2617 results for 2005-12; refer to date index:

December 1st, 2005

I went to see what was on CP #424 at Guelph Junction, then caught #394 with BNSF leaders and some other less interesting trains at Scotch Block in the afternoon.

December 2nd, 2005

CN had a curious development over night. Two NS run-through trains, both designated CN #784, were seen on the Dundas sub. The first one went down the Hagersville sub to Nanticoke late the night of December 1st. The second parked at about 10:30 am at Paris Junction and was still there as of this writing. I went to Paris to see it, and also saw CN #271, #148, #330, VIA #72 and #73, and CN #435. VIA #85 had 916 tonight, and I caught it at 23:45, completing my VIA P42dc roster!

December 3rd, 2005

Jay saw CP #424 go by Woodstock with an SD90/43MAC on it, so I took the opportunity to go down to Galt station and experiment with the various manual modes on my new camera.

December 4th, 2005

CN #784 was seen still sitting at Paris last night, so I went there to see if I could possibly get shots of it meeting the morning NS trains. When I got there, I found it was gone, but it had been replaced by a CN #785 on the other side of Paris Junction pointed westward. That train left a couple of hours later and, together with more foreign power (the norm now on CN around here) and a dimensional on CN #331 made for a good, if quiet, day. Oh, and I saw the CP Holiday Train!

December 5th, 2005

I couldn't resist another shot at the CP Holiday Train. I shot it at 48.04 Galt sub going about 50 miles per hour.

December 8th, 2005

CN #394 had a BNSF GEVO leading, CP #159 had CP 5911 leading, CN #271 had an ex-SP tunnel motor trailing, and OSR had ex-BCR 646 leading on the GJR. I could only see one of them and had to choose. CN #394 won.

December 9th, 2005

I heard CN #411 with BNSF 9808 (Executive scheme) leading coming up to the Humber and took advantage of the opportunity, catching it at the siding at Speyside in failing light.

December 10th, 2005

Laura and I got up rather early to go see the morning 'rush' on the CP Mactier sub outside Vaughan Intermodal Terminal, encouraged along by a mailing list message suggesting CP #106 would have an ES44AC GEVO leading. We also knew CP #230 had CP 5863, the last large multimark I needed from CP's active fleet. As we were getting ready to go, we heard CP #230 get its clearance to Hamilton and so we went to Guelph Junction to see it before it left. We saw it there but it was still too dark to shoot it, so we went to Hamilton West and waited for it there, where we saw NS #327 and CN #392. We then worked our way toward Vaughan, catching CN #399 and #385 around Milton. We finally got to VIT but never did see CP #106 -- it was still not in the area by the time we left. We did, however, see CP #103 and #105 both with SD90s and the former with a different ES44AC GEVO leading than we headed out expecting. To finish it off, we shot OBRY doing excursions at Inglewood on the way home.

December 15th, 2005

NS #328 was reported to have 2 NS GEVOs still in primer as only power. This I could not pass up. I got my 18th and 19th GEVOs at Paris Junction on this snowy morning. In the afternoon we shot GEXR #432 at Rockwood in a pretty good snow storm.

December 17th, 2005

On our way to visit my family, we stopped at Coteau for a few hours, venturing twice up to De Beaujeu's diamond for CP trains. We saw an eastbound with CN 2205, CN #327 with 2 CSX units, #149 with a BNSF, a westbound with ONT 2105, CP #107 with a DPU, and CN #538 switching with the slug leading. After that, we went for lunch and subsequently saw the CN TankTrain heading West and a Loram rail grinder heading East through Montreal, but got no pictures of either.

December 20th, 2005

On our way South, we stopped to shoot QGRY's Job 27 on the Lachute sub. We caught it with 2 units and 5 cars.

December 21st, 2005

We got up in Bangor a little later than we'd have liked and headed up to Brownville Junction to see what we could find. We just missed MMA 8569, a freshly painted MMA unit, heading into the shops at Derby, but caught 2 MMA F40s and a variety of other interesting trains including NBSR over the course of the day in the area. We also met two area railfans who guided us through the day, and without whom we would not have caught much of what we saw, so thanks Kevin and Matt!

December 22nd, 2005

We slept in Lewiston, Maine with the intention of catching St. Lawrence and Atlantic's only daytime train we could be sure existed the next morning. We caught it and an MEC train at Danville Junction, and pondered how to shoot at the Lewiston Junction locomotive facility. Once we caught the SLR train we headed to eastern New Hampshire to see if we could catch the New Hampshire North Coast's gravel train, which we did - at Sanbornville.

December 23rd, 2005

We spent the night with a friend in rural New Hampshire and got going late in the morning, working our way West toward Vermont. On the way, we stumbled upon a tourist railway, though not operating at the moment, in Meredith. We proceeded on to White River Junction and headed South along the NECR Palmer sub, stopping to check on the Concord and Claremont, to Bellows Falls where we watched an HLCX-painted Vermont Rail locomotive switch a handful of cars from VTR trackage onto NECR trackage.

December 26th, 2005

In spite of being a lousy day out, I wanted to get out of the house. At 05:15 I heard the detector at mile 116 go off and just had to investigate. I watched 2 units run light through town and then went back to bed. NECR #324, normally through Brattleboro in the middle of the night, passed through at around 11:30, Amtrak #56 at 12:30 and Guilford's EDWJ (East Deerfield-White River Junction) went through at about 15:30.

December 27th, 2005

Someone on the NECR list indicated that the Vermonter would have a cab car instead of a second unit, so I made an extra effort to make sure I caught it, after having missed the morning freight thanks to family obligations.

December 28th, 2005

I went after NECR's Southbound, hoping to shoot it at the bridge in Miller's Falls I accomplished this, but somehow accidentally put my camera into Manual mode instead of Aperture Priority, and didn't notice... causing a number of washed out pictures (originals here). I ran them through a histogram equalisation and they look less (or at least differently) awful, and will figure out what to do with them and the originals when I get home. I then went to Greenfield, hoping to catch EDWJ, which ran unusually early, and rushed back to Brattleboro to catch it there (where it ended up sitting for 2 hours waiting for permission to proceed. I guess it doesn't pay to be early!)

December 29th, 2005

Leaving Brattleboro for home in a nasty rain storm, we caught one last NECR train heading through town with 4 NECR units.

December 30th, 2005

We slept in Schenectady, New York on our way home, hoping to wake up to find some Deleware and Hudson (CP) trains in the area. We did find one, parked inaccessibly in the distance. We found the overpass of the CSX and the D&H trackage at South Schenectady, shooting one manifest freight at a nearby grade crossing on the CSX. We then proceeded along our main goal of getting home, stopping at Utica to see (kind of) the NYSW and at Geneva to see the Finger Lakes Railway before stopping at Lyons to see some CSX trains before hitting the road as bad weather rolled in. On our way to Geneva, we passed a Finger Lakes train going the other way through Woodstock, New York, and pursued it West to nearby Seneca Falls. Its EOT sounds different from most and broadcasts on 160.205, so we didn't recognise it until we saw the train pass. CSX, for its part, mostly gave us intermodal trains with big GEs for power, reminding me somewhat eerily of CP! This concluded are 2 week travelling adventure ostensibly to see family for the holidays.

December 31st, 2005

Acting on a tip from further up the line, we mobilised for an interesting leader on London Pickup, making for a very nice conclusion to 2005...