Canadian Railroads > CN Crossing the Tantramar Marsh

On my return to Halifax from Eastern Quebec and Maine, I heard Z120 inform the RTC that they were leaving Moncton's Gordon Yard at 08:20 on November 24th.

I was about 20 minutes ahead of the train on the highway, so had a chance to check out a couple places in the Memramcook Valley (east of Moncton, NB), before settling on a shot at the intermediate searchlights in College Bridge just after 9am.  The train would make good time through here, past the Dorchester Penitentiary, but would slow down as they climbed up to Evans, and then back down to sea level at Sackville, NB.

That gave me enough time to get ahead for a series of shots as the train crossed the Tantramar Marsh at Aulac, just before they entered Nova Scotia.  CN is back to running a massive 120/121 and 122/123 as extras.  This one had 558 axles, with 2866 and 3868 up front and 3800 as the DPU.  In the 3rd photo, the DPU is just about where the west switch of Aulac siding used to be.  This was once a popular meeting place for the Ocean and Scotian passenger trains.

GTD

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With the train slowing to 30 mph before going through Amherst, NS, I was able to take the back road to Springhill Jct., but discovered that 10am in the winter is too late to get a shot from the bridge there and still have sun on the nose.  Likewise for the overhead shot at Saltsprings, so I continued on to Oxford Jct. for a location that I was pretty sure would work.  The sun did not disappoint, as Z120 split the signals at the west end of the siding at 10:31.

With an appointment in Halifax early that afternoon, I figured I'd better not waste any more time, so broke off the chase at this point.  However, things went well once I got home, and I was able to nip out to Bedford for one last shot just after 13:00 as the train crossed the causeway across Moirs Mill Pond.

GTD

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cn6218 Wrote:
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> With the train slowing to 30 mph before going
> through Amherst, NS, I was able to take the back
> road to Springhill Jct., but discovered that 10am
> in the winter is too late to get a shot from the
> bridge there and still have sun on the nose. 
> Likewise for the overhead shot at Saltsprings, so
> I continued on to Oxford Jct. for a location that
> I was pretty sure would work.  The sun did not
> disappoint, as Z120 split the signals at the west
> end of the siding at 10:31.

I see your camera sensor has the same problem with the "dwarf"
signal as mine does. Almost looks yellow.

..jr

cn6218 Wrote:
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> With the train slowing to 30 mph before going
> through Amherst, NS, I was able to take the back
> road to Springhill Jct., but discovered that 10am
> in the winter is too late to get a shot from the
> bridge there and still have sun on the nose. 

So you passed right by me! I was down at the VIA "station".
By the way...thanks for the head's up.

..jr

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I like Pic 1!!

newtonville150 Wrote:

> I see your camera sensor has the same problem with
> the "dwarf"
> signal as mine does. Almost looks yellow.


I only had a quick look at Springhill Jct. from the bridge and didn't see your truck, so I kept on going.

The "yellow" effect with the dwarf signal seems to be caused by over exposure of the red channel.  The RAW RGB values for the other signal, farther off axis, are 222,34,56, so there is very little green or blue mixed in, as you would expect.  I'm sure the two LED arrays are the same, but the values for the dwarf (more on-axis) are 255 (clipped), 200 and 142, so the green channel is far higher than it should be.  I would guess that overloading the red sensors badly causes bleed into the other channels, throwing the colour off.

GTD

Very NICE series!!

Larry