Eastern Railroad Discussion > A loaded Windmill Blade Train leaving Battle Creek, Michigan

He got a head start on me. When I first saw this train it was already on the move. I hurried the best I could to get to a spot I use quite often, but automobile traffic at 4:30 PM kind of hinders high speed got to get where I want to get travel. And by the time I got to the area of East Michigan Avenue he was already over the crossing. So the video shows the locomotives almost past my location, and I had to move the camera a couple of times too.

But a loaded windmill train headed west is kind of rare around here. Over the past several years the CN has been hauling these trains, but they were usually loaded headed East, and empty headed back west.

After the train was past my location I thought about trying to get out of town and find another location get a better video, but with the automobile traffic in town being quite heavy, that didn't work.

IC 2714 CN 2125 West, Tuesday, July 25, 2017, at about 4:30 PM. At East Michigan Avenue - MP 177.01 CN South Bend Subdivision, Battle Creek, Michigan.

Ron
 

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You did good, Thanks

Ed Stewart
Jacksonville, FL

Wow, that is unexpected heading west, nice video of it. Any idea of where it might be going? I'm guessing at least to Chicago, but wondering where from there. I'd like to see it if it comes through Chicago as I can't recall one ever being routed this way.

inCHI Wrote:
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> Any idea of where it might be going? I'm guessing at least to Chicago, but wondering where from there.
> I'd like to see it if it comes through Chicago as I can't recall one ever being routed this way.

I don't have a clue where it's headed, but I'll try to find out. But of course by the time I do find out where it's going.....it'll be almost there!!!

It caught me off guard. I'd of liked to have gotten a better video of it. But that didn't work for me with this train.

Ron

We get two different types of windmill trains headed west from Montreal on the CN. They are destined to pass through the Sarnia tunnel. The one you shot came from the Gaspe region of Quebec where the blades are manufactured. The day before a train of towers went through. These had been built in Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec on the Quebec Gatineau Railway. The QG towers had been going via CP until EHH and Creel took over the company.

We see a train of each type about once a month. So they are uncommon but not unexpected. Perhaps they have been turning south on the other side of the tunnel or going through your area at night accounting for why you haven't seen them.

KG