North Bound

On Tuesday, after venturing into Saint John at 6am to go to Walmart, I decided to make a little trip up north, Chipman, to be more precise. I arrived at 8:30am. I drove around for a little bit, then decided to head over to Cantor (Hardwood Ridge). When I arrived, the east facing signals showed red over red. Based on the time, I knew that I had for sure missed 121, as that would have went by probably around 5:30am. I had also assumed that I missed 305. I decided to park in an empty parking lot, and wait for a few minutes.

At about 8:50am, I overheard talk on the scanner about Chipman maintenance crew wanting to get clearance on the line from Chipman to North Branch. During the discussion, it was mentioned that 305 was just about to depart Moncton. Hence, I actually did not miss 305. I ventured back into Chipman to drive around some more and check out some crossings outside the community. Afterwards, I drove back to Cantor. While waiting, a maintenance crew drove by, and continued west on the line towards Bantalor. About 15 minutes later, 305 was given clearance to exit Chipman, about 20 minutes after that, I heard the horn for a dirt road private crossing around the corner.

Here's CN 305 passing through at about 10:15am.



Afterwards, I ventured BACK to Chipman. I figured that I'd have time to kill if I wanted to catch 473. At about 10:50am, maintenance crew were talking to the RTC. They wanted to do some work between Cantor (54.5) and Chipman (45). The RTC blurted: "CN 308 should be there shortly...It's meeting 305 in Napadogan in about an hour, so you should have least 2 hours". I didn't really want to stay for 2 hours. I knew that it was about 30 minutes by rail from Napadogan to McGivney. Hence, I decided to depart Chipman, and head north towards Doaktown, then back south towards McGivney. This was about 40km shorter than driving down to Minto, then up.

It took about 45 minutes to get to McGivney. A quick glance at the west facing signals showed green over red, so indeed, 308 had not arrived yet. After sitting for about 35 minutes, CN 308 came barreling through at track speed at about 12:20pm.



I decided to give up on 473, as I had not heard anything about it on the scanner. I went home, pretty satisfied about the outcome of my trip.