of work around 12:30pm, so I decided to venture down to the Island Yard to see what was going on. After about a 2 hour wait, the crew finally came in to get their engine ready. I managed to get a quick picture of CN IC2700 before it went out of view:



I had heard that they needed to head over for 46 potash, so I decided to head home for a quick lunch, since I hadn't eaten yet. Just as I finished up, I heard the clearnace for 405 to enter the mainline and depart. I guess they must have cancelled their potash order. Also, it's nice to know that my scanner can pick up the RTC calls from 20km away.

After hearing this, I decided that I wanted to head out to Hampton to get a shot. A few minutes after arriving, Kevin Gaudet showed up. We chatted for a few minutes, then 405 came around the corner.

Here's CN 405 with 2418, 2582, and an IC 2700 for power.



That was the end to my day.

New Look

I tweaked around with the look of the blog a bit. Enjoy.

A Few Pictures

Here are a few pictures that I took on Rememberance Day. Not much, but oh well.

Rainy Sunday in New Brunswick

Well, on Sunday, the weather called for heavy rain. Even with that, Dave (nbsrfan) and myself ventured up to McGivney. We left Saint John a little after 4am. We ended up at McGivney a little after 6am. When we arrived, we were greeted with a green over red signal facing east, so we knew that 121 was due to arrive. We sat in car in the downpour of rain. At around 7:20am, CN 121 came barreling around the corner. However, once they started up the grade at the crossing, they throttled down, and stopped right in front of the green signal (before the siding). After a 5 minute stop, they were finally on the road again. Unfortunately, I have no idea as to why they stopped. There was no mention on the scanner.

Here are a few pictures. Sorry, they didn't turn out the best.




Here's the video of CN 121 with 8849,5539,5265 and 8827 as the DPU, hauling a total of 160 cars.



After talking with a few of the maintenance crew that arrived, it was discovered that the next train would not be arriving for a little while. So, rather than sitting in the pouring rain, we decided to venture down to Moncton. One of the maitenance crew had looked at the computer, and there was no sign of 305 on the computer. However, about half way between Fredericton and Moncton, we picked up on the scanner that CN 305 had the clearance to leave Chipman. Damn. We also discovered later on that CN 473 left Moncton around 11:30am, and CN 308 was due through McGivney sometime between 1:30 and 2pm, so there could have been a meet at McGivney. Ah well.

Anyway, once we arrived to Moncton, we heard VIA 14 getting their clearance to pass Gort, so we booted it to Marsh Junction for a clip. Afterwards we decided to venture out to Memramcook to catch VIA 14 passing through on the way to Halifax.



We had heard on the scanner that CN 407 pulled over in the siding at Evans, to let VIA pass. To my understanding, Evans is between Dorchester and Sackville, NB. Hence, we knew that 407 was close by. About 40 minutes after VIA came by, CN 407 rolled by with 5621, 8817 hauling 28 cars. Apparently there is no pick up in Truro on Sundays, which is why the train was so small.



Afterwards, we headed back into Moncton. There was very little going on, and we discovered that CN 405 had not arrived from Saint John yet. We decided to venture back home, but keep our eye out for it. We picked up on the scanner that 405 was stopped at McCully's to drop off potash cars. We booted it down to McCully's. We decided to try a different location, rather than near the potash terminal. CN 405 passed by with 5277, 2416 and 2650.



Afterwards, we decided to call it a day and head home. It was unfortunate that we didn't see as much as we wanted to in McGivney. As well, it was nice that even though it was raining most of the day, the rain help up once the trains came by. Of course, up until that last video.

Definately not one of the better trips, but something is better than nothing.

-Matt

McGivney

Rain or shine, I'll be heading up to McGivney tomorrow morning with Dave(nbsrfan). So, I'll have a few more videos to post.

It's Definately Been Awhile

Howdy folks,

Well, what can I say, it's been a while since I last made a post here. I'm finding it hard to keep this up to date. It's tricky because most of railfanning that I do is around the Saint John area, so after a while, it becomes somewhat repetitive. Hence, it seems rather pointless to keep making a blog entry for each train that I see, since most of them will be similar.

After a crashed computer and a newly purchased one, I've been able to get into Microsoft Train Simulator. It's such a great game because there are so many different things which can be done, including engine and rolling stock add ons.

Here is a video which I recently shot using Fraps, a game recording software. This consist was created by myself. CN with 8828, 5520, 8000, 2552, 2500 & 5333 for power haul 162 intermodal cars North on the Bala Sub. The first set of containers on the load resemble alot of the intermodal containers which you would see in Canada & the Maritimes. It was a rolling stock download which I got from Train-Sim.com. As well, after searching desperately, I was finally able to find a horn to match the SD70M-2 8800's engines which CN has. Although it's just a game, it sounds like the real thing!




Here's another video which I shot on Rememberance Day, of CN 405 leaving Saint John. Power was 5277, 5338 and 5771.



That's about it for now. Lets hope that I can somewhat do a better job of keeping this up to date.

-Matt