Canadian Railroads > A Trip to Moncton, NB

On February 20th I hit the road for Moncton, New Brunswick, with plans to shoot trains Z120 and A407 along the way.  I was hoping to get 407 somewhere between Halifax and Truro, but they were ahead of me, and 120 was relatively early that day.  I was lucky to get the intermodal train at Belmont about 08:30 as they passed the new LED signals on the way down the hill to Truro.  Trains have to slow down to 25 mph until the last level crossing in town is occupied, so that gave me a chance to get ahead of them again for another set at Brookfield, mile 57.3 on the Bedford Sub.  They were right back up to track speed of 60 mph here, and raising quite a blizzard as DPU 3109 went past at 08:51.

GTD

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By this time A407 had completed their work in Truro and were hauling back out onto the main line.  With the light favouring eastbounds in Truro at that time of day, I stayed on the highway and drove to Springhill Jct. instead.  The train arrived at 10:25, rolling down the 1% grade near mile 59 of the Springhill Sub.  There is an 11,000 ft. siding here, a frequent meeting spot for 407's counterpart, 408, and the evening intermodal out of Halifax, Z121.

Moving further west and into New Brunswick, I got a properly lit shot of 407 in Sackville, as they passed the VIA station.  GEVOs 2265 and 2898 had been the power on 407 for a number of weeks at this point, a somewhat uncommon pairing of DC and AC power on a mainline train.

GTD

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Getting any more shots of 407 would involve battling downtown Moncton traffic, which I was reluctant to do, but I had heard 537, the Moncton local, on the radio and was hoping they might still have the Iowa Northern GP38-2 or GTW GP9RM for power.  When I did eventually find them, on the Franklin Spur and the crew gone to lunch, neither of those units was in use, I did get recently acquired GP38-2 4951 (née NYC GP40 3025) and 4020 idling next to Beaverbrook St. at 12:52, but that was all.

However, 594, the daily turn to Saint John from Gordon Yard was calling the RTC for permission to leave the yard.  I hit the highway and went west to Salisbury, mile 11 of the Sussex Sub. and waited there for them.  This was once the junction with the branch to Hillsborough, home of the New Brunswick Railway Museum.  The Museum stopped operating trains in the 2000s, but still has static displays.  The old RoW is now a trail, and the snowmobilers were making good use of it this day.  At 13:57 594 showed up with ES44ACs 3821 and 2889 and 68 loads of propane for Saint John.  Despite what I said the other day about unity trains not requiring a buffer car in Canada, this one had an empty centrebeam behind the power as they went past me.

Once 594 was out of the way, I checked on VIA 15's progress.  They were about an hour away from Sackville and with a bit of luck, so was I.  As it turned out, it was very close.  I thought I would hear the detector out on the marsh, but as I was driving through town the first thing I heard on the radio was the crew calling the light at the east end of the former siding.  They were actually running 2 minutes early (and left 3 minutes early), but I did get a couple shots by the station at 14:49, before I got on the road again for home.  Although there is still a station in Sackville it's not open to passengers.  They have to wait in the cold and wind for the train.  Hopefully VIA will work out an arrangement similar to the one in Amherst, where a restaurant has a business in the station and maintains space for a waiting room.

GTD

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Nice shots!!

Excellent series, Geoff!

texchief1