Canadian Railroads > Road Trip 2024 - Day 6, Part 3: Eight More to Round out the Day

A bit more than two weeks ago I posted the meaty middle part of the shooting day with 11 trains on or around the Basque trestle, at https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?15,5908293. Today's post concludes Thursday, June 20, with seven of the eight trains that finished off a 26-train day. There are nine photos in this post; the vertical will need rotation at some point.
Having left Basque on CN's Ashcroft Sub (did we jump or were we pushed?), we had a few hours left in the day, and at least eight more EB in the queue. We decided to drive south, toward Martel (CN), and after discovering one location we wanted wasn't open to us, set up on a highway pullout north of the Martel tunnels. It provided a wide-open view of CP's Thompson Sub on the east side of the canyon, without risk of shadows. Many of you will have shot from here.
1. Just under a half-hour from having pulled out of Basque, we got the next EB at 1623. This was a CPKC coal empties train, behind 8805 and 8843, with DPU 8850 mid-train. It came to a stop across from us, and we didn't quite appreciate why.
2. The CN EB that had come to a stop at Basque (end of previous post) was apparently waiting for a WB CN train to clear Coho, so it could regain home rails. While we were thumb-twiddling waiting for the CP coal train to resume, that CN WB came around the point at 1632. I barely got my camera up, vertical, and composed in time. This might be #117, a stack train with 544 axles doing 36 mph in 29-degree air. As this train went away, we realized we could have seen its arrival indicated by signals behind us. You'll get a glimpse in the fourth photo of the post.
3. Now that Coho was available and CN had moved on, CPKC was free to go, and at 1634 it moved off. I've included this shot of the Spatsum Lornex Substation to orient you at the next location you'll see, a few shots along.

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4. Continuing the clear out the dozen EB that had been stacked up by the CPKC track block at Basque, we saw CPKC EB grain come into view at 1646, behind 9766. There were 74 grain cars, a DPU, 75 more grain empties, then a DPU pusher. If you look toward the right side of the photo, just above the right-hand strip of concrete barrier, you'll see the signals that were lit when CN's WB block was occupied. Of course now that we knew what to look for, no more WB came!
5. One of my favourite consists of the seven-day trip brought CN #354 past us at 1703. I chose this view of 8020, 2562, and 5427, because of the elements of civilization/organization that you see. The consist was full of box cars, lumber empties, some mixed freight, and tanks. At this point I let my travelling companions know I really didn't want to shoot four more trains from this location. We had to change something up. They agreed, so we pulled out and resumed our climb EB (geographic north) up the highway.
Almost immediately we came to a gap in the concrete barrier, and decided to poke the vehicle in to see what it was, and what we could see. A sign identifying it as Epsom Provincial Park, no overnight occupancy, greeted us. A short drive on a workable gravel road brought us to a branch. We took the short one to our right, then walked to the edge of a plateau. With some driving, spare time, and less cloud, we could have taken a route to a lower plateau, or gone all the way down to CN track level. Sweet. At that level was a recent-looking wrecked car. In looking back at Google Maps to prepare this post, I see that this park is now designated as Temporarily Closed, which it wasn't at the time of our trip. I don't know what that's about, but perhaps somebody was doing something they shouldn't oughta have been doing. Who knows. In our remaining hour, we saw four more EB trains, all trying to dodge moving cloud that was getting thicker.
6. The fifteen to twenty-minute headway between trains had given us time to find the spot and set up for the next EB. This one was CN #112 at 1724, with 176 stack platforms behind 3002 and 3054. This long view gives you the overlap with the previous location, showing the Spatsum Lornex Substation.
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/24 13:49 by feclark.

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7. This shot should give you a better idea of the scenic potential of the location. Realize with the luxury of more time, and on a clear day, we'd have happily set up at lower levels, too. The gravel bars in the river add something to the shot. The next EB, a CN coal train with 107 empties, rolled by at 1745. The clouds blocked it, so I tried my cell phone to see if Samsung's voodoo would handle the conditions well. Umm, not this time.
8. Some more of the scenic possibilities are seen in the going-away shot of a CN EB at 1805, train number unknown. The lead unit was 2946, there were 134 cars of mostly box and tank traffic, then mid-train DPU 3328, followed by 23 more cars.
9. To end the day, CPKC showed up with grain empties at 1820. There was also lots of cloud, but we were lucky to get a sunny window opposite us. The lead unit was KCS 4734 (our only such case for the trip), and within the consist were separated DPUs, CP 9736 and KCS 4742. This is a location we'd love to revisit, earlier in the day with a clear sky.
This day pretty well made up for all the frustrations we'd had earlier with spotty weather or thin traffic. It was our last full day in the area, before heading home on the Friday. Thanks for looking.
Fred

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Epic trip with epic results.
JB

Nice shots!!