My 1984 trip from Kingston to Winnipeg aboard VIA Rail has been previously published here. But until now, I haven't shared the Portage train-watching photos from that memorable trip. It's been 41 years since these photos were taken, so isn't it about time? Past time, actually! In the panoplic pantheon of Trackside Treasure posts, I've already shared many other aspects of, and published many of the photos taken on, this trip: Portage and prairie modelling and operations, layout planning, and the grain elevators located on the area's CN and CP lines. I'll selectively link to some of those posts, but here are links to three previously-published posts that pertain positively to this prairie palaver:
But let's get back to the heart of the trip and my time trackside during those Four Days in Portage. Most days during my visit, I would borrow my aunt and uncle's car to drive farther afield along the CP Carberry and CN Rivers Subdivisions photographing grain elevators and the occasional train. I was no longer limited to pedestrian pursuits along the dusty dirt roads throughout the Portage yards. Some days we went on drives or visited other local sites of hysterical interest together. But I always returned to the CN and CP tracks that bisected Portage. A subsequent post will cover my final three days of train-watching.
Trains are shown by date, time, direction, railway, locomotive and caboose numbers and remarks.
I left Kingston on VIA No 1 on the evening of May 26, 1984, nearly the last year that the Canadian operated Montreal-Toronto-Vancouver. So, I was able to board sleeper Thompson Manor from the platform in Kingston, settle in to my roomette and occupy it all the way to Winnipeg, where I arrived on May 28. After arriving there at 1000, my aunt and uncle met me and it was off to lunch at the Bay downtown then a visit to CN's Symington Yard. Arriving back in Portage in the evening, CN welcomed me with a couple of freights:
2012 W CN 5267-5240-grain empties (top photo).
2043 E CN 9179-9194-lumber loads-79562, from Gladstone Sub at 18th St. N.W. (above and below).
The next day, May 29 I was down to the station and environs in the morning before heading west to MacGregor where I caught VIA Nos 1 and 2 at speed!
1028 W CP 5781-5782-grain empties-434501, to CP Minnedosa Sub, just northwest of Portage:
1035 E CN 9444-9569-9548-100 cars-79309:
1526 W CN 9564-9473 79254 mid-train photo at 18th St NW, showing CWR cars likely filled at CN's Transcona yards in Winnipeg:
1533 W CP 5791-5795-103 empty bathtub gondolas i.e. CPHX 799982-434378. Mere minutes after the above CN train, I just had time to drive over to the CP Carberry Sub main and hop out for this photo at the crossing. The CP-CN connecting track used by the Canadian is visible at right:
1613 E CN 5586-5591-100 cars of grain-79443:
1709 E VIA No 2 6566-6610-6614:
1525 W CN 5292-5263-5094-5149-95 empty bathtub gondolas-79513:
1540 W CP 5673-6018-manifest-434432 stopped at the signal at Eighth Street while waiting for CN to clear ahead of them.
There was a fair bit of M-O-W activity in CN's yard, with various cranes and cars supporting track gangs, east and west of Portage replacing ties and rails using the P-811 and Rail Changeout Unit respectively. One of CN's remanufactured flammables storage cars made an opportune stop on a crossing in the yard while being switched. Click!
Also on May 29, photographs not in this post:
CN 4332-4239-79834 from the P-811 tie replacement work train, at station.
1200 W VIA 6510 2 cars - one of the last runs of VIA No 109.
1351 W CP 5742-101 grain empties-434478 at MacGregor.
1541 W VIA No 1 6504-6603 at MacGregor.
1623 E VIA No 2 6505-6602 at MacGregor.
On May 30, we visited Portage's Fort La Reine Museum in the morning, then it was down to the tracks! CP 6569 was switching grain cars at UGG's Eighth Street elevator, the only time I'd see it switching Portage's CP-served elevators:
1447 W VIA No 1 6653-6615 arriving in Portage at East Tower:
1703 E CN 9499-9581-4253-113 grain loads-79395, back at the CN station:
On May 31, I visited several elevators in the Portage area: Longburn, Rignold, MacDonald and Westbourne. We had lunch at Robinson's and a tasty Pizza House supper. The afternoon's trains were profiled in this previously-published post.
On June 1, we drove to Winnipeg to see Transportation Week displays by CN and CP at the Polo Park shopping centre in the morning, stopping by Oakville, Elie, Benard, Marquette and Meadows elevators before lunch at the Co-Op restaurant and an overcast afternoon at the station!
1238 E CN 5226-4351-7237-4256-404-457 switching out Rail Change Out unit-79707 (unphotographed).
1452 W CN 5022-5201-97 grain empties-79309:
I've made a couple of attempts to brighten up the muddily overcast conditions:
1453 E CP 6032-5017-5012-434312 (unphotographed).
1509 W VIA No 1 6550-6605-12 cars, at Shepp after stopping at Portage at 1456:
CN 197636 built 10-78:
1615 E CN 5358-5066-manifest-79705 (unphotographed).
1627 E CP 6021-5995-70 cars of grain-434550, from CP Minnesota Sub:
1635 E VIA No 2 6507-6653 (unphotographed), and the RCO being wyed at East Tower:
Running extra...
Thanks, Zuck! Actually, you did me a big, big favour. Along with (reportedly) 10 million others (recently) I am now a survivor of LTLWTSOF (that's Learning To Live Without The Scourge Of Facebook). I can safely say I violated neither cybersecurity nor community standards knowingly in the Online Parallel Universe. Why would I? But I won't go where I'm not wanted. Take your time dispensing your supercilious solution, your highfalutin hegemony, your preening pontificating pronouncement. Zuck you!
Long before this latest online larceny, I published a 'Facebook versus blogging' post six years ago. At the time, I reached out two three fellow enthusiasts and this one response pretty much covered it:
With hours freed up from doom-scrolling and pithy comment-posting, guess where I'm reallocating all that time, plowing it back into the fallow field of future posts? Right here. As a blogger, I'm a writer and photographer. I can do both these things on various social media. Blogging forces me to formalize, focus, format and forge posts that can be all about the past, in the now, and updated in the future. I maintain some control, and it seems unlikely the platform is going to pull the plug because of something I post here. Or that someone else posts without my knowledge. Having said all this, if the Blogger platform ever goes down, I'm going back to my quill pen and papyrus. They'll surely stand the test of time!
First past the post...
Counter-cultural this time. Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook brain-trust have live-streamed mass shootings, enabled and even promoted the actions of malign foreign actors, destabilized democracies and contributed to the suicides of vulnerable teens. But let's stay positive! They've also united 38% of the world's total population and got rich doing it, bring countries together to form a global community...and hosted millions of cat videos. But that doesn't mean they're purr-fect.
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