Recent VIA's

Over the past few weeks I've been able to shoot a few VIA's mostly the eastbound Canadians. The first one is VIA 2 at the Kenaston overpass on Sunday July 31,

An interesting thing about this one is that it had a Coors light Silver bullet unit leading

The next VIA was Tuesdays eastbound Canadian this one was completely normal with no deadheads or wrapped units

The hard thing about shooting this train was that the sun was really bright.

The next VIA was "The Hudson Bay" at  16:06 on Aug 6 at the Kenaston overpass

This is the best shot I've ever gotten of this train

The next VIA was The eastbound Canadian on Sunday Aug 7 at 19:57

 The trailing unit was Loto Quebec

The next one is The Westbound Canadian on Saturday Aug 13 I hadn't seen The westbound for awhile so I really wanted to shoot it

The next day we went out to shoot VIA 693 leaving Winnipeg.

I kind of messed up on the shot because the engineer gave a horn blast which shocked me.

Then finally The Eastbound Canadian

Well that was nice to catch all those Via's

VIA rail "The Canadian on Saturday June 11

On Saturday June 11 we went out to shoot "The Canadian" a The Saint James Junction. we went to Union station to see if it was there and sure enough there it was heres a shot of it in the station.

After that we headed out to The Saint James Junction to shoot it.When we crossed Waverly street a westbound intermodal went by but I was too late to shoot it. Right after that another CN was starting up heres the shot,

When we got to the diamond I waited awhile for VIA to show up. While I was waiting a couple of other railfans also showed up. I talked to them while we waited for VIA. The at 12:30 VIA showed up. There was nothing special on the train just the plain "Canadian".

A late VIA 692 on Saturday May 28

We went out to The Kenaston overpass to shoot "The Hudson Bay" arriving in Winnipeg. I waited for a long time for it to show up about 45 minutes.Then finally at about 16:50 I saw the headlights to the West.

This is a shot of the train when it was a long distance away. Note the really dark storm clouds.

This is a shot of it a few meters from the bridge.

Todays "Hudson Bay" had no dome car,usually its on the fourth car.

When I checked my subscriptions on Youtube I noticed that Train Geek also filmed the same train West of me near Diamond heres his his video.

Its funny and interesting when I film the same train as him in a different location.

"The Canadian" on Victoria Day.

On holiday Monday we went out to shoot "The Canadian" at noon. I wanted to go to the overpass at Route 90 because I never filmed a VIA train there. At about 12:15 the train came into sight. The leading unit was  6458. There was twenty cars with an extra two deadhead sleeper cars.

The going away shot turned out good with the bridge,

I also noticed a lot of people aboard, this is probably because its a holiday. It's nice to see passenger trains on holidays.

VIA's "The Canadian" half an hour late on Saturday May 14

Sorry about the long wait, I have been busy for the past two weeks. Today (May 14) we went to shoot "The Canadian" at noon. We got to the Saint James Junction at about noon so I was worried we might miss it. I waited for awhile and at around 12:30 I saw the headlights at the Portage Junction 3 km away. As you may know "The Canadian" is returning to it's summer size. Here the 2 head end shots I got,

 The 2 units were both refurbished,never seen two at once. 18 cars were on this train.

Heres the going away shot

This was one of the best going away shots I have ever gotten of this train.

As you can hear in the video the engineer was ringing the bell for me. Well its nice to see VIA's "Canadian" in summer form.

VIA 2 and CN

On Tuesday April 16 we decided to go bike down to Taylor to catch "The Canadian".It came early at 19:44,so we missed it crossing The Diamond. But I noticed it was stopped short of Waverly street...why? The answer came when I saw CN MOW crews and a CN freight that was switching over from the north track to the south track.The engineers had turned off all the lights as you can see in these shots.

After that we packed up and headed to Waverly to get "The Canadian". While I was passing by it I noticed it had a refurbished unit and The wrapped Loto Quebec loco 6414. By the time I got to The crossing on Waverly the train was humming up and started to move so I had to set up quickly. The loco was a nice five eyed.
I think this shot of the head end turned out pretty good.

 It was nice to see the wrapped Loto Quebec loco since its one of the only wrapped units left.

Also there was alot of ties along the the tracks, The Herzog multi purpose machine has been busy distributing them. Heres a picture of them,

A quick shot of "The Hudson Bay"

On Saturday April 23 we went to Wilkes to get "The Hudson Bay".When we crossed Waverly street I saw headlights to the West. When we got to The Saint James junction it was already there practically .I got my camera out just in time but there was no time to for the tripod. Heres the video

Well it was nice to at least get it on camera.

Via,BNSF,and CN on Thursday

At around noon on Thursday I went to Waverly street to shoot "The Canadian" at 12:00,sure enough at about 10 minutes after 12 it showed up at the corner at The Portage Junction. And rolled by me at 12:12,right on time.

    

  

   Later on that day I found out TrainGeek (Steve Boyko) also shot "The Canadian" at The Saint James Junction which is about a kilometer from here.

    About 8 minutes after the via left BNSF came out of their yard with 14 tank cars and 2 Gondolas headed to Fort Rouge with the caboose in the lead.

  

    
   It's nice to see BNSF in action.
  
   At 12:30 2 CN's had a meet. First CN 2720 pulled a train with mixed freight and intermodals past me.
  

      

        Then after that CN 5684 pulled another train past me.

  

   After that BNSF 2756 returned to Their yard with 2756 leading and 9 cars.

    

                
Then after that I waited about another 20 minutes and nothing came so then I left. It was a really nice train day though.

Monday's "The Canadian"

We went to Wilkes ave at around noon to shoot Via rails The Canadian. On our way there we saw BNSF 2756  pushing a transfer to Fort Rouge. I waited at the diamond for about 10-20 minutes and then sure enough I saw the headlights come around the corner at The Portage Junction. Via 6452 was the lead loco of th ten cars train, The second unit had some kind of ad on it. Here are the shots i took.

  

  

  

  

 Then it disappeared as it went West to it's far destination, British Columbia.