Matt's Manic McGivney Moncton Marathon

Dave(nbsrfan) and I decided that Sunday would be a great day to head up to McGivney to catch a few trains in action. It actually turned out to be a great day! We left Saint John at around 3am(just when people were getting home from the bars). We arrived in McGivney at around 5am. When we got there, the east facing signals were red over red. I decided to choose my spots for my videos, since it was still dark, and I had time to kill. At around 5:45am, the signal changed to green over red, which meant that a westbound train was on the track, and heading our way! We waited, which I didn't mind, because the longer we had to wait, the brighter it got outside. About an hour later, I could see the lights come around the corner, and at 6:45am, CN 121 blased westbound with 137 container cars, and a killer horn!



Our first train of the day, and it wasn't even 7am yet! We did not have to wait too much longer. At around 7:50am, I noticed that the signal changed to red over yellow. What this meant is that there was another westbound train on the track, and it would have to take the siding here in McGivney! I thought that was great, since it would be a 2 for 1 train meet! At around 8:40am, CN 305 with 8837 as the lead engine made it's way to McGivney at a snails pace, and entered the siding. I also caught my eyes on first live DPU, which was also great!



I had no idea which train was on the other side waiting to pass 305. I was amazed that it was CN 308, since 308 does not pass McGivney until well into the afternoon. Once the train went into the siding, CN 308 came blasting through with yet another great engine, 8846!



So, we had already caught 3 trains, and it wasn't even 9am yet. We decided that since there would only be one more train on that line that day(CN 473), it would be good to head into Moncton for the rest of the day, and that's what we did. We had gotten into Moncton around noon, so I knew that CN 407 and VIA 614 would be shortly along. Dave and I decided to head over to Painsec Junction, which is just on the east side of the city. We were there for roughly an hour. We caught a train making its way eastbound. Dave and I assumed that it was VIA. However the engine didn't look right. I realized that it was CN 534, doing a local run. Once 534 passed, I looked into the horizon and saw that CN 407 had taken the siding. My guess was that it was waiting for VIA to pass before heading into Moncton. Sure enough, I was right. VIA 614 came barrelling by, and shortly after, 407 took the mainline. I was excited...two train meets in one day! Here the video of the meetup of the 3 trains:



After this, we decided to venture into Moncton to the Gort Yard, since we had a few hours to kill. Once there, we saw some engines shunting cars around. Once we made our way to the Delong Drive overpass, we bumped into Wendell Lemon. He informed us that CN 536 was just shortly coming around the corner. It was returning from the Irving Plant up in Chipman, NB. Here's the video of the shunting and 536:



Wendell informed us that VIA 615 was just arriving into the station. CN 534(the one we caught earlier) was on it's way back, and waiting for VIA to leave the station before it came back to the yard. We went down to Marsh Junction. We were not there long. About 20 minutes later, VIA 615 came along, and 5 minutes later, CN 534 passed by:



We decided to stay in the city to wait for CN 408 to leave east for Halifax. I knew that it would be leaving at a decent time, since 308 and 405 were back so early. We decided to stick around Marsh Junction to catch 408. Finally, at around 8:30pm, CN 408 passed by hauling 79 cars, heading towards Halifax.



Well, the day was finally over! 16 hours later, and 11 trains later, we decided to head back to Saint John. Also, just as we were leaving Moncton, we heard on the scanner that CN 406 was also leaving for Saint John around the same time we were. However, since it was getting dark and we were getting tired, that was it for railfanning today! Definately worth the trip!