Canadian Railroads > A Quick visit to CN's Dawson Creek Sub

As part of my July 2019 visit to Northern Alberta, I headed west to shoot some activity on CN's former BC Rail Dawson Creek Sub. The biggest change I found since my last visit years previous is crews no longer lay over in Dawson Creek, Once the switching is complete in the yard, the crew will turn and burn back to Chetwynd, which makes for quite a long day!

#1 The CN crew has almost completed their work in Dawson Creek on July 11 2019. Once the single tank car is spotted inside the Louisiana Pacific mill the crew will complete an air test and head for Chetwynd.

#2 Previous to the first shot, train L579 has ventured off of the ex. BC Rial Dawson Creek sub and onto the isolated former Northern Alberta Railway Grande Prairie Sub. The train is spotting the elevator at Iracard BC, just east of Dawson Creek. The subdivision has been out of service between Dawson Creek at Hythe AB for several years, with CN electing to serve the remaining customers from the Dawson Creek side. 

#3 Scratch another shot off of my bucket list! L579 crosses the Kiskatinaw River on a Howe truss bridge on the morning of July 13 2019. The crew is returning to Chetwynd after a long night of lifting and spotting grain hoppers at Dawson Creek.

-Trevor 

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Excellent images, really neat to see photos from up there and see what the operations are.

Great bridge shot Trevor!  RY

arwye Wrote:
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> Great bridge shot Trevor!  RY

-Totally worth bushwacking in for!

-Trevor

Do they leave a unit in Dawson Creek?

Mike Root
Madras, OR

shortlineboss Wrote:
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> Do they leave a unit in Dawson Creek?

No, if you read the description the last shot was on a different day, when they only ran to Dawson Creek with 2 units.

-Trevor

Great stuff, ineresting to see that Howe Truss still in use. Amazing that they run such large power over it, I'm guessing that the whole District was upgraded at some point. Wonder if that bridges 'talks' as the weight of the locomotives go across. Great use of a drone.
t4p.

TCnR Wrote:
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> Great stuff, ineresting to see that Howe Truss
> still in use. Amazing that they run such large
> power over it, I'm guessing that the whole
> District was upgraded at some point. Wonder if
> that bridges 'talks' as the weight of the
> locomotives go across. Great use of a drone.
> t4p.

The Dawson Creek Sub was always restricted to 4 axle power under BC Rail ownership. When CN took over they descided big GE's could run on the sub with less fuel in the tanks, although I'm not sure if they actually reduced the fuel in the units that operate on the sub. To my knowledge the trackage has not been upgraded to handle the extra weight.

-Trevor

Thanks for explaining the locomotive weight observations. There's a number of BCR photos of 4-axle units in that neighborhood with the weight explanation.

Really thoughtful compositions where most of us will never go, so well done as always! The human elements in the first photo really add to the shot, you have to love yellow fields, and the trestle photo is a peach!
Fred