On The Road Again

I'm pleased to be able to offer up something new, which is a little less heavy than my previous two posts. I thank those of you who reached out to me regarding my post about mental health and the situation my family and I find ourselves in at the moment. I'm happy to say that the situation has stabilized as the police have helped us restore calm for the time being. My mental health has improved and I am starting to feel more like myself again.

Recently, my family went on a short trip to Waterloo, Ont. for a music conference. This was a business trip for my wife, as she is the chair of a provincial music association. For me, I was giving a mental health presentation, but it was also a chance to get out of Ottawa and visit family in nearby Stratford. I have a pile of interesting pictures from Stratford, including some images from my summer visit, but I will save those for other posts.

I should also note that I had a chance to visit the Waterloo Central Railway yard in St. Jacobs and the CN yard in Kitchener, both of which yielded some cool, and even unexpected, shots. It was an incredibly productive trip for me as a train-starved railfan.

For this post, I wanted to share some images captured while my family was travelling to and from Waterloo. This has always been a fun game I have played while on Highway 401. In this case, we had incredible luck, as my wife managed to get some fantastic images of trains.

Our first meet was in Kingston, as we were approaching the Highway 15 interchange, where the CN Kingston Subdivision is visible from the highway. An eastbound local had made its way past the highway overpass (Ed note: A reader said the photo was likely taken near County Road 11A) when my wife captured this image. The train is being led by CN ES44AC 2933, with two boxcars and a long string of covered hoppers in tow. As we were going in opposite directions, I give my wife full credit for getting this shot. I have really grown to love these shots, which are from a distance and do not have any of the 3/4 wedge effect. It's almost a full-on parallel shot. I am of the opinion that a train image doesn't need to have the train as the dominant feature in the image for the shot to be compelling.

We didn't see anything else on our way, since we were driving fairly late and the darkness prevented any further shots. But I did get this shot of a fading western sunset as we were on the 401 in the Toronto area. I was in the passenger seat at the time, I should add. All these images, in fact, were taken from the front passenger seat. Safety first!

On the way home, we took the 407 toll highway, as we were leaving on a weekday morning and the traffic around Toronto was a major obstacle to our timely return to Ottawa. I'm glad we took the 407, since we were able to catch this image of three CN units resting near its Brampton yard. This is second time I've caught a string of units on this flyover. Unlike the other time I caught engines on this bridge, this time around, these are all heavy hitters. The last time, I remember catching an old GP9 warhorse. This image, again, is courtesy of my wife in the passenger seat.

A little further along, after we had rejoined the eastbound 401, we were travelling through Clarington on the east side of the GTA when we levelled up to an eastbound freight train that was moving at a pretty good clip.

My wife managed to snag a pretty decent shot of the DPU unit operating mid-train. Once again, I love that this shot captures more than just the train. The cloud bank in the sky and the scattered sunshine makes for a visually interesting image. You can see the DPU peaking out between some brush, as well as some lumber cars, a boxcar and a tank car. The DPU is CN 2222, an ES44DC.

Sadly, we were not able to successfully get the front end of the train, as the roadside brush and the differing speeds of the train and our car meant we couldn't find a clear line of sight, although I will say that the train was lead by a lone unit, possibly another ES44DC. I can't be sure, as I only had time to quickly glance over since I was driving.

As I have mentioned before, I always try to snag a few bonus train shots when I am travelling along the 401, as the CN mainline parallels the highway for a stretch in Kingston, as well as in parts of Toronto. We did pass by CP trackage a few times in our travels as well, but I was not able to catch any CP trains, which is a shame.

Much of my photography this year has been remarkably consistent in that the railways featured on this blog are predominantly CN and Via. In the coming weeks and months, I aim to change that, simply by sharing some great shots of the Goderich Exeter Railway in Straford and some shots of the Waterloo Central Railway in St. Jacobs. 

Stay tuned.

Hide and Seek, Part I

When you don't see all that many trains, you have to make the most of the chances you do get. I have mentioned this many times on this blog. Aside from the very sporadic CN freight trains in Ottawa's west end, I am 40 minutes away from the nearest main line. That's why I always make sure to bring a camera along when my family travels to Southwestern Ontario. There are a number of spots along our route where you can technically get a quick shot, if you are ready. Last summer, my family made two trips to Southwestern Ontario.

