A couple more videos..

Here's a couple more videos I've made recently..

The first video is a NBSR work train leaving Saint John with 2 loads of rock and 2 loads of ballast for the McAdam Sub.

The second is a westbound chase between Saint John and Welsford. The train led by 2610 had 4 engines and 58 cars.

Finally a good NBSR chase..

Yesterday I wanted to catch something train related. My friend Matt was in Moncton shooting trains so jealousy got the best of me.

I went to Carle Ave first just to see what I might hear about an eastbound. Usually there is one on Saturday. As I was waiting, a crew came out to the west end of the Dever Rd Yard. They were using the main line radio frequency which is rare in the yard. I knew something was up. After about 5-10 minutes the crew hooked onto some cars and began to speak with a carman. They spoke about the EOT device and began a brake test. That could only mean one thing. A westbound!

There sure was. 9801 & 2612 were the power for this train. They were hauling a short 19 car train consisting of 9 gypsum cars and 10 ballast cars.

My chase began just outside the yard limits in SJ. From there I never caught up with the train until we were in Grand Bay. So I headed to Westfield Beach to grab a quick shot.

Next I went to Welsford. I wanted to get a shot at Rte 101 to show some of the work being done there, plus get a reading from the hot box detector.

From there I grabbed a quick road side shot in Clarendon and then headed for Blissville. The shot in Blissville is a nice one with two crossings in the shot. First time I've ever shot a westbound there.

Then I made my way to Vespra. I knew there would be a nice shot with the curve. But I also wanted to get a going away shot cause this is where I ended my chase.

Here's the finished product.. What a great chase!

Two more new videos..

Over the past weekend I had a couple chances to catch some trains.

My first was an NBSR eastbound chase on Saturday that went all wrong. I heard on my radio that the eastbound was due in by 4pm. So close to 3 I left Saint John bound for Welsford to start a chase back to SJ. Shortly after arriving at Welsford I heard the RTC get called and the dispatcher took a time for the eastbound out of McAdam. So the train was later than expected. So rather make the drive back to the city without seeing anything, I kept heading towards Fredericton Junction.

I made it to Vespra which is just west of Tracy by rail. When I first arrived I just parked the car and got out to look for a shot. Not 5 minutes of being there I heard the hotbox detector go off that is west of Vespra. So I took a quick shot and then started the chase. Well let me tell ya the new rail has made a difference in the speed on this line. I'm sure there is pretty much no slow orders between Vespra and Saint John. At some points I paced with the train at 40mph. So getting ahead of this train for shots was fun on slightly snowy roads.

My other hit against this chase was the time of day. It was pretty much dark at my first shot so the rest were in complete dark. There are lots of locations to catch a train along this line but I've never tried this in the dark. Finding locations was not easy! So I made due with some places I knew might not be too bad and went with them. Here's the video

Next train is CN 406 from Sunday. I took the family for a drive to Sussex with hopes of catching 406 up there and then chase it down to SJ. As we just got some lunch in Sussex I heard the train call for McCullys. So I picked a spot I like just leaving Sussex for a quick first shot. Then I headed off down the road to the east side of Hampton where I met up with Matt (Saintjohnrailfan). We set up our shots and after a short wait westbound 406 rolled through with SD70M-2 #8010 on the head end. Here's the finished product.