I know, I know.. I've been slack

HLCX 6318 & 6200 haul a westbound train through Ketepec Rd in Saint John

Well it's been over a year since I've updated my blog and there has been lots of "new" units added to NBSR's fleet. They have pretty much doubled their fleet of units and we are now seeing SD-40s in the mix.

HLCX 906 leads a westbound train through Welsford, NB

Under the reporting marks HLCX they have leased GP-38-3s numbers 906, 911, 913, and 917. SD-40-2s numbers 6200, 6318, 6315, 8144, 6304, 6332. 6319 & 6340 are two more that are said to be on their way also.

There are also units with reporting marks GMTX. They have 4 GP-38-3s numbers 2639, 2644, 2645, and 2666. They also brought in two MP15DCs number 203 and 204.

For the last nine months I have been working nights and it hasn't been good for railfanning. I have been missing lots of trains but I get out to see some as much as I can. NBSR has now been hauling crude oil unit trains into Saint John for the refinery. This had made for quite a few more and longer trains. There has also been some foreign power coming into Saint John as well.

Here are a few videos that I have made in the past year..



Those are just a few.. Check out my YouTube channel to see some others
http://www.youtube.com/user/nbsrfan

Lots of things new...

Well the first two, HLCX 911 & 906, of four units being leased by NBSR arrived into Saint John yesterday on CN train 406. My good friend, Matt "saintjohnrailfan" Landry, managed to catch 406 as it approached Saint John with the two ex-UP locos. So to make up for missing the units arrival into town because of work, I headed out to grab some pictures this morning. The shots I did get aren't that great as there is always something getting in the shot. I shot my pictures of HLCX 911 from the Staples and Brett's parking lots. 906 was blocked for getting any good shots.

Here is a link to Matt's video of 406 with the units in tow

 http://youtu.be/wyJgWjYn0LM

Now back in November I mentioned I heard a NBSR crew member mention a new wood chip unloader going to be built. I've recently noticed that they do have it done. It's located behind Moosehead Breweries just west of the truck dumper for Irving Pulp & Paper. It's an excavator like machine on top of an archway that the railcars can go through underneath it. The unloader digs the chips out of the cars and puts them into a green hopper which funnels the chips onto a conveyor belt that puts the chips with the other big pile coming from the trucks being unloaded. I grabbed a few shots as I was heading to Carle Ave today and a couple days ago. Here are a few of the shots.

Now I've been trying to railfan as much as possible. I've been doing pretty good for videos. But it's been so long since I posted about any I've got a backlog. I'll just point out a few of my most recent videos on YouTube.

First is a video of our motorcar group giving rides in McAdam on Canada Day

http://youtu.be/0ZUAp-_N_JY

Second is a NBSR westbound leaving Saint John with 2610 pretending to be an ALCO

http://youtu.be/pehm4P2aeNo

And third is CN train 439 with Herzog Ballast train crossing Reversing Falls Bridge

http://youtu.be/Wp2jcG1CJcc

Another try..

Back on Feb 19th I headed out with the family for a nice drive to catch the NBSR eastbound of that day. My original intent was to just go to the hot box detector at Cork (MP59.4) and wait for it there. My radio picks up quite a distance now with a higher gain antenna on it. But as I sat all was quiet on the main line channel. I tried to get a heads up on the train too but with no luck I decided to head for McAdam seeing how I was this close. We made it into McAdam by about 3pm. I made a quick drive around just to see if I could see anything and all was quiet. So we decided to get some lunch/supper at Klinkers Lounge on the main road through McAdam. They have good food by the way. I sat in the van with my radio on as we waited for our food. At about 3:15pm I heard the RTC in Maine call the eastbound asking where they were. The train responded that they were about 15 miles from Vanceboro, ME. I thought at the time it would work out perfect. Boy was I wrong.