There wasn't much on the first trip down. Usually, if we are passing through Kingston around 9:30 a.m., we will catch an eastbound or westbound CN mixed freight. On our first trip, there was nothing. Between Kingston and the Greater Toronto Area, there are a few spots where you can see rails, but nothing was happening. 

On the east side of Toronto, we did see a CN freight parked on the mainline, waiting for clearance to proceed west. We were in the westbound lanes, so visibility was tight, to say the least. I was sitting in the passenger seat and attempted a few shots at the head end of the train as it waited. 

Of course, the 401 being the 401, my first shot was foiled by a car. I tried again.

This time, there were no cars in the way, but I did managed to snag a decent shot of the head end power, although it was partially obscured by the highway divider. As I've mentioned before, I earn many of these shots through quick timing and lots of editing. The full frame of this shot was not nearly as orderly as this cropped version. But, all in all, not a total waste.

I titled this post Hide and Seek for a reason. When attempting shots from the highway in a moving car, anything on the tracks can disappear behind a car, tree, safety barrier, building or bridge in an instant. It's not an easy game to play, especially when you're shooting across your car and trying not distract the driver. Thankfully, my wife knows this game and is ice cold behind the wheel.

A few weeks after this first trip, my family headed west again on a separate trip to visit the other side of our family. The second time around, my highway railway karma was much better. We did run across a freight train headed east on the CN Kingston Subdivision, but the trees obscuring the main line foiled any attempt at a shot of the head end. This time, my wife was in the passenger seat and trying her hand at railfanning. 

She did snag a tiny piece of the mid-train DPU. This shot is the essence of hide and seek.

I did pick out a few shots of the middle of the train, since there wasn't much else to focus on. I like the single TTX RailBox car in the middle of a string of tank cars. When I was younger, I loved watching the old freight trains that didn't seem to have any order to their consists. I know there is an order to this train, but it's always fun to see a car that sticks out in a line.

Here's one more shot. Boxcars and a lumber car. Nothing special, but some contrasting colours and schemes. It's all part of the game when you're on the highway.

Further along on our journey, we came across something really interesting as we left the 401 and merged onto the Highway 8 in Kitchener. Having lived in this city and thinking back to past experiences in the area, I knew there was a slight chance of catching something. I did in fact get something at long range, but I am saving those shots for the next post in the Hide and Seek series.

Our final stop was Stratford, which meant some interesting shots in the town's CN rail yard, which is shared with the Goderich Exeter Railway. There were a few posts worth of material from my time in Stratford that I just shared.

Skipping ahead to the return trip to Ottawa, I did manage to get a few shots in the east end of Toronto from the eastbound lanes, which are much closer to the GO/CN tracks. Here's one shot that you can easily get when you exit off the eastbound 407/412 ETR back onto the 401. It puts you right next to GO's east end maintenance facility and yard. I like that you can get a shot along the curve.

I wasn't able to get a shot of the GO rail yard that was usable for this post. The glare of the sun off the car's windows obscured my shots. You can't win them all.

All in all, I think my train karma was pretty good. I also managed to see a CP container train passing beneath Highway 416 near Kemptville, but there were no shots of that meet. 

As always with these posts, I am a bit hesitant to share these shots, as there are not typical of what you would find on a railway blog and they are certainly not up to the usual standards of many other blogs with far better photo quality. 

I guess there are two reasons why I share these shots. One, I think the challenge of rail photography from the passenger seat of a car on the 401 is incredibly difficult, which is itself worth exploring. Second, trips on the 401 are always an opportunity for bonus rail photos. For someone living in a railway desert, I can't pass up the chance.

A little fun on the 401

When my family recently travelled down to the Sarnia area for the Mother's Day weekend, I once again played one of my favourite games. Whenever we travel Highway 401, I bring along a camera to see if we can get some shots of trains at speed. I've done this many times, with varying results. At the very least, it's a good way to pass the time on what is always a very long ride.

Here's what we got this time around.

When we were passing through Kingston Friday morning at around 110 km/h, a westbound Via Rail train from Montreal overtook us. My wife snapped a pretty cool shot of wrapped P42 912, a renaissance-painted Business Class coach and a wrapped coach.

