Saturday, October 23, 2010

Trackside Log for Saturday, October 23, 2010

This morning while walking Missy I could hear the distant rumble of GM prime movers. After about 10 minutes train 626 came into view.

  • 0720 Fenwick - CP 626 south - SOO 6049-CITX 2794-CEFX 3184-CITX 3072

I wasn't in any position to photograph it but it was too dark anyway.

The plan for the day was to meet up with Marcus and photograph the Credit Valley Explorer between Orangeville and Snelgrove. The original goal was to commemorate the last Canadian Pacific run of the Moonlight to Orangeville on September 28, 2000. I was three weeks late but oh well.

We met at his house and headed off to Orangeville to check out the train. When we arrived it was loading passengers.

  • 1040 Orangeville - OBRY Credit Valley Explorer south - CCGX 4009

Our first destination was Cataract. This is the former junction of the Canadian Pacific Elora and Orangeville Subdivisions as well and the location of a large limestone quarry. Here you can see the train run along the edge of the cataract at the ruins of the Cataract Electric Company.

  • 1150 Cataract - OBRY Credit Valley Explorer south - CCGX 4009

After our long but fruitful wait we drove out ahead of the train and caught up to it in Inglewood.

  • 1212 Inglewood - OBRY Credit Valley Explorer south - CCGX 4009

Once again we made our way south to find another location to photograph the train while the sunshine held out. We settled on King Street near Cheltenham where we could photograph the Niagara Escarpment in the background.

  • 1225 Cheltenham - OBRY Credit Valley Explorer south - CCGX 4009

We followed along again and photographed the train one more time in Snelgrove just before the GP9 switched ends to return north.

  • 1232 Snelgrove - OBRY Credit Valley Explorer south - CCGX 4009

Now that the train was returning north we headed back to Cheltenham for one last photograph of the train.

  • 1256 Cheltenham - OBRY Credit Valley Explorer north - CCGX 4009

By now the clouds had moved in so we called off the chase of the Credit Valley Explorer. Marcus and I then headed into Brampton to the station to see if there was any activity on the Canadian National's Halton Subdivision. As we were arriving we heard on the scanner that three trains were converging on town. Nice timing!

  • 1346 Brampton - CN 435 west - CN 2439-CN 6020
  • 1401 Brampton - CN 422 east - CN 8868-CN 8888-CN 2326-CN 2327-CN 2330-CN 2324-CN 2329
  • 1421 Brampton - CN 382 east - CN 5698-BCOL 4616

Train 422 was a nice bonus to see the five new ES44DCs on delivery. Nothing else was imminent so we departed for lunch and the Credit Valley Railway hobby shop. All in all it was a pretty good day. I wasn't expecting much from the weather but we were fortunate to have some decent sun for the Credit Valley Explorer.

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