The eastbound finally arrived into McAdam at 3:55pm. But they had some switching to do and this is where I started to loose my daylight. It took the two crews, (the crew from Maine and the new crew heading to SJ) almost an hour to do the shunting they had to do. The train finally left for Saint John at 5pm. So we headed out of town for the chase. I wasn't quite sure where I should catch this train as I headed towards Harvey. I like shooting in Harvey but the train makes real good time between there and Cork where the dirt road starts. It can be hard to keep ahead of a train in this area.The road wasn't in to bad of shape but I didn't want to push my van through it any harder than I had to. So I just kept going till I got to the eastern end of the dirt road at Vespra. I set up my shot on the side of the road and with a short wait the eastbound rolled through. I shot the whole train there because I pretty much figured that would be my only shot I would get. And as you can see from the screen shot above it was getting pretty dark by this time, which was about 5:50pm. Good thing I did! Catching up with this train after it rolled by was an interesting time. It was snowing a little bit and I was far behind. I didn't beat the train to the next crossing east of Vespra close to Tracy so we had to wait for it to pass again. I almost beat it to the crossing at Blissville on Rte 101, but the crossing lights came on. I was gonna be the first vehicle waiting for the train to pass so I grabbed my camera and did a hand held shot through the windshield. I only used it in my video because I thought it looked kind of sharp with the headlights causing a silhouette of the train going by. Definitely not a great shot but I didn't want to go home empty handed for the amount of driving I did.

The eastbound train was one of the longer ones I've seen on the NBSR lately. It had engines 2317, 2319, slug 008, and 2318 for power and had 81 cars in tow. Here's the video I made from my chase..

Here is also my most recent CN video of train 406 from March 12th.

Nice start to my vacation.. A trip to Enniskillen.

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.



Some new vids..

Back on Jan 15th I had a heads up from Matt that SD70M-2 8941 was leading CN train 406. Which also happened to have 3 other engines on as the train had 143 cars. We chased the train between McCully and Hampton on the Sussex Sub. Here's my video of that train.

Then on Jan 16th I spent sometime at Carle Ave with my trusty scanner. I went just thinking there may be a westbound leaving. Shortly after supper I found out there definitely was going to be a train. Two trains to be exact. But the crew of the first train was doing some shunting in the yard before they went west. This took alot of time. Also I could heard a crew working on all the units that were going west that night. So I was in for a good wait!!

By 9:20pm the first train left SJ. It was a work train with a few cars added to it. It was led by 2610 and had a rare sight on the end. NBSR caboose 422990. It's a short video and I also used my old Canon camera because it seems to handle the dark shots like these better than my new Sony.

Unfortunately I didn't catch the second train. The cold was getting to me after sitting for so long. But the caboose made up for not catching the second train.

2318 is on her way home!

On January 16th, Frank Jolin caught this great photo of MMA train #2 with 2318 in the consist of engines. The photo was taken in Eastman, Quebec. I'm sure it won't be too much longer getting into Saint John. I can't wait to see her working with Slug 008 again!

A new year, videos, and blog

Well this is my first post of 2011!

I've been slack with updates as I've been busy working on a few new things. First here are three videos I have made. 

Second, I've been putting together a blog for our local motorcar group. The start of 2011 we have changed the name of the group from the New Brunswick Recreational Rail Riders to C.A.R.C.O.A.  It stands for Canadian Atlantic Rail Car Operators Association. There isn't too much on it yet but it's a good start. Click on the logo below to check it out.

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.

New vids in 1080 HD

Here are my first videos with the new Sony Handycam. First is a small chase of CN 406 from McCully to Torryburn.

Second is a NBSR westbound that left Saint John on Nov 22nd with 2612 in the lead. Unfortunately this is one of those night shots that don't always turn out so good.

Sony HD Camcorder

So with the recent exchange of my Canon SX30 I decided to try a camcorder. So I chose a Sony Handycam CX110. It shoots in 1080 HD. I haven't used it a whole lot yet but there definitely is no lense flare problem with this camera.

Well time for some updates....