This stretch of CN's Kingston Subdivision is a gold mine for railfanning, even if you're in a car. A little further west of this spot, the subdivision crosses under the 401 near Montreal Street (I think), which is where we caught a glimpse of this freight heading east. I was a little disappointed with our timing. Had we travelled a little slower, we would have met this one at a better spot along the highway. Oh well.

Not the best shot, but it still works for me. There's just one unit pulling some centre beam lumber cars and a few gondolas and some covered hoppers (out of frame). Maybe a local? I suspect my friend Eric Gagnon might be able to comment on this.

One the way home to Ottawa, we didn't have the same kind of luck, but I did manage to snag a shot of some GO Trains idling near the 401 east of Toronto. You can see some of the glare from the window, which I was not able to photoshop out completely.

And, as we usually do, we came across an endless container train. We usually see a few of these when we travel the highway, although we often catch them mid-train. Still, a good collection of trailers to see, if that's your thing.

Here are two final shots, which illustrate how tough this game can be, although I have to hand it to my wife for being a gamer. Here's a shot she got from the passenger seat, shooting across the driver's seat and across the westbound 401. The first shot is completely untouched.

Another wrap! Here's my attempt to work with one of the shots.

You get the idea. It's sometimes a game of diminishing returns, but it makes the drive much more fun, for me at least.

Keeping pace in Kingston

I love travelling along Highway 401 through Kingston. Just about every time I drive through this stretch, I get to see a train. In mid-July, my family was on its way to the Hamilton area for a family reunion, which necessitated a jaunt down the highway. Since I was driving, my wife had the camera ready in case we saw something. She must have had a sixth sense for this behemoth of a train because no sooner had she taken out the camera when we saw a long string of tank cars bringing up the rear of this train.

For the sake of this blog post, I will start with the front end first, even though it was the last part of the train we saw. My wife snapped a few shots of the head end, including this shot of CN ES44DC 2326 and C44-9W 2596. Nothing out of the ordinary, right? Check out the flat car behind the locomotives.

I blew up one of the head-end images to show you what was behind the power, A CN flat car was loaded with axles. I was surprised when I looked closely at my wife's images to see that. You don't see that as a buffer car very often.

A little further back, there were a few CWR cars in the consist carrying rails west. It seems like an endless trend. Rails torn up in the east to feed new infrastructure in the west. I hope this wasn't the case here.

This train had a little bit of everything and it was not strictly organized in large blocks. This shot shows some of the variety in the consist, including an AOK boxcar, which we know belongs to a leasing company, even though the AOK patch suggests it is an Arkansas Oklahoma Railway car. Not so. You can read about my first encounter with AOK here.

As we overtook the train and made our way past it, I kept pointing out things that I hoped my wife could snap and, to her credit, she nailed just about everything, which is no small task along this stretch of the highway Although there are some points where the highway and railway parallel each other, there are lots of trees and contours to the road near Kingston that make photographs a little tricky in some spots. Here's a shot of some TTX autoracks. A little further up the consist, there was a great old Grand Trunk autorack, but the highway veered away from the right-of-way and we couldn't shoot it through a tangle of trees.

Here's another shot that shows you how this train was organized. Make no mistake, there is order on this train, even if it seems random to the untrained eye. Three loads of lumber trail a string of tank cars while AOK and CN ribbed boxcars follow.

This is where some of the shots became tricky. The highway veers away from the Kingston Sub a few times along this stretch of road east of Kingston. Here between the trees, we can see a few gondolas with covers. I would guess they are carrying steel.

I can honestly say that my wife earned a strong A from me in her first real effort to photograph a train. Her efforts in trying to catch this DPU unit were solid, but I would dock her a bit for not catching the whole unit. Still, I was pleased she got what she did since this is the first time I have caught a DPU. Again, please see my above comments about living in Ottawa. There are so many elements of modern railroading that I never see in Ottawa.

Toward the end of the train, we saw a long line of tank cars. I like this shot because it shows a contrast between a newer Procor tank car and an older rusting tank car. I also like the greenery in the shot.

One final surprise. As we finally passed the freight train and headed on our way, I saw a Via Rail corridor train headed in the opposite direction (east, or to the right of the image). My wife managed to snag a shot of the passenger train passing the freight train. You can just make out the lead units of the freight train to the left of the image. I was driving at the time so I didn't realize that the Via train had a P42 at the end of the consist, which I haven't often seen. I'm pretty sure there was a P42 on the other end, but we sadly didn't catch that end in an image.

