Canadian Railroads > 4 westbound VIA trains in 25 minutes!

Yesterday afternoon I spent an hour and a half on the footbridge at Sources Boulevard on Montreal’s west island. This location, as I have pointed out in other posts, has very poor sight lines, so you only have a few seconds’ warning of any approaching trains. I expected to see only two VIA westbounds, #69 (scheduled at Dorval at 17:04) and #637 (17:24).

Dorval is a few minutes east of this location, so I was surprised to see something show up at 17:02 (Pictures #1, 2). This did not look like 69’s usual consist, either, with P42s bracketing the train. Some special train?

At 17:14, 69 finally showed up, or did it? I had never seen this train double-headed before (Picture #3).

Not expecting anything for about 10 minutes, I was caught off guard by ANOTHER train at 17:21 (Picture #4), the REAL #69.

Finally, at 17:27, what was clearly #637 passed by (Pictures #5, 6).

So what happened?

I learned yesterday evening that a group of anti-fracking protesters blocked the CN line in St-Henri, and it wasn’t until 16:30 that the tracks were cleared. So what I saw was (in succession) #635 (delayed about 2 hours), #67 (delayed something over an hour), #69 and #637.

By the way, the Renaissance trainsets (Picture #6) could use a good washing. The dirt on them really forward-scatters the low-angle sunlight!

Ray

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Pictures 4, 5 & 6...

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Great catches of four trains! the delay worked
for you. And I do see what you mean about the
train in your last photo needing to be washed.
but it still is a great photo. Thanks for posting
these here.

Great catches of four trains! the delay worked
for you. And I do see what you mean about the
train in your last photo needing to be washed.
but it still is a great photo. Thanks for posting
these here.

(Man -- the paint scheme on VIA 919n i Photo #1
really makes them look homely. That poor thing
should be bright pink in embarrassment at having
to go out in public looking like that! That paint
scheme just does not work on those P42s, to put it
mildly.)

Thanks so much, nonetheless, for those ncie photos!

Great catch. Loved watching trains there at Dorval earlier in the year. I'm ready to come back and visit again.

Joe