Canadian Railroads > Road Trip 2018 - Day 4 Part 2 Walhachin and Walhachin Oxbows

Two weeks ago I posted the first part of this day, June 23, at https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?15,4661718. After spending the morning overlooking Juniper Beach, we headed east, onto the south side of the Thompson River, and to Walhachin. We were headed to a new location for us, the result of a chance meeting five years ago with a rancher, who has a mutual friend here in Edmonton. They were quite aware of, and keenly interested in, the rail action next to their property, and so we were able to make contact with them, and arrange permission to visit this June. I stress that except for the first shot in this post, the rest are from private property and you should not trespass; you will most definitely not be welcome.
1. On the way, we arrived at west switch Walhachin on CP about the same time as EB 9640 and 8799, with tanks and stacks, plus DPU 8946 with more tanks and mixed freight, at 1208. You can see clear sky in the distance; the cloud hit us, but gave us even light shooting from the wrong side of the tracks.
2. We then drove east, bypassing Walhachin itself, as far as the road would take us. This brought us onto the west end of the property, where we texted the rancher; he met us in short order, and of course, CN showed up at the same time, pretty much. We're at CN's east switch Walhachin, MP 31.8, and you're seeing the big point bar that sticks north into the Thompson River, just west of Walhachin Oxbows Provincial Park (accessible only by water, officially). This is Q143, Calgary to Roberts Bank, behind 2402 and 2413, at 1247; you can see the cloud ahead of us, in the east, and the fringe of it biting the train. I opened up to 9 from my usual 11.
3. As we continued to talk, the scanner announced our next subject, Q109 at 1313, behind 2837 and 3076, full sun. Eight more shots in this post.
 

---

---

---

4. This isn't the best shot, but shows you context, and what was eating us up with our location, and what would get you where you want to be without needing to trespass. Turning around 180 degrees, we're looking at the CP ROW, which is basically the south boundary of the property. So if you drove as far as you could on public property, hiked up to the CP ROW and started east, you'd be in a great spot in somewhere between 1 and 2 miles. Take water. This is a WB stack train at 1318, behind 8798 and 9822. Our location put us on the wrong side of the CP line, so of course, in our 4.5 hours, CP sifted at least 8 freights through, untouched by photos, as well as the EB leg of V52, the Kamloops-Ashcroft wayfreight. Nuts!
5. We were escorted, without the false turns we would have taken, to this location, which is on the east side of the point bar. Our first action was Q106 at 1423, so we had quite a wait, and of course, they had a non-a/c lead unit, with the nose door wide open. Double nuts! The offender was 2650, trailing GECX 7893 and 8864; it was only 24 degrees, 526 axles, 32 mph. The main course of the Thompson is in the background, and you're looking at the west side of the oxbow. The Cat in the background was there from a clean-up operation of a derailed grain train; this was well in the past, but they'd left the Cat in place.
6. The clouds continued to dog the area, and looked like they could spoil everything (see the north side of the Thompson), but they stayed clear of the fill that CN uses to cross the oxbow when Q119 showed up at 1454, trailing 2917 and CEFX 1016. The lens is set at 24 mm, to give you an idea of the view. Distant, you can see the dip in the land where the east side of the oxbow is, crossed by another spit, then, past the cut in the bright green knoll, the through-truss trestle CN uses to gain the south side of the Thompson from here to just west of Walhachin.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/18 09:15 by feclark.

---

---

---

7. I walked around a little bit to the west to change the angle for the next EB, which was Q108 at 1543, behind 2296 and 8953 with 388 axles, doing 29 mph in 26 degree air. The desert - gotta love it.
8. As I said, CP was running a parade on their line, behind us, and we sat and let it go by, because the VIA tracker told us we had #1 coming. In spite of all the cloud around us, there was a tunnel to the west that let the sun in nice and clean, and it held and held for us, until finally the prize appeared. At 1728, running I can't remember how many hours late, VIA #1 rolled across the oxbow behind 6453 and 6427, with 26 cars (112 axles, 35 mph, and 26 degrees). We figure this shot made the trip, especially given how much crappy weather we had to endure for most of our days. If you walked in on CP, you could set up to get broadside of either fill, or even further east to get trains coming off the trestle. It's a spectacular location, and some year we may get back here. We hope it's not too long down the road, because as we age, it's getting tougher to do these two-mile walk-in then walk-out, especially on stinking hot days.
9. I can never get used to the look of a Park car trailing the power at the head end of the rolling stock, but it's there; in this case, "Strathcona Park".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/18 09:14 by feclark.

---

---

---

8. I couldn't resist the chance to shoot one of the glass-roofed coaches, the 1721 in this case (built in 2000 by Colorado Railcar for BCOL as 1704, later 1721 "Cariboo" according to the TSG). Quite nifty looking.
9. To close out our afternoon here (the scanner chatter told us this was going to be it for quite some time), we see "Glacier Park" bringing up the rear, headed around the point toward east switch Walhachin. The drive back to Cache Creek took us into a heavy cloud bank, so we did what was becoming our depressing routine, and went for early supper, hoping things would clear for the later evening.
Fred

---

---

Nice shots, you did well Fred-Thanks

Mike Bannon
St Catharines, ON

Nice pics!!