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Occasional Canadian photos, mostly from Vancouver area


pH
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From this afternoon, Canadian Pacific GP38-2 4400 (ex-Soo, no dynamics) and GP38-2 3050 (with dynamics) on petroleum product empties to the storage facility at Ioco in Port Moody. (That's IOCO, from Imperial Oil Company, who built a refinery on the site in the early 1900s.)

 

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Having just returned to the "dark continent"  after three weeks in and around Vancouver I thought I'd share some photos.

 

To start  Amtracks North bound "Cascade" at White Rock and crossing Boundary Bay Trestle.

 

There will be more of other bits and pieces. If any one would like full size (for their own use) photos, please let me know.

 

There is steam and traction to come too.

 

 

Trev.

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Here's todays offering, 


 


Fraser Valley Heritage Railway [www.fvhrs.org/  ]using an inter-urban car ( towing a diesel generator trolley as there no longer any overhead. . What surprised me was how little room there was in the seats. 


 


Run on some weekends from Cloverdale to Sullivan - including a level crossing  over highway 10. (aka 56th Ave)


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Heres todays  offering, 

 

Kaatza Station & Museum at Lake Cowichan  on Vancouver  Island . My GF is magic at finding these things  - planned our lunch stop at a restaurant over looking these ....(it's viewable on Google Street view!) 

 

Both the Shay and the 1929 Plymouth could do with a bit of TCL 

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Still on Vancouver Island, at Chemainus there was this  sorry looking (needs some serious TLC)  - falling apart (literally ) Loco. Meanwhile on the E & N railway on the other side of the road  was road / rail bushwacker,  that had been recently in use. There are plans to reintroduce passenger service on this line  next year (yes - no - maybe)

 

Chermainus  does have some amazing wall paintings in the town  - even found a shop (The English Sweet shop) that was selling rail mags! 

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OK last lot ( difficult to believe it's nearly a month ago that I took some of these!. 

 

Few around Fort Langley station, Tanks cars (Renewable Energy Marketing Group) from the moving car from Golden Ears High way , Langley.

 

CPR 3003 Switching in Port Coquitlam yard  - again from a moving car - (no I wasnt driving!)

 

And last but not least CPR 374 in the Roundhouse in Vancouver. 

 

 

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A few from this afternoon.

 

Unit sulphur train on CP tracks in Port Moody, but with CN power (SD75I number 5797 and ex-BC Rail Dash 8-40CM number 4625):

 

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View into the bathtub gondolas, showing how the load is in 3 piles, one over each truck and one in the centre of the car:

 

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West Coast Express F59PHI (sorry, I didn't get the number) arriving at Port Moody from Vancouver. The construction to the right is the tracks of the new rapid transit (Skytrain) line.

 

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Edited by pH
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  • 3 months later...

I went out this afternoon to try to photograph the first eastbound Westcoast Express train, running on CP tracks. Of course, when I got to where I wanted to be, the sun had gone behind light cloud, and it was pretty low in the sky anyway. So not great light for photographing to the west, but the possibility of some 'arty' shots.

 

There was a unit grain train waiting on the westbound track. Is anyone interested in a shot of the roof of an ES44AC (#8723)? 

 

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The Westcoast Express passed on the eastbound track. I took a threequarter front shot against the light, but it didn't turn out, so here's a going-away shot. Engine is F59PHI #901

 

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A pair of GP38-2s ran round the grain train, using track in an industrial yard. These are ex-SOO units, numbers 4400 and 4447 - note the lack of dynamic brakes. (For some reason, the conductor was doing a 'Popeye' impression!)

 

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The grain train followed the GP38-2s. The leading engine was ES44AC #8711

 

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'Arty' shot of the mid-train DPU, ES44AC #8792 going away

 

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Heres todays  offering, 

 

Kaatza Station & Museum at Lake Cowichan  on Vancouver  Island . My GF is magic at finding these things  - planned our lunch stop at a restaurant over looking these ....(it's viewable on Google Street view!) 

 

Both the Shay and the 1929 Plymouth could do with a bit of TCL 

But it looks like the caboose and boxcar have received a repaint since I was there a couple of years ago. Hopefully the caboose will regain its CN logos etc. There's some real good stuff inside the museum, too, which is in the old station building but its not on its original site.

CHRIS LEIGH

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Still on Vancouver Island, at Chemainus there was this  sorry looking (needs some serious TLC)  - falling apart (literally ) Loco. Meanwhile on the E & N railway on the other side of the road  was road / rail bushwacker,  that had been recently in use. There are plans to reintroduce passenger service on this line  next year (yes - no - maybe)

 

Chermainus  does have some amazing wall paintings in the town  - even found a shop (The English Sweet shop) that was selling rail mags! 

Sadly, the 1044 received no attention when the little park was rebuilt around it. The front pilot beam has rotted and fallen off, otherwise it's not too bad for a plinthed loco on Vancouver Island. (You should see Canfor No. 112 which was at Beaver Cove, with trees growing out of it). The road/rail brush cutter looks to be in the same place it was when I was there last September. Even the freights no longer run because the railway is in such a bad state, so I don't think there's any chance of a return of VIA service next year or ever. Some limited freight might come back if there are sufficient bad accidents on the Island Highway to prompt investment in the only alternative. 

