Four Days at Portage, 1984

 

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:

• VIA's Winnipeg-Edmonton Panorama, 1984
• Trackside Modelling Portage la Prairie, 1984 
• VIA's Canadian, 1984

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:

Seven minutes later, this eastbound hotshot came into Portage on the CN Rivers Sub,

1035 E CN 9444-9569-9548-100 cars-79309:

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:

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:

1703 E CN 9499-9581-4253-113 grain loads-79395, back at the CN station:

1709 E VIA No 2 6566-6610-6614:

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:

1525 W CN 5292-5263-5094-5149-95 empty bathtub gondolas-79513:

CN 197636 built 10-78:

1540 W CP 5673-6018-manifest-434432 stopped at the signal at Eighth Street while waiting for CN to clear ahead of them. 

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. 

One More Day at Portage, 1985

In Part 1, I photographically portrayed two of my three prodigious days trolling for trains trackside in the remarkable railfan mecca of Portage la Prairie, MB. In Part 2, we thrill to the third day's trains before I head west, young man, to the beckoning West Coast ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert!

September 20, 1985

My aunt and uncle headed east in their Dodge camper van at noon. I had their car and the rest of the day to train watch before catching No 1 westward from Portage station in the evening. 

1300 W CN 5316-5176 to Rivers Sub with Jordan spreader CN 50937 on the head-end and International Service  caboose 78112 on the tail-end, captured west of Portage from along the Trans-Canada Highway (top photo and below):

1402 E: Coming back east into Portage at the 18th St NW crossing at 1402, this eastbound Rivers Sub hotshot rolled past, led by CN 5265-5237 and trailed by caboose 79217:

1430 W CP 5798 guides 98 grain empties (cylindrical on the head-end, boxcars behind) at the switch for the CN-CP connecting track at West Tower, continuing on the CP Carberry Sub with van 434550:

For this many empties, one unit will do:

1505 W CP 5796-4202 to Minnedosa Sub possibly with potash empties and with van 434341 accelerated after stopping in Portage, leading to skid marks on the country roads past the Campbell's soup plant when I tried to stay ahead for another photo!

Friendly van crew on CP 434341:

1538 W CN 5009-5529 97 cars manifest 79589 (unphotographed).
1555 W CP 5696-5933 manifest followed by van 434502, at the CP station:

1616 E CP 5779-4739 434133-434448 (unphotographed).
1655 E CN 5408-5419 brand-new power posing with my aunt and uncle's car:

1703 E CN 5214 81 grain loads and caboose79615 (unphotographed).
1752 E CP 6037-5611-6014 manifest with 434425 (unphotographed).
1911 W CN 5088-5055 and caboose 79850 have a clear signal to the setting sun. The head-end cars picked up on the Portage CN-CP interchange are just past the switch to the United Grain Growers elevator lead:

1921 E CP 6042-5727-5929-5912-xx25 from Carberry Sub 434710 at 8th Street NW crossing (below).

These three trains unphotographed in darkness: 

2115 W CN 9631-5076-5043 79763.

2240 W VIA No 3 6306-6604 7 cars - the Super Continental.

2250 E CN 5563-4330 79229.

My aunt and uncle's assistant Lynn and her husband Mark had driven me to the station. VIA No 1 was about two-and-a-half hours late, so I talked to the CN operator while waiting in the station for the train to arrive from Winnipeg. Then it was off to Vancouver-Prince Rupert-Regina grain elevator photography, through Winnipeg on September 30 and into Toronto on October 2

Running extra...

On June 3, for the first time, VIA attempted to meet CN's imposed minimum train-length requirement for its new Siemens Venture trainsets by augmenting a test set with the addition of two cars. Total transit length is eight: VIA train No 631operated from Montreal-Ottawa return, with one each Economy Class* and Business Class** cars from Set 7 added to Set 12. Consist: Cab car 2311-Economy Class cars 2811-2911-2906*- Business Class cars 2706**-2711-2611- locomotive 2211.

Despite VIA's position against operating 'doublavay' Venture J-trains and/or augmenting trainsets, VIA has now tested both. If the latter test is successful, it could be a stop-gap measure as VIA continues to wait for a court ruling to remove CN's requirement (in process in Ontario then Quebec since late-2024), or a Transport Canada decision (data submitted by CN in January, 2025).

