Trackside Log for Sunday, October 30, 2005

Oh my! Today was actually nice! It's been at least two weeks since we've seen the sun. The leaves on the trees have turned color so I wanted to get out and photograph some of them. For the morning I hung around St. Catharines on the CN Grimsby subdivision particularly for Via #97 which has had Amtrak 700 series engines lately. These engines have third rail pickups.

• 0946 Merritton - CN 331 west - CN 5446-CN 5437
• 1108 Garner Road, Niagara Falls - Via 97 east - AMTK 701

I then followed 97 to Niagara Falls station to photograph it while it waited for customs clearance.

• 1123 Niagara Falls - Via 97 east - AMTK 701

I was going to a Hamilton Bulldogs game later so I headed closer to Hamilton. I arrived at Copetown on the CN Dundas subdivision at about noon and knew I'd at least be able to catch the Via trains.

• 1244 Copetown - NS 328 east - BNSF xxx-BNSF 6301 (light power)
• 1254 Copetown - Via 72 east - VIA 6406 (Spiderman 2)
• 1302 Copetown - Via 73 west - VIA 6417/VIA 6432
• 1310 Copetown - CN 330 east - CN 2587-CN 2567
• 1344 Copetown - CN 393 west - CN 2661-CN 5724

It didn't sound like anything else was imminent on CN so I headed into Hamilton. First I stopped at CP's Aberdeen yard expecting to see 230/231's power.

• 1455 Aberdeen yard, Hamilton - CP power - CP 5957-CP 5758-CP 6022

I also dropped by RaiLink's Hamilton yard.

• 1505 Hamilton - CN power - CN 4706
• 1505 Hamilton - RLK switcher - SOR 1201-RLK 1757

Before long Via #92 arrived.

• 1518 Hamilton - Via 92 west - VIA 911

There wasn't much more around so I headed to the city hall parking lot to meet my dad for the Bulldogs game.