Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Autumn in Belleville, November 2015

Back on September 19, I'd visited Shannonville and Belleville on CN's busy Kingston Sub. Back there again on Saturday, November 28 At 1145, snow-blasted CN 2920 leads CN train No 305 with mid-train DPU 3016. As I arrived at the east end of Belleville yard, this eastbound intermodal is reflected in the shiny hood of my Dodge Grand Caravan, at 0955 at a private crossing:
The tail-end of the intermodal trailingly transits a tangent track. Beyond the signal gantry, the CP bridge over CN near Shannonville Road looms on the horizon:
On the north side of Belleville yard, just east of and across from the station, here's a view of stored tank cars, covered hoppers and well cars beyond the well-lit ladder track: 
VIA No 61 Eng 6401 with four following cars Facebook friend and fellow bus-fan Richard Sun aboard arrives at Belleville, beyond a tangle of loose rails and a brightly-painted hydrant:
Station stop:
After the station stop, VIA No 61 accelerates as it crosses the Moira River bridge:
CN C40-8W's 2015 (formerly C&NW 8516 and UP 9038) and 2109 (formerly UP 9073 and C&NW 8562) idly idle at the yard office. Later in the afternoon, they'd power CN No 517 to Toronto.

Second-hand, ex-US RR power, back-to-back! Idling video link. 
Parked along Airport Parkway, I had a bead on CN No 376 arriving for a crew change at Atkins Road/Elmwood Drive at 1045. Power is CN 2840-3032 with about 160 cars and DPU 2812:
Modern CN road power. Try to find a CN Kingston Sub train with more than two head-end units!
Pup-tent assembly on the roof of 3032!
Crew change is underway:
DPU helps lift the train east towards Kingston after the slack was bunched:
Another eastbound - VIA No 62/52 at 1103: 6443-3469Ren-3313-3301-3364-4105-915-4006-4100-4101-4110-4102:
Shortly thereafter - this ain't no road freight! CN No 518 creakily arrives with 4130-4135, 11 covered hoppers, and 11 tank cars from Bath Lafarge and Millhaven Coco respectively:
Here's a video of the arrival of 518.
Heading slowly into the yard. Very slowly.
Another view of 305 (also top photo) that I met upon departure eastward for Shannonville*, Napanee and Kingston. *90 cents-per-litre gas awaits! 

Running extra...

The City of Kingston will finally complete the southernmost, as-yet uncompleted (yellow on the map below) segment of the K&P Trail, which is the former right-of-way of the Kingston & Pembroke (actually only went as far as Renfrew) and later CP Rail:

2 comments:

Canadian Train Geek said...

Nice views of CN and VIA action! They build their trains differently in the corridor, I guess... it's not uncommon to have more than 2 head end units on CN here. I like the VIA J-train. I have yet to see one.

Eric said...

I would prefer more than 2 'bigs' per train, Steve. But I guess the days of assorted GP40s, GP9s, C424s and yard switchers are gone. Time to go and wallow in some nostalgia I guess!
Thanks for your comment,
Eric