This augmentation has seemed to me like an obvious option once the October, 2024 speed reductions became oppressively omnipresent at over 300 crossings in the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor, yet it has taken nearly eight months for VIA to test this option.

With 29 trainsets on the property, and three out-of-service, 15 of the remaining 26 trainsets are in daily rotation, with another 11 sets undergoing maintenance or out-of-rotation. VIA has not moved beyond having 15 sets in daily use. Therefore, 11 sets are not in daily use. If only three of these gave up four cars each for the augmented consists, that would make six 32-axle stop-gap trainsets!

In the meantime, VIA's Venture-equipped Corridor trains continue to operate 15-60 minutes late due to CN's actions and VIA's inactions, and passengers are finding other travel options that actually suit their plans and meet posted schedules. In a press release today, VIA released on its Q1 numbers: on-time performance dropped sharply to 30% down from 72% last year, due primarily to restrictions imposed by a third-party infrastructure owner, and ridership declined by 2.7% marking the first drop since the pandemic recovery began.

Elbows...down! A recent perusal of Rapido Train Zinc Newsletter #206 produced not a single Canadian model in New Announcements or updates. Or anywhere, really. Not counting a lone photo of CN/IC cabs with air-conditioners roof-mounted, it's all American: electric E44's, Chicago 'el' cars (and OK, nominally a few H16-44 Canadian schemes in the above list). From a recent video, "International and Canadian are a very small part of sales."

Coupled to an update on tariffs (still absorbed by the company) and clarity on US "rairroads" (gee, I hate that affected-American pronunciation!) being orderable from their Buffalo warehouse, I think this issue marks the complete Americanization of the company. (This really should have been a separate post!) Fun facts on Rapido's new Buffalo building (click for larger images):

The good news is, all the major Canadian prototypes have already been produced by the proudly-Canadian company over the past 20 years! Needed VIA units, RDC's, Royal Hudsons, CN and CP cabooses and ballast cars, RS-23's, RDC-4's, more steam icons, CN S-13's a' la Spadina, Buffalo boxcars, U33CS's...oh, never mind. 

First past the post...

Though rainy in this post, Manitoba is on fire and Manitobans are making a difference. Also the Red Cross, Canadian Forces, even VIA Rail helping evacuees from remote Northern towns and Indigenous communities. The very worst bringing out the very best in people. 

Two Days at Portage, 1985

On Monday, September 16, 1985 I left Montreal aboard VIA No 1, arriving at Winnipeg on the evening of September 17. During servicing, I was out wandering around East Yard and up at track level, under the Winnipeg depot train shed was No 93 to Churchill, No 7 from Capreol and my No 1, and mosquitoes:

Arriving after dark, over an hour late at Portage's CN station, there was an RCMP cruiser in the parking lot! We made their leisurely drive around Portage seeing some nighttime combining, then I enjoyed a nightcap Coke and sandwich at their house. I spent until Friday night with my aunt and uncle who lent me their car during the day. I saw many trains, out to Poplar Point and High Bluff to photograph elevators, also the new continuous-pour elevator east of Portage at Tucker. I had a [reduced from other years] three days' train watching in Portage.

My whole 1985 trip is told in a three-post series, starting with this post - a travelogue before and after Portage. I'm finally getting around to publishing these Portage train-watching photos - it's been 40 years since these photos were taken! In my defence, I've already blogged every other aspect of this trip in the panoply of previously-published posts. (Though I hate to publish the same photos twice, a few in this post appeared in posts on grain cars, for instance.) The first of these plethoric 1985 posts were shared way back in the first month of Trackside Treasure's ever-lengthening 16-year lifespan! Here's my entire 1985 trip, in date order of publication:

• Thunder Bay and Sudbury on the way home
• CN's Lewvan Subdivision
  
• Vestibule View heading west to Winnipeg
  
• CP's Loose Caboose 
• CP ballast train on the Minnedosa Subdivision
  
• Railfanning Regina
  
• CP's Carberry Subdivision east of Portage
  
• Across Canada by Train Order - Westward
  
• Across Canada by Train Order - Eastward
  
• Riding Montreal to North Bay
  
• Postscript - Sudbury
  
• Dome View of Alberta and Saskatchewan
  
• CN's Glenavon Subdivision
  
• CP's Tyvan Subdivision 
• CP's Portal Subdivision (Part 1 of 2)
  

That's a lot of Trackside Treasure posts spawned by one trip! But let's get back to the heart of the trip and my time trackside during those Three Days in Portage. Trains are shown by time, direction, railway, locomotive numbers and remarks.