There are a number of other shots from this shoot, many of which feature blurry trees and other hazards between the highway and the tracks. I was happy my wife was able to have so much success in her debut as a railfan. Sadly, I don't think I've sold her on the hobby, though.

You can read about my previous efforts photographing trains on the 401 in these posts.

No such thing as too much of a good thing
Railway bridges of Ontario
So close and yet...

Railway bridges of Ontario

I have always been fascinated with railway bridges. Over the Christmas break, I was able to catch a CN train trundling over a railway bridge that crosses Highway 401. Looking at the photos of this meeting made me think about all the bridges I have photographed over the years and their importance to their successive railways. In some cases, old bridges have taken on new life as vital pieces of recreational trails.

So with that, here is a small tour of Ontario's railway bridges. First stop is Ottawa.

The bridge below crosses over Carling Avenue along the mostly dismantled Beachburg Subdivision just west of Nepean Junction. This bridge, which still bears its old CN logo, once supported transcontinental freight trains, when Beachburg was part of CN's northern national route. It's now a rusty relic, destined to be part of a recreation trail, no doubt. This shot was taken Nov. 9.

The span below is part of the Goderich Exeter Railway's main line, just outside Clinton, Ont. Unlike the CN bridge above, this one has an older feel. Notice the old stone work and the narrowed highway lanes. This type of bridge is a throwback. The narrowed highway lanes speak to a time when this road was clearly not a major route. But, over the years, the road became a highway, but the road still accommodates the rail line, not the other way around. This shot was taken early one foggy morning last August.

Clinton is an interesting spot along the GEXR. The small town, hometown of famous author Alice Munro, has a small rail yard and a wye junction where the GEXR's main line between Goderich and Guelph branches off south to feed a secondary line to Exeter and Centralia.

This next shot shows a former CN bridge along the railway's old Forest Subdivision, between Sarnia and St. Mary's, Ont. This bridge, over Perch Creek in Bright's Grove, is part of the Howard Watson Nature Trail in the Sarnia area. The nature trail runs the length of the old sub in the area and connects Sarnia with a small community north of the city called Camlachie. I will have more about this interesting old subdivision in a later post. Special thanks to my brother Marc for taking this shot in November.

This bridge below is one of the most scenic bridges I have cycled over. It is located on the Trans Canada Trail west of Peterborough along former CN trackage. This portion of the trail spans 40 km of the old rail line, which crosses some of the best scenery you will find in Ontario. One day in the summer of 2004, I decided to go for a very long bike ride on the old trail to see if I could make it to Omemee (famous as being one of the towns laying claim to Neil Young). I didn't make it that far, but it was an incredible ride.

I am always concerned when rail lines are abandoned, given their strategic importance now, but this bridge represents a truly a happy ending for a disused rail line. I would love to tell you exactly where this bridge is located, but I didn't leave any note in the photo, so your guess is as good as mine. You can see the old roadbed far off in the distance in this shot. That's my old bike in the foreground.

Is there a happy ending for this decrepit old bridge? I'm not overly hopeful. This bridge is just north of the Prince of Wales Bridge in Gatineau, Quebec, where the Canadian Pacific's Lachute Subdivision once ended. This area is technically the end point of the Quebec-Gatineau Railway, which re-established service to Gatineau recently.

The weed-covered tracks in the bottom of the photo are still intact and lead to the old Maniwacki Subidivison, which once housed the Hull-Chelsea-Wakefield steam train. That trackage is owned by the municipalities in the Outaouais Region, but given that damage from a storm several years ago has never been repaired on this line, the chances are that the old Maniwacki Sub is likely to have reached its end. This spot has not seen action in many years and my guess is there is trail potential here, at least for the old right-of-way that includes that bridge. I should mention that, when I wandered here in August 2013, I noticed that many of the old rail ties on the bridge had either rotted away or fallen off the bridge. I am surprised that nothing has been done to secure this dangerous spot.