Well Since my last post some things have changed. After purchasing the new Canon camera I quickly found something I didn't like about it. When I was shooting video of trains with the camera zoomed I would get some really bad lense flares from the headlights of the engines.

Like in this video..

Here are some others I shot with the Canon SX30

So after trying to figure out how to fix the flares with filters etc, I decided to take the SX30 back. The camera took some really great photos but I did purchase camera for the capability of recording video too. So I chose to purchase a camcorder instead..



A new toy..

Santa came to me early this year! I just purchased a new camera. The Canon SX30IS. This is the latest model out in the series of cameras like my old one, the SX3IS. With this upgrade I'm jumping from 6 to 14 mega pixels and I'll now be shooting video in 720p HD. I can't wait to catch some trains!!



Got chips?

I heard a train crew on my radio this evening say that Irving is building some sort of an off-loading facility for wood chips. I'm guessing it would be near the Pulp & Paper Mill at the falls. Has anyone else heard about this? I'll look into it some more and post anything I hear.



Well another video to add to that month...

This weekend has been a wet one in Saint John. I'm guessing it has caused some changes in schedules for trains. Late Saturday afternoon I got a heads up about a westbound train leaving early Sunday morning from SJ for McAdam. This is quite rare as normally there is no train on Sunday. But hey I'll take it. So I arrived at Carle Ave at 6:30am just to make sure I wouldn't miss it. And I sure didn't...

I never heard any crew talking till 7:30 which was great cause Matt (Saintjohnrailfan) was on his way intown to see it too. Engines 2319 & 9801 came to the west end of the Dever Rd Yard to turn on the wye before coupling up. After they did and got their brake test complete, we headed for the Acamac Backland Rd. At about 8:45am they rolled through with 49 cars.

Next we headed to Staples to catch the container transfer. We weren't there very long when we heard the crew say they were at the Bunsmaster switch and wanted to hook on to the containers. So we hit the road again to go get a location for a shot. We went to Bentley Crossing. This is a new street of townhouses that over look the Mill Street grade and the harbour. The view was awesome and the units worked hard climbing the hill with 43 cars. But the two units, 3702 & 9803 couldn't handle the weight and stalled on the hill. This was great cause it was raining and we wanted to get a new shot. So we went to the Bentley St. crossing to catch it again. As we waited for a helper crew to catch up to the transfer, I noticed I lost the shot of the transfer climbing the hill. My camera has been randomly shutting off and it decided to do it while I was recording the climb causing me to loose it. Shortly after the transfer rolls through the crossing with CN 7060 pushing from the rear.

Now we were gonna call it a day cause we were wet from the rain. I heard another train getting ready to leave SJ. It was a work train led by 9802. I caught them at the Acamac Backland Rd too.

I've put all the vids into one so it's a little bit over 10 minutes. Enjoy!!

One month, 10 vids..

Well its' been a month since my last post on here.. I know I'm slack! Anyhoo.. I have put 10 new videos on YouTube since my last post. And there is just to much to says for all of them, so I'll just show you the vids.

Enjoy!

A weekend of Foaming..

 I've had some decent luck while out watching trains this long weekend. On Saturday I went to Carle Ave to see what was up in the Dever Rd Yard. I wasn't there very long when I heard someone dial the NBSR mainline channel. I couldn't hear the train speak, but it was a work train getting a clearance to come to Saint John from around mile 41.0 of the McAdam Sub. So I hit the highway for Welsford. I arrived in plenty of time so I went to the Rte 101 crossing close to the hotbox detector to wait.

I decided I was gonna do a chase of the work train. Usually the work train is just some ballast cars and a caboose, so I wanted to make sure I got more than one quick shot. So I set up my tripod on the passenger side of my car for some through the window chasing. I don't do this type of thing very often so it's fun when I do.

