Canadian Railroads > Train 407 on a December Afternoon

407 was traditionally the first train out of Dartmouth each morning, but it now seems that they time things to wait for CBNS to deliver cars from Stellarton in Truro. On December 27 that meant the crew had made their pickup in Truro, and was heading west again on the Springhill Sub, crossing the East Mines Trestle at 13:05.

A little more than an hour later, they were at Springhill Jct.  Somewhat surprisingly, this is as close as the Springhill Sub gets to the town of Springhill.  Until the late '50s, the only connection was the private Cumberland Railway and Coal Co., which was torn up after the Springhill Mine Bump in 1958.  A VIA flag stop remains, just ahead of the train's location, but I haven't seen the Ocean stop there in years.

In the last frame, 407 is heading off across the Tantramar Marsh towards Sackville, NB at 14:41.  The CBNS pickup is usually placed right behind the power, but for some reason the crew hung onto one autorack this particular day.

GTD

---

---

---

As a bonus, and to show much the trees next to the trestle have grown in the last 13 years, here is train 148 on March 24, 2007 at the same location.  The CP SD40-2 was a rather uncommon sight in Nova Scotia.  Since 148 was the Chicago train, it might have been runthrough power from a US road which had leased it from CP.

GTD

---