September 18, 1985

I was allowed to use my aunt and uncle's car and spent the cloudy morning at the tracks from 0930-1200. Then we were off to the Portage Co-op restaurant for my signature club sandwich before returning to the stations for an hour after lunch. 

0930 W CP 5923-5742 45 cars of ballast and Jordan spreader CP 402892 to Minnedosa Sub 434526 (top photo, linked post above). Then I headed to East Tower - a lot faster driving Trenton Avenue than it had been on foot in previous years!

1045 W CN 1067-1012 with 15 grain cars likely lifted from the elevators east of Portage (more on CN 1012-1067 in this post on GMD-1's).

1035 E CP 5591-5787-6003-8813 434581. A westbound freight is departing at left:

The eastbound approaches the yard lead switch, the trainman lines the high-target switch for the units and cars to head into the yard as a Canadian Forces Kiowa flies overhead from nearby CFB Portage/Southport.

The power backs down the north side of the train into the yard.

After picking up 3 MPA and one CP boxcar and a tank car, the units return to the head end, with the train broken at the Stephens Avenue crossing:

The trainman makes the joint and connects the air hoses.

1103 E CN 5216-5091 with caboose 79222 past East Tower:

Before lunch, 1012-1067 return from the Oakland line. 

The units pull the boxcars into the yard, then attached the covered hoppers brought into Portage before heading east:

1330 W CP 5996-8701 30 ballast, 90 grain empties to Carberry Sub at West Tower with van 434448:

My aunt and uncle and I spent the rest of the day in Winnipeg, enjoying a hotel restaurant supper and getting home by 2200.

September 19, 1985

A rainy day; I photographed elevators on CP east of Portage. We enjoyed lunch at the May May Restaurant, and I headed back to the tracks in the rain until supper time.

0900 W CP 5923-5742 ballast cars 434526 (unphotographed)

1111 E CN 9585-9625-9528 hotshot with caboose 79328, east of Portage:

More on intermodal traffic in this post.

1448 W CN 4243-4324 grain empties with caboose 79414 crossing Eighth St. N.W. to the Gladstone Sub:

1615 W CP 5852-8657 (second photo below).
1628 E CP 5928-5904 100 grain loads and van 434341:

CP 5852-8657 in the yard visible just above my aunt and uncle's car, seen in line with the semaphore mast.

After setting out a car of rail in the yard, 5852-8657 pause beside the ballast train at left. It has backed into Portage yard. The westbound added the ballast train's power, 5923 and 5742, to their power consist before continuing westward. 

1635 W CN 5293-5067 lumber empties and caboose 79751:

In the evening, we watched the [now] Patrick Swayze 1984 cult-classic Red Dawn on VCR.

In Part 2, it's time to profile another prolific Portage day trackside.

Running extra...

Wolverines! Charlie Sheen played Patrick Swayze's younger brother though his name is strangely absent from the film's credits?! Anyway, nothing livens up a high school history class like Russians landing just outside the window and watching your teacher go out to inquire of the heavily-armed and Spetsnazzy-camouflage jumpsuited Russian paratroops, "What's going on here, my friend?", before he himself becomes history. Forty years later, 'Colorado school shooting' has another grisly meaning, but in 1984 it was all fur caps 'n' Golden Arches! "Would you like fries with that....comrade?"

TV celebrity buys house to get model railway in basement! The original news story courtesy of The Montgomery News, the very professional Pacific Southern webpage including the layout's history and coming soon to the house the celebrity's wife's candle business, sounding suspiciously like a locomotive number: No. 95 Candles. An amazing story all around!

It's weird when your trip to RONA includes a NOVA. As in this Novabus charging itself at Gardiners Road Canadian Tire store (above). Toronto Transit Commission 6600-6735 are Nova Bus LFSe+ buses built in 2024. They are the first battery-electric buses ordered from Nova Bus by the TTC.

First past the post...

Thanks to Associated Railroaders of Kingston executive members Andrew Chisholm, Dave Cook and Michael Pasch who served up Pizza Pizza pizza and light refreshments at last night's May ARK meeting. ARK member Kurt Vollenwyder gave us a glimpse into mountain railroading in Switzerland with the remarkable Gotthard Tunnels. Imagine 260 freight trains daily through a mountain!