At approx 1:45pm the train rolled into Welsford. 9803 leading CN caboose 75624, 10 ballast cars and a log car. After they rolled through I mounted my camera on the tripod and set out. I didn't really expect to see them cross Highway 7 but I lucked out and they were going slow so I managed to catch them crossing the highway as I approached the activated crossing lights. After that I went to Westfield. This is where the line runs close to the track. I began my chase at the Britain Rd. I basically just pressed record and drove. I would check the flip out screen on my camera to make sure the shots were ok, but my driving was most important. I didn't want to get in anyone's way so I made sure I pulled off the road when any traffic was around. I followed them down into Grand Bay with my last shot being of them approaching a crossing on a nice curve.

This is where I made my U turn.. As I was recording the chase through Westfield the RTC was dialed again. This time it wasn't the work train. It was the regular eastbound looking to get clearance to proceed to Saint John. So that meant another eastbound! Back to Welsford I went. This time I started from the Gov't garage located next to the crossing. After another short wait I heard the hotbox detector go off and then along came the train. It was three units. 2319,9801,2612 and they were hauling 57 cars. So I set up the camera again for another chase. I followed the train through basically the same area as the work train. Only this time I chose a shot closer to Saint John for a final shot. Here's the final product.

On Sunday I got together with my friend Matt to catch some trains. We managed to catch two. First being a NBSR transfer climbing the Mill Street Grade. And the second being CN 406 rolling through Rothesay.

CN's Napadogan Sub Action on Sept 26th

On Sept 26th, Saintjohnrailfan and myself decided to take a trip to McGivney to catch some action. It has been a long time since I ventured up that way so I was looking forward to it.

We arrived at 4:30am to see a green over red signal facing east so we knew 121 must be on it's way. After close to an hour of waiting, we saw the bright headlights of 121 coming in the distance. It looked like the sun was rising on the horizon as we looked towards Moncton. So we set up our shots and sat ready. I used my usual spot next to the crew shack. I love this spot for two reasons. First.. The dusk to dawn light on the building helps light up the shot. And two.. The rush you get from the train rolling by so close and at that speed!

At approx 5:30am 121 rockets through McGivney.

After 121 finished we tried to figure out if a 474 was due through. Matt had a heads up about one coming from Edmundston to Moncton but the signals all shown red. So we pretty much figured we missed it.

So we headed towards Chipman. We had some time to kill before 305 would roll through so we explored around checking out different locations for shots. We ended up at the Bronson Settlement Rd. There is a hot box detector there and a nice straight stretch. After about an hour wait 305 rolled though with an SD70M-2 leading and one as a DPU.

We only caught 2 out of 3 trains but it's better than nothing. Definitely not a wasted day!

Just for fun I recorded 121 rolling by with my cell phone. The quality isnt that great, but it shows more of what I see as I record a train next to the crew shack at McGivney.

Also here are Matt's videos of that day.

An odd Saturday....

This morning I decided to take the family for a drive with no peticular destination in mind. But I ended up following the McAdam Sub from Saint John all the way to McAdam. Along the way I just barely heard something mentioned about someone being 2 hours away from McAdam. So I figured it would be the eastbound. I thought a nice chase would be a great way to spend the afternoon. So we waited around the border crossing just west of McAdam. As we were there I caught a conversation about a "work" train coming into McAdam from the McAdam Sub and that they would be about a half hour. So we went to town to get some lunch. As we waited for our order the "work" train arrived into town. So I went to the station to catch it coming in... This is where it gets weird.

As the train came into view at the station, it had quite a long string of cars on. It actually turned out to be a westbound. Usually Saturday is an eastbound day for the NBSR. So my intent was to catch this train crossing the bridge at the border. But as I waited in the park next to the bridge some kids came along and parked right in my shot of the bridge. So I just decided to catch them at the Rte 630 crossing just afew miles east of the border crossing. 2612,9801,9802 rolled through with 43 cars.

And so as I was editing this video I thought I would look this area up on a Timetable that Steve Boyko has on his website from 1994. This line is called the Mattawamkeag Subdivision. Something I did not know.. Ya learn something new everyday!