Canadian Railroads > a quick visit to the New Brunswick Southern

This is the first in a short series of threads highlighting train-related bits of a road trip through Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island from late October through early November.

Sunday 26 October found us in Saint John NB, with a late afternoon to take a look around and take care of a few things before catching the morning ferry across the Bay of Fundy to Digby NS.

My partner volunteered to tackle the laundry, giving me a little time to hunt down the NB Southern.

Taking a total stab in the dark, I drove down to Gifford St at the east end of the yard to see what I could see - and immediately struck gold, with GP38-3s 2317 and 2318 bracketing booster unit 003 drilling woodchip cars to the Irving pulp & paper mill.

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I enjoyed the variety in the woodchip cars almost as much as hearing 2nd gen four-axle power at work - note the former Southern cars, what look to be rebuilt pulpwood flatcars, and what looks to me like a former BC rail car at the right in the third image.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/25 00:13 by screeh.

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A couple of images taken from Green Head Rd where it crosses over the NB Southern tracks, looking east towards the mill, and west towards the yard (there were a few SD70M-2s near the shop) 

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Here's a short video of the consist pulling out from under the Green Head Rd bridge towards the yard then reversing back to the mill (apologies for the wonky zoom and pan at the start, I thought about editing it down but that would cut some of the sweet sound)

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Laundry complete, we took a wander down to Reversing Falls lookout & headed back to our B&B along Douglas Avenue.
Halfway there, the inevitable happened: a horn in the distance, unmistakably a train, and getting closer.
Dashing down Bentley Street to the crossing, I crossed my fingers that a) it was headed my way and b) I'd make it in time.
My luck held, and I got a nice surprise: one of NB Southern's GP31ECO-Ms running light - I didn't even know they had these, although I've since spotted them on the McAdam NB webcam.
Even though we had a lightning visit to Saint John, it was a solid dose of four-axle EMD (and EMD-ish) power!

Thanks for reading,
Stu Reeh (from a much more southern Brunswick)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/25 00:19 by screeh.

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Thanks for the post. Very nice. Enjoyed the videos a lot. Too bad we don't see more videos on the Canadian Board. Best of the holidays to you.

Thanks for your post, photos and video !