Canadian Railroads > Yesterday on the Clearwater Subdivision

Yesterday was a day off and since we had not headed out railfanning in over a month we headed north from Kamloops. We encountered nothing until we arrived at the crossing of the North Thompson River at mile 44.0 of the Clearwater Subdivision. The bridge consists of 5-spans DPG/2-DT/2-DPG and is 470' long and 87' high according to Kylie. The North Thompson River sign has been here for 35 years at least, and is not an official station name sign. Here we caught 843 with 2301 leading grain loads and empty auto racks. Compare yesterdays shot with one I took 30 years ago from the same spot and it is amazing how much things are growing in.

Train 111 arrived at Blue River with units 2285 and 5783 on the head end and 8014 as remote. The dust is from a show off doing stunts on the gravel road that parallels the yard.

Interesting new looking generator on 111, CNGU 001886,

Train 412 entered Blue River Yard to lift a 5-pack of well cars and three MOW gondolas and set of two other cars.

There were two interesting boxcars in the yard at Blue River that we could not get pictures of as the crew bus drove by on the gravel road and kicked up a huge dust cloud, the y were BN and Santa Fe boxcars in original paint, not BNSF.

CP 522194 is a former 85' 4" container flat car that has had winches welded to the side sill and wood cross pieces fastened to the open deck for pipe service. It is interesting to see the way the pipes are attached, ARR certified yellow straps on the bottom row and then orange ties for the rest. We could not figure out what the black ropes around the individual pipes were for.

Great shots Phil.  It seems unusual to see one pipe car running alone.

Rick

Phil, I believe the "black rope" on the pipe is used as a spacer for when the pipes are off loaded and stacked in storage without the wooden spacers. The rope helps prevent scratching on the pipes when they are stacked, the space also helps for water drainage around the pipes and they will not freeze together in cold weather. That's my theory!!
Doug

I was going to post pretty much what Doug did, and then I saw his post.  The information he posted is pretty muh what I have always understood too.

Great shots by the way!

Brian