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Stretching 'Vancouver area' a long way (but still in British Columbia), here's a picture I found while looking through my negatives for something else. It's an eastbound CPR train entering the McGillivray Loops on the west side of Crowsnest Pass in the summer of 1992. Power is three SD40-2s. The second engine (I think it's 5759) has been modified as a B-unit - note the plated-over cab windows.

 

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I went to a local railway show this afternoon. There's one in the spring and one in the fall, with this being the smaller, so not too many layouts - mostly stalls. Here are some pictures, and I didn't realise how fast (photographicaly speaking) model trains move, so not many action shots.

 

These layouts could go in the "Boxfiles, Micro layouts & Dioramas" topic, but they have unusual containers. This one is in a milk churn:

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and these are in concrete form tubes (used for pouring concrete columns):

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Some scenes from the only 'HO' layout.

Chicago and North Western passing Milwaukee Road:

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Lumber operation (highline going down to left, cut stumps, drowned trees in pond and log dump with piledriver (?)stretching into the pond):

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Small sawmill, complete with beehive burner:

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Very busy 'N' layout. I like the name of the cement company:

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Small circular On3 layout, built mainly to showcase the handbuilt trees made and sold by the owner (in the background):

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Finally, a social/political item on the HO layout (sorry, mods!):

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The 'On To Ottawa' trek happened in the 1930s, when unemployed men tried to travel on CP freights from the west coast to the national capital to air grievances. It ended in the Regina Riot - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-to-Ottawa_Trek

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Nice weather here today, so I went out to take some photographs of progress on the Evergreen Line, the rapid transit line being built through the northeast area of Greater Vancouver.

 

This is the line at Port Moody Centre station. It shows how close it is to the CPR tracks, on which the Westcoast Express service runs. Port Moody Centre is one of two places where the two services will interchange - the other is at Coquitlam Centre station, further east. There's a double-ended centre storage road between the two running tracks. GP38AC 3009 and GP38-2 3050 in the background are switching petroleum product empties for the Ioco (that's IOCO) storage facility in the north of town.

 

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Progress on the Port Moody Centre station:

 

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Port Moody's version of the Berlin Wall. It's meant to prevent trespass on the rapid transit line, which is at grade level at this point, and also as a sound screen for apartments immediately to the right of this street.

 

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The transit line rising to cross over the CPR line:

 

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Inlet Centre station, the next one to the east after Port Moody Centre. The platforms are actually under a main road, just to the left of the picture, with another entrance on the other side of the road.

 

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While the elevated and at-grade sections of the line are progressing well, there are problems with the tunnel in the centre section of the line. Three sinkholes have developed at different points over the tunnel. Apparently, they have all happened when the tunnel boring machine (TBM) has been stopped for maintenance. The machine has to be pulled back from the cutting face for this, the tunnel lining segments haven't been placed yet at the face, there are loose glacial deposits on the line of the tunnel, and some of this material collapses in front of the TBM, causing a sinkhole on the surface. (At least, that's what my geotech/mining engineer son tells me he's hearing.) 

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I took this photo of SD40-2 5987 leading a train east out of Nelson, BC earlier this week:

 

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It had what looked like grilles on the side of the long hood:

 

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Here's a better shot of the same type of grille on SD40-2 5717 leading the same train the day before:

 

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I have never seen SD40-2s with grilles in this position before (in fact I've never seen grilles there before). I have seen engine compartment doors lying open on SD40-2s working on the CP mainline through the mountains in summer, presumably for cooling. These look as if they may be for extra cooling of the engine compartment, and they also look like they may be a 'field modification'. Does anyone know anything more definite about them?

 

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Since I seem to be posting more and more pictures taken in places other than Vancouver, I've changed the title of the topic a bit.

 

Here are CN SD70 #1008 (sublettered for Illinois Central) and C40-8W #2183 (ex-BNSF/ATSF 843) on grain in Saskatoon on June 14:

 

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There is a small railway museum outside Saskatoon, with fairly restricted opening hours. I couldn't manage to get there at an appropriate time,

so this is all I could photograph through the fence. Its a Canadian Pacific, MLW-built Alco S3 #6568, taken on June 18:

 

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Eastbound through Port Moody this afternoon. CP mainline, but CN locomotives, and CN have their own route into Vancouver. I do not think I have ever seen as long a train anywhere in the Vancouver area - it was huge - all 4 engines were working hard! I wonder if there was a problem with the CN tracks, and CN were diverting over CP and trying to keep the number of diversion trains to a minimum. The new Skytrain line (rapid transit) tracks are in the foreground - not yet in operation. 

 

Engines were C40-8M #2436, SD70-M2 #8813, SD75I #5722 and SD70M-2 #8019. 

