Canadian Railroads > Fall Foliage Finale

After a week of high winds and rain in Halifax any leaves that were hanging on are surely gone by now (or collected on my lawn), so here is a sequence from last month when the colour was still quite brilliant, despite the somewhat foggy conditions.

At 11:25 on October 23 Z120 was approaching the entrance to Pace Yard on the Transfer Track.  The usual AC GEs were up front (3827, 3212 and 3896 this day) along with the autonomous TEST boxcar and about 2 miles of containers.  In the second image the train is slowly entering the yard from the Transfer Track, with the MacKay Bridge, Tufts Cove power plant and Bedford Basin in the foggy background.  ET44AC 3289 was the tail end DPU, an unconventional placement since DPUs on 120 are usually found about 2/3 of the way back, which provides better brake line charging to the rear of the train.

GTD

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The yarding process was taking some time, and at 11:49 VIA 15, the Ocean showed up on the main line, just as the DPU was slipping into the yard.

In the last year the train has been rearranged so that the Renaissance cars lead out of Halifax, with the Budds bringing up the rear.  I have heard that this was done to put the bedroom windows of the Ren cars on the more scenic side of the train, the Wentworth and Matapédia Valleys in particular, which are mostly on the north side of the track.  Since the train can't be turned in Halifax, and is not turned in Montreal, the consist always stays in the same direction.  The two F40s are run back to back, and simply run around the train at its end points.

15's departure time was changed to 11:30 from 13:00 a few months ago to compensate for poor track conditions in New Brunswick that limit the speed to 30 mph or less.  It still rarely runs on time, even with the additional padding

GTD 

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Beautiful autumn images . Thanks for sharing them. 

Well done!