Canadian Railroads > Road Trip 2018 - Day 2 Ashcroft Part 2

Last Thursday I posted up the morning portion of Day 2 of a road trip, at https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?15,4636100. This post, with 12 photos, completes the day. Given the crappy weather, a few trains and their photos don't make it on this post. As well, some of these shots are more for the purpose of informing people less familiar with the area, and maybe inspiring you to have a shot at it. You might get sunshine, and wouldn't that be grand? Having spent the morning at Basque, or just west of there, we returned to Ashcroft and worked the east side, hoping to exploit a few things. I'll try to remember to comment on access.
1. East of town, on the south side of the Thompson River, you follow Evans Road, and a short trek across a field gets you to the east switch into Ashcroft Terminal. Our timing was good, as V52, the daily except Sunday wayfreight out of Kamloops had finished its work at the Koppers (formerly Tolko) tie plant, and was pulling west to the terminal. SD30C-ECO 5015 has a cut from Koppers, plus tanks for the terminal, at 1304; the sun was putting in an effort, but never broke through cleanly. I've included this shot to give you an idea of CN's bridge that carries them onto the south bank for a short distance. Although Evans Road is posted (i.e. no trespassing, Ashcroft Terminals) at this point, we were visited by someone official from the terminals on a subsequent day, and they were cool with our being there.
2. The crew is throwing the switch; tension mounts (well, not exactly).
3. The pull past gives the modellers a good look at the rear end; the bulkhead flats carry untreated ties to the plant, and the treated ties come out in the gondolas. In the old days (at least, back in 2010, our last trip to the area), a road switcher or two (SD40-2) were based out of Ashcroft. Now it's the long trip fighting the traffic each day for the wayfreight.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/18 11:16 by feclark.

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4. Once the wayfreight was in the clear, WB coal came through at 1318, with 9772 and 8621 on the head end, DPU 8791, and this DPU pusher 9764, with 628 axles, thus 151 cars at 29 degrees C. As with the previous three shots, it was trying hard to be sunny, but couldn't quite pull off clear sun. I've used this shot so you can see the grade crossing with Evans Road in the distance, and V52 doing its thing in the Terminal.
5. Being on the south side of CP, we weren't in position for CN's offering, potash loads #759, behind 2973 and 2963 at 1330. We'd shot this the day before at Magnolia bridge, and with some hustle by our wheel man, got to the short bridge over the Bonaparte River that feeds into the Thompson. Sadly, water means trees, so the shot was tight as we caught up to the train, shooting out the passenger window.
6. Now on 97C, the Highland Valley Road that climbs SE out of Ashcroft, we have the orange (and some grey) potash snake exiting town at 1335. Ain't no sunshine ...

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7. Not too long to wait, and Q106 showed up behind 2161 and welcome guest CEFX 1014, at 1416. Same basic photo vantage as the previous shot, in the entrance to a municipal gravel pit just off the highway. Safe place to park (unless a copper truck from Highland Valley loses its brakes coming down the hill and can't make the curve here!). The short tunnel on CN is a nifty feature.
8. A leisurely drive back through town and out Evans Road got us in sight of the westerly of CN's two bridges; leisurely went out the window as we scrambled to beat eastbound CN to the photo location we wanted, catching the S of the bridge. Oh, for some sun! Anyway, this is 8905, 2193, and 8878 in charge of an unidentified (we never heard scanner chatter on it) stack train. The bluffs carved into glacial Lake Kamloops sediment make an impressive back drop. There are plans (as we heard from the Terminals manager a few days later) to set up terminal interchange with CN on this short stretch between the two CN bridges. If this comes to pass, a shot like this might be lost, depending on how they configure access.
9. The heartbreaker of a bridge. This is the same one you see in the previous shot. A few, more like several, years ago, Mark Perry scanned and circulated a number of slides that Peter Cox took. One was of this bridge from the west side, and elevated vantage. His lighting was cloudy, too. Google Maps showed us how to get here. From the north/west half of Ashcroft, take Elm Street, which turns into Harper Mill Road and past the Desert Hills Ranch Farm Market. You'll hairpin to cross the Bonaparte River, and then things get to gravel and a steep climb up what's now called Rattlesnake Road. At the top, stop before entering the farm property, and you get this amazing overview of the CN bridge (note the distant one, that you could see in the first shot of V52), and the layout of Ashcroft Terminal. It blew our minds how much transload stuff they've got set up here in what's almost the middle of nowhere. Ashcroft is well off the old Trans Canada Highway, which is bypassed now by the Coquihalla, so it seems ambitious. But there must be a business case that works. Here's the thing, which dogged us for the five full days we had in Ashcroft. This is a late day shot for sun angles, but we never got sun and CN. This is mixed freight #417 at 1922, with 2245 and three other GEs on the point, and an 8xxx DPU in the middle. A bit of math with 694 axles tells us it's 166 cars. The huge time delay is explained by a ripper of a downpour that broke on us before 1700. We went to Cache Creek for supper, and came back as the cloud started moving out.

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10. Finally the cloud lifted as the storm rolled eastward, and the sun popped out for a bit. With the lens set at 190 mm, we could pull in 3097 and 3047 in charge of a WB mixed freight at 2014, with something over 700 axles (I didn't hear the detector at McAbee clearly). Bear in mind this is June 21, pretty much the longest day of the year, and also realize that the rain soaked all that light tan sediment to darken the background significantly. Less than ideal.
11. As CN continued toward us, now on the same side of the river as CP, CP came into view with 544 axles of tank train at 2015, behind 8651, 8562, and 8834 (I think); the lens is now at 150 mm, and we're getting that slight colour shift that happens as the sun sneaks between the clouds and the horizon shortly before dropping below the deck.
12. CP passed before us in the clearest sky we had all day, a gun-slit of sun; you'll see the foreground shadow cast by the bluff we're standing on. This plunges the CN bridge into darkness. I can't tell you when that happens, because the sun was never out at that point. Bear in mind that if you visit here at any time other than late June or so, with longest days, the transition will happen much earlier. Some day, maybe we get it, but it didn't happen this trip. My apologies for the lack of sharpness; I haven't fiddled with the files to make them more compatible with the parameters of Trainorders. It's all I can manage to eke out these posts; the file manipulation and management is beyond me at the moment. I need to retire.
Fred
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/18 15:25 by feclark.

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Very nice set of images!

Just think of all the new visitors your images will entice to the Ashcroft area.

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I REALLY like Pics 6 and 7!!