 

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I believe the left-hand track here is actually the yard lead for Port Coquitlam yards, a couple of miles to the east. As you can see in the picture below, there was a westbound CP train waiting for the CN train to clear, as it crossed on to the eastbound track:

 

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The crew of the westbound CP grain train climb back on after giving the CN a roll-by. Engines 5775 and 6020 - both SD40-2s:

 

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The local switcher was waiting for both of these trains to pass before setting out eastwards. Trailing engine was #2234 - a GP20C-ECO. This is the only engine of the class I've seen locally. It's been around for a few months, but this is the first chance I've had to photograph it.

 

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Finally, something not directly railway-related. The utility companies here apply vinyls to cabinets as an anti-graffiti measure. Most are 'generic' - trees, bushes, mountain views etc. However, some are of local views, and in Port Moody they often use photographs of how the site of the cabinet used to look. Here's one showing the old CP station (the building still exists as a museum, but moved from its previous site):

 

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Having said yesterday, in the post immediately above, that I had only ever seen one CP GP20C-ECO locally (#2234), I saw another today. It was at Mission, on a CP track measurement train:

 

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First coach looked like an accommodation coach, followed by a "Gauge Restraint Measurement Vehicle":

 

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and a "Track Evaluation" coach, which had a full-window end (which doesn't show in this picture):

 

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(If you look in the top left corner of this last picture, you can see an eastbound CN stack train, which has come over the Mission bridge linking the CN and CP tracks, and which will go east up the Fraser River and Fraser Canyon on CP tracks. The two railways' single tracks up the Canyon, on opposite sides of the river, are operated as a double track - eastbound on CP, westbound on CN.) 

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 I saw another today. It was at Mission, 

 

Feeling pleased with myself, at first glance I thought, "that looks like Mission", then read the captions!

 

I'm still humming and hawing whether I can afford to visit my brother this year.

 

Angus

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A couple from the Southern Railway of British Columbia (SRY) in Abbotsford this afternoon. This was originally an electrified interurban, running between downtown Vancouver and the town of Chilliwack in the Fraser Valley, but has long been freight only. It interchanged with the Northern Pacific and the Milwaukee Road at Huntingdon/Sumas at the Canada/US border, about a mile south of where these photos were taken. As you can see from the colour scheme, the railway is now owned by the Washington Group, which also owns Montana Rail Link. It still interchanges with the ex-NP line as part of BNSF, and the stub of the Milwaukee line, which is now operated by BNSF.

 

GP9 #106 and 'Zero Emission Locomotive' (i.e. slug) #002 switching cars in the interchange sidings:

 

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MP15DCs #151 and #152 and caboose A6:

 

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#151 was having some maintenance done.

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A underground mine locomotive and ore car at Britannia Beach, BC.

 

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I had looked at this locomotive a long time ago, and seemed to remember it was a Barclay. I had remembered correctly the country it was built in, but not the builder: 

 

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CN southbound in Squamish on what was previously BC Rail. Locomotives on the head end are ES44AC #2966 and C44-9W #2689:

 

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and about half of the 2-unit midtrain helper. #8938 is a SD70-M2 and #2806, just making it into the picture, is an ES44AC:

 

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A few pictures from the Canadian Pacific's Saskatoon engine facility, taken on Tuesday of this week. Several variations of the CP red colourscheme on view, and different degrees of weathering/fading. I couldn't get too close, because there was a car park with controlled entry and 'No Trespassing' signs, plus a couple of chainlink fences in the way. However ...

  

There were several of the fairly new GP20C-ECoS around. Here are a couple (##2242 and 2247) switching in the yard:

 

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and #2275 standing still:

 

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Older four-axle power (GP38-2 #3105):

 

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This consist appeared while I was there. I don't know if they had just come off a train, or if they had been used for heavy switching in the flat yard. Ex-Soo SD60 #6424 and SD40-2s #6025 and #5727. #6025 is in the 'Pacman' scheme - there aren't too many examples of that left:

 

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There were several AC4400CWs present, most of them pretty dirty:

 

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and a real surprise, lurking at the back of a group:

 

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#5477, a Union Pacific ES44AC in Saskatchewan! I do not know how it would have got there. As I said, it was the back of a group, and that was the best shot I could get, so I don't know if there were any more UP units there. CP and UP have a power pool which operates between Hinkle in Oregon and Lethbridge in Alberta, over what used to be the Spokane International and through Crowsnest Pass, and all the UP units involved are fully equipped to operate as leaders in Canada. But Saskatoon is about 400 miles northeast of Lethbridge, and CP doesn't seem to be short of 4400HP AC units. 

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A Canadian Pacific permanent way gang 'going home' at the end of a day's work:

 

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About a dozen vehicles in total. If you look hard enough, you can see yellow dots away into the distance. Moving at about 10 mph, all with warning 'beepers' sounding. (Apologies for the lighting - it was a choice between overdark foreground or washed-out distance.) 

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Canadian National C40-8M #2425 and SD70M-2s #8008 and #8853 on loaded grain train on Canadian Pacific tracks at Port Moody on December 28. (Notice the sagging frame on #2425)

 

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The notice below is posted at the crossing from which I took the picture of the train.

 

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