6104 results for 2003; refer to date index:

February 1st, 2003

This day was my first time ever railfanning with a camera. I had gone to Guelph Junction with two new friends to work on cleaning up the Guelph Historical Railway Association's baggage car. We got kind of caught up watching trains and didn't get to the baggage car until everyone else had already finished, and we ended up going to Milton as well.

February 10th, 2003

A week after my first railfanning venture, I took a trip back to Guelph Junction to see what else there was to see. On this occasion I watched a CP intermodal train doubling the hill from Milton with a single SD90MAC in a bit of a snow storm.

February 13th, 2003

As close as it gets to streetrunning in Guelph, I waited for trains on Kent street downtown.

February 14th, 2003

A derailment on the CN Dundas sub near Woodstock sent CN trains up the GEXR Guelph sub, keeping us local railfans well occupied.

February 15th, 2003

A derailment on the CN Dundas sub near Woodstock sent much of CN's high priority traffic along the GEXR Guelph sub.

February 19th, 2003

Shortly after the derailment in Woodstock on the CN Dundas sub, something fell off another train on the same track, hitting the train behind it and causing further detours on the GEXR Guelph sub.

February 28th, 2003

This was another routine trip to the Junction.

March 1st, 2003

The GEXR was borrowing some CN power and we went to Kitchener-Waterloo to take a look, chasing it back to Guelph and almost catching it leaving the city, out near the airfield.

March 9th, 2003

Four of us went to the London/Komoka area to see where CP, CN, and GEXR meet.

March 22nd, 2003

This was another another short trip to the Junction.

March 24th, 2003

A regular trip to Guelph Junction caught a local CP train switching a work train.

March 26th, 2003

This was another routine trip to the Junction.

March 28th, 2003

Intended as a railfanning trip, no trains came through, so I ended up taking pictures of CN 6167, preserved at the downtown station, and of the surrounding town.

March 29th, 2003

This was a routine trip to the Bayview Junction area, though we were lucky and caught a foreign unit leading an Automax train up the CP Hamilton sub.

April 9th, 2003

I travelled to Guelph Junction to watch the GO trains return to their roosts there. 5 of them park there at night and on the weekends.

April 11th, 2003

I caught OSR's train in a couple of places around Guelph and then later at Guelph Junction.

April 13th, 2003

After stopping at hobby shop Hemlock Junction in Milton, we headed South along the Halton sub and found the rural community of Zimmerman, an excellent location for pictures. After waiting a while with no trains, we headed back and immediately heard a train coming up on the scanner. We stopped in Boyne to watch it. Later on, we went to Guelph Junction for a routine railfanning trip.

April 14th, 2003

CEFX 6537, a rented GP35 retrofitted into a GP38 sat in Guelph for a day without a rear truck. I came across it and came back later with a camera, sure not to miss it.

April 15th, 2003

CEFX 6937's rear truck was being reinstalled after the engine had sat in Guelph for a day without one.

April 19th, 2003

On a quiet line in Vermont, there are only two regularly scheduled trains - an Amtrak in the morning and an Amtrak in the afternoon.

April 26th, 2003

This was another routine trip to Guelph Junction.

April 27th, 2003

I went to a friend's house by the tracks to work on scanner antennas.

April 29th, 2003

My girlfriend took the train from Brattleboro to the Buffalo-Depew train station.

May 1st, 2003

In the afternoon, I was heading to a store in downtown Guelph and saw GEXR 431 travelling through as I approached the tracks. Later in the evening, I went to a friend's house who had just moved trackside and we watched trains 88 and 89, a Via and an Amtrak, go through the city around 10:30 pm.

May 2nd, 2003

My girlfriend and I were heading to Hemlock Junction, as it was having a retirement (closing) sale, and a quilt store for her. On the way, the expressway passed us on the CP Galt sub and on the way back, we caught a couple of trains climbing the hill up toward Guelph Junction.

May 5th, 2003

My girlfriend and I took a long distance trip to Newtonville, where the CP Belleville and the CN Kingston subs are more or less side by side for several kilometres. We stayed there much of the day and managed to catch both a GO unit in freight service and three CN business cars heading to Montreal.

May 6th, 2003

I headed down to Guelph Junction during the afternoon to get out of the house. In the evening, my girlfriend went to downtown Guelph to get some ice cream. Naturally I had to watch VIA 89 come through before going home.

May 10th, 2003

OSR was moving a large transformer on a heavy-duty flatbed from the ABB plant at the North end of Guelph across the street to the interchange track with GEXR.

May 18th, 2003

This was another of my railfanning trips of no particular consequence.

May 19th, 2003

This was a routine railfanning trip to the Bayview Junction/Aldershot area.

May 23rd, 2003

I went to the station to pick up my housemate, who was returning from a rail trip to Montreal.

May 29th, 2003

A junction of junctions, this trip took me to both Bayview and Guelph Junctions.

June 3rd, 2003

We went out staking out trackside positions for the passage of CP's 2816 steam engine the following week.

June 10th, 2003

CP 2816, Canadian Pacific's restored Hudson-class steam engine, travelled from Hamilton to London chased by hundreds of railfans.

June 14th, 2003

Canadian Pacific ran a steam train excursion from Toronto Union Station to Guelph Junction and back using CP 2816 and a GO consist. I was one of some 1500 passengers on the excursion, in the leading car, and I made some effort to railfanfan -- take pictures of other railfans.

June 20th, 2003

OSR moved a 40 wheel Schnabel car out of the ABB plant in Guelph to the GEXