Canadian Railroads > Sweet Afternoon Light at Amherst, NS

Amherst, NS was a fairly busy spot for about an hour last Sunday afternoon.  VIA's Ocean had left Halifax at 13:00 with what turned out to be the last Budd train for the foreseeable future, and just before 16:00 was slowing for the station stop at Amherst's sandstone station.  This station is another one (along with neighbouring Sackville, NB) that was de-staffed when VIA changed the Ocean to 3 days a week instead of 6, and has been unavailable to passengers since then.  There was supposed to be a deal for VIA to sell the station to the town for a nominal fee, which would then lease space to a restaurant, and also have passenger waiting space, but that seems to have stalled.  Apparently VIA can't (or won't) get into the leasing business themselves.

Seven minutes later, with the Amherst passengers on board, 15 was rolling across the Tantramar Marsh towards New Brunswick, with a clear signal at Ft. Lawrence.

GTD

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As 15 was leaving Amherst, 120 was finally getting out of Moncton, with a meet between the two trains planned for Evans, the next siding west of Amherst.  The meet went well without any significant delays to either train (15 had been running about 5 minutes early), and at 16:52 a rather short (only 290 axles) 120 was rolling across the marsh approaching the west end of the Amherst siding.  Amherst is one of the last sidings on the Springhill Sub that still has the original 3-aspect searchlight signals from the 1944 CTC installation.  But judging by crossing work being done near the west end of the siding, they may get upgraded to LEDs soon.

120 was all intermodal this particular day, without a DPU.  The word out of Moncton was that they had DPU/air problems, and left part of the train (including all the junk) behind.

GTD 

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The other train that was in the picture was 407.  They weren't on duty in Dartmouth until 10:00 (normal start time is 06:30), and while they were making their Truro pickup, 15 got past them.  With only about 3800 feet of train, the RTC was able to fit them in between crossings on Amherst's 8785 ft. siding until 120 went past on the main.

At 17:03, 2650 and 5728 were edging down the siding towards the switch with the train as the sun sank lower towards the horizon.  It looks like there were only 9 cars from the CBNS this particular day.  The boxcars are paper from Port Hawkesbury and there is at least one empty carbon black car from Michelin in Pictou Co.  The autoracks and anything else from Dartmouth would have been on the train behind that.

GTD

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Terrific pictures! In the first photo, is the wayside sign a speed limit sign? If so, does the number represent miles per hour or kilometers per hour? I've read on Wikipedia that Canadian Rail Operating Rules describe speed limits of various signal aspects in terms of MPH and not KPH.

When I worked out of Amherst in the late 90's I loved the shot from the bridge in photo three.
Spent a quite a few off hours up on it waiting for trains-great shots Geoff ! 

Mike Bannon
St Catharines, ON

JPB Wrote:
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> Terrific pictures! In the first photo, is the
> wayside sign a speed limit sign? If so, does the
> number represent miles per hour or kilometers per
> hour? I've read on Wikipedia that Canadian Rail
> Operating Rules describe speed limits of various
> signal aspects in terms of MPH and not KPH.

MPH, Canadian Railways do not operate on the Metric system.

Cheers.

JPB Wrote:
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> Terrific pictures! In the first photo, is the
> wayside sign a speed limit sign?

It is a speed limit sign, and as mentioned is in MPH.  Two crossings just west of the station have a 30 mph speed limit (within 1000 ft. of crossing until crossing fully occupied), so this allows trains to resume speed.  The crossing work I mentioned was to add gates at the second one, so I suspect the speed restriction may go away too, along with the searchlights.

The only railway in Canada that I'm aware of using the metric system is the Ottawa light rail system.  The Devco Railway used to have "mileposts" in metric, but has gone back to miles since it was privatized.

GTD

Nice shots!!  I like Pic 3!!

A reall nice series, Geoff, beautifully lit as you say. I found the first shot fascinating for the high-sprung effect you get on the consist with the snow on the ground. You usually don't get that much of a sense of the ground clearance of the passenger cars.
Fred