This bridge, of course, is a familiar site to readers and to rail fans in Ottawa. This is the Prince of Wales Bridge, connecting CP's old Ellwood/Prescott Subs to the Lachute Sub in Gatineau. The rails on the bridge are still in place, although the old Ellwood Sub, now part of Ottawa's O-Train's line, has no connection to the bridge. You can read more about this bridge in this post. This shot was taken on a beautiful July day in 2013. I'm hoping this bridge will one day see rail traffic again, perhaps in the form of commuter rail between Ottawa and Gatineau. I'm still waiting to local politicians to wake up and realize what an asset they have in this bridge.

The bridge below, was featured in a post last year. It is a picturesque span that carries the Capital Railway (O-Train) over the Rideau River near Carleton University. I took this photo last April 25 in the midst of the spring thaw on the river.

I also featured this bridge in a past post. This is a towering bridge along the Goderich-Exeter Railway line through Kitchener. This bridge spans the Grand River and sees a fair bit of action each day in the form of freight trains, Via Rail corridor trains and GO Trains. I took this shot while on a bike ride through Kolb Park in 2008.

Of course, it's always better to see bridges in use. This bridge below is one of my favourites spots in Ottawa to watch trains. This span crosses the Jock River on Via Rail's Smiths Falls Subdivision near Moodie Drive in west Ottawa. I have shot lots of passenger trains here as well as CN's 589 local, which still serves two customers in the area. This shot was taken in August 2013. The train is Via's 657 en route to Toronto. You can read about this bridge here.

Okay, finally. On to the main course. This bridge below, which is a curious combination of styles, crosses Highway 401 in Pickering, east of Toronto. I snagged this shot while travelling eastbound on the 401 (I was in the passenger seat). I'm guessing the mix of styles is the result of the railway having to accommodate the widening of this highway over the years. These shots were taken Dec. 27. The train had a nice mix of cars, although the shot was a bit blurry, due to the various challenges of shooting through a windshield of a car travelling at 100 km/h or more.

This shot turned out a little better. I was surprised that such heavy duty power was pulling such a small consist. This train had no more than 20 cars in tow.

As the bridge crosses the 401, the rail line turns and begins to run parallel to the highway. I managed to get a shot of ES44DCs 2329 and 2257, as well as a sporty yellow hatchback. Not bad for a few Hail Mary photo attempts.

 

I should mention that this post was partly inspired by fellow blogger Eric Gagnon, who recently mentioned that it is important to take photos of even the mundane things along a rail line. Given how quickly things change in rail, even the smallest things might mean quite a bit more years from now. Given the uncertain future of some of these bridges, I think Eric's advice is particularly relevant.

No such thing as too much of a good thing

Most people in Ontario dread having to travel Highway 401. I look forward to it. I have created a game for myself where I try and get decent shots of trains at places along the highway where tracks parallel the freeway. I do this almost out of necessity since there are so few opportunities to shoot railway action in Ottawa, outside of Via Rail.

I first tried this game when my family was coming home from our Christmas visit to family in southwestern Ontario earlier this year. You will recall from this post that the results were less than stellar. But this time around, there was no shortage of trains to shoot. It was an embarrassment of riches.

On Aug. 15th, my family headed southwest from Ottawa en route to Petrolia, Ont. to visit family in the Sarnia area. I was determined to be prepared, so I asked my wife to drive the first leg of the trip from Ottawa past Kingston. I knew Kingston had a couple of spots along the 401 where the tracks parallel the highway. As luck would have it, A CN manifest freight was making its way west, so the hunt was on. I took this first shot below and was quite happy with it, thanks to the complexion of the sky and the variety of rolling stock. I noticed that we were closing in on the front of the train, so I readied my camera to try and get a shot of the lead units

What a surprise. The train was being led by two CN units and an oddly painted former BC Rail unit, in dark blue and yellow. I didn't know what I had captured until I uploaded the shots to my hard drive and took a closer look at the unit. I thought I had captured a former Illinois Central unit, but I ended up capturing BC Rail 4546. I looked around for more on this unit, but didn't come up with anything (Update: fellow blogger Steve Boyko pointed me to this shot of  a similar BC Rail unit in dark blue). The highway barrier snuck into the shot, which is a hazard of shooting along the highway, but I was happy I just barely caught this locomotive. You can see some glare from my passenger side window. Another hazard.

This was another shot of the train as it crossed under the highway. I like the pastoral view. Sure, it's just a string of tank cars and part of the highway barrier is in the bottom corner of the image, but it still works for me. You will notice that summer in Eastern Ontario has been good for all things green. This train proved to be a lot of fun to watch and shoot while our car made its way down the 401. I should mention that a Via Rail corridor train was also passing by at this time, but I couldn't snag a shot of it.

On the way home on Aug 23rd, we decided to take the 407 across Toronto, to avoid the endless construction and traffic on the 401. I didn't know what to expect, since we rarely take this toll highway. But as we crossed through Vaughan near CN's MacMillan Yard, there was some action to shoot, including this intermodal train led by CN 2288 and two BNSF units, 6649 and 4821. This shot is my first image of BNSF units, so I considered it the highlight of my highway adventures. This scene is far from perfect, as hydro poles and some transmission towers got in the way, but this is part of the challenge of this game.

A little further east, another intermodal was making its way toward MacMillan yard (below).

We made our way back to the 401 as we continued our way east. Of course, a patch of construction and an accident brought our car to a stop. It worked out for me, though, since a GO Train was making its way west toward downtown Toronto with MP40PH-3C 611 doing the shoving. Again, it's not a great shot, but I considered it to be a decent shot from our vantage point. I looked through my images and realized this is the first shot of a GO Train I have in my collection.

During our vacation, I managed to get all kinds of shots at the CN Sarnia Yard as well as a few shots of CSX action in the same area. Our family also made its way up to Goderich, where I was able to get some shots of the Goderich Exeter Railway and a few of the local railway artifacts in the town. The trip will no doubt feed this blog for months, so stay tuned for all kinds of railroadiana.

As mentioned a little while ago, my main laptop has been sent back to its manufacturer for a repair, which has prevented me from sharing photos that will form the third part of my series about Bedell Ontario. Stay tuned for that in the next little while.

So close and yet...

As I have mentioned numerous times, Ottawa is not exactly a hot spot for railways. Occasionally, I am able to make it out to Walkley Yard and to Via's two train stations to shoot some railway action here in the capital. But, to continue feeding this blog, I often have to get creative. Whenever my family travels south to see family, for example, I always get the itch to do some serious railway photography.

This brings me to one of the hardest places to shoot railway action: Ontario's Highway 401, or the 401, as Ontarians call it. I usually get my wife to drive through the spots on the highway when the road parallels either Canadian National's or Canadian Pacific's main lines, which are clearly visible from different parts of the highway in the Toronto area and at points further east in Durham Region and near Kingston.

When reading Trains Magazine last year, I was blown away by a photo in the back gallery, which showed a steam locomotive in full flight, racing beside a highway. Someone took a great shot from the passenger side of their car. Heck, I thought, I have a nice digital camera. I can do better than that.

So I thought.

Exhibit One: This is the shot of the tail end of a westbound Via train, pulled by a P42 and featuring an attractive mix of streamliners just east of Kingston on Aug. 9, 2013. I steadied my camera and kept waiting for the train to come into focus in between clusters of trees that blocked my view. This is a stretch of track that runs through a wetland just before it ducks into the city proper.

Not much to look at, although I saved this one salvageable shot for the purposes of this post. You can see the hint of movement in the greenery at the bottom of the shot. But, for the most part, this was a disappointing shot. When I saw the results of this hasty photo shoot, I knew this process was going to be a lot trickier than when I marvelled at that in-motion shot in Trains Magazine.

Over the Christmas break, as my family was making its way home to Ottawa and heading east through Toronto on the 401, I saw a manifest freight making its way west toward Toronto. I knew this shot would be harder to catch since we were heading in opposite directions, each going at quite a clip.

Here is the result.

Again, this shot is not much to look at. I was happy I did manage to catch 5747 in the frame, unlike the shot above. I was unable to take any more shots of the train, as the road dipped too far below the right-of-way. It's too bad since there were some really interesting cars in this consist, including some Saskatchewan!-branded grain cars (with the exclamation point).

So, the quest will definitely have to continue for the perfect in-motion shot. I'm not sure when my family will next find itself on the 401, but I will have my camera on hand.

To give you an idea of the type of in-motion shot I would like to capture, here's an example of the drama I am aiming to show.

This was taken April 13, 2012 at Fallowfield Station in south Ottawa. This shot was previously featured in my post Favourite Train Photos #1. Okay, so I was stationary on the platform at the time, but you get the idea. There is something about capturing the speed and power of a train in motion that best explains my passion for these machines.