Canadian Railroads > Mystery CP Train

I was in Montreal last weekend, and managed to fit in about an hour of train watching from the footbridge at Beaconsfield, about 5 miles west of Dorval on the Vaudreuil Sub.

Since it was a Sunday afternoon, there weren't a lot of commuter trains, but I just missed a CN eastbound (586 maybe) at 13:09 on the north track with a cut of UltraTrain tankers on the rear.

The next action was on the CP tracks at 13:33 with this long intermodal, pulled by ES44AC 9352 up front and 8729 in the middle of the containers.  The two railways don't seem to have done any wholesale brush clearing here, but the view was slightly better than my last visit here a year ago, with the remains of several large trees near the tracks in evidence.  I didn't get a number for this eastbound, but CP crews only seem to recite the engine number most of time anyway, not the train number.

The bonus was a late running VIA 62 which cruised down the south track just as the second DPU, CN ES44AC 3819, was passing under the footbridge at 13:36.  The rest of the CP train was all junk.  902 is one of the rare un-wrapped P42DCs on VIA.  I did hear the RTC call VIA 62 to tell them they would be waiting west of the crossovers at Dorval for VIA 67, which would be making a station stop there, also on the south track.

GTD

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CP is so annoying in that habit; it's rare to hear a train number. If you're in unfamiliar territory, you're left clueless. On the other hand, you will know if the lead unit is of particular interest. CN leaves you in the dark on that, unless you're near an MP with a 5, so they call the unit number. Or, of course, getting clearance through a work block.
Fred

The meet shot is great!  Nice to see those Budd cars.

Andy

The broken trees you saw near the footbridge were brought down by the ice storm last month.

Ray

Ray_Murphy Wrote:
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> The broken trees you saw near the footbridge were
> brought down by the ice storm last month.
>
I wondered.  Ice storms can have a silver lining.

GTD