On Saturday morning I met up with Matt at Staples on Rothesay Ave to try and catch the CN potash train. Well there apparently wasn't one.. We sat and chatted for a few hours. During this time there was alot of activity on the NBSR mainline channel. When I got in the van at around 6:15am I heard a mainline crew parking their engines after parking their train. Shortly after there was more talk from the mechanics servicing the engines. They spoke with the yard planner about the lash up of units. Which happened to be 2319,2317,2318,slug 008,2610. That sounded like a mainline train to me. And sure enough there was. So after Matt and I parted ways, I booted it for the west side. The train made their call for a clearance before I got to Carle Ave but there was a yard crew stalling the departure of the train.
The yard crew was moving quite slow when I first got there. They were backing into the yard from way down the long lead track exiting the yard. They had between 35-40 loaded woodchip cars from a train that arrived in the early morning.
So once the yard crew were out of the way, the westbound had the clear to leave. I chose the Acamac Backland Rd as my first shot. I just sat in the car and filmed hand held. Then on for the chase. Slow traffic kept me behind. I finally got ahead of the train by Westfield Beach. So I decided to head for Welsford. I went to the Rte 101 crossing only to find no real place to park. There is a small dirt road that you can pull into next to the tracks normally. But with the snow we've had there was no way to get my van in there. It wasn't plowed. So I made off for Enniskillen.
The crossing at Enniskillen is not an easy shot to get when you are chasing a train. The road you go down off Rte 101 to get to it is quite far off the main road. It eats time if you are not very far ahead of the train. But I was for this one. So I ventured down the road.
The snow by that time was falling quite heavily. I set up my tripod just on the side of the quiet road. At about 10:30am, 2319 leads the westbound past the late Floyd Kelly's semaphore signal and through Enniskillen.
Here's the finished video of the two shot chase.
2 comments:
You're right that you need a lot of time to get to Enniskillen. I was chasing an eastbound once and decided to head there, and just missed the head end. I would have been tempted to try for Wirral or Hoyt.
I wonder how the bypass at Welsford is going to affect train watching? Could there be an overhead shot there afterward?
My most previous chase I was about a 1km from the road into Enniskillen when I heard the engineman call the mileboard. I didn't even try to make it lol.
Yea I'm not sure yet about the overpass in Welsford. The deck is still not on it so I'm not sure if it will be accessable that way. Plus standing on the highway when it's open might not be a good idea. Maybe if you stand up by the embutments, it may help with a wide shot. I'll have to do some investigating around there
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