Canadian Railroads > Foggy Photo Friday - CN Hotshot 201 Pre-Dawn

Technically it's not fog, but a fine mist that persisted for several hours. It's 0630 on September 17, 1977, and I'm just west of Bells Junction, on the west side of Ottawa. The train is CN #201, behind 9540 and an unidentified sister, and at the time this was a transcontinental (almost? maybe it originated in Montreal) intermodal hotshot to Vancouver. It was pretty close to scheduled (perhaps - no, almost certainly KG can fill in some details), and got out of Turcot Yard, I believe, in the wee hours, and was usually through Ottawa before I got trackside. Its eastbound counterpart was #214.
1. I didn't drive in those days, and the buses were not running this early in the day, so I walked from my home on Baseline Road near Pinecrest Road, up onto the Beachburg Sub at Greenbank Road, then west from there. I had over two miles on the pedometer by the time I was in position. In the first shot, you can see the signals protecting Bells Junction, and I'm on CP's Carleton Place Sub, which joined the Beachburg at the junction.
2. Like the first photo, this is not about technical mastery. I'm using K64, and the lens is wide open at f1.8 on my Pentax, shutter set at 1/60th, which is as slow as I'll go hand-held with this thing. I took a few like this over the years, just see how they would turn out. Just fine in my opinion; it captures a mood and a memory.
Fred



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/17 15:34 by feclark.

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That seems about right for #201 or perhaps even earlier. What a shame that egos and business mistrust led to the closure of both through routes up the Ottawa valley.

KG

Nothing better than a classic CN Intermodal with GP40-2L Hellcats! Cool shots! Very atmospheric.

zartok-35 Wrote:
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> Nothing better than a classic CN Intermodal with
> GP40-2L Hellcats! Cool shots! Very atmospheric.

Thanks. I never heard these things referred to as Hellcats; what's the origin of that? I did like them, though in Ottawa on CN that's about all I saw (I started shooting in 1975). It was a cause of rejoicing to see an SD40! But somehow I always think of these units as running the long distance speed trains, even though they were on the other freights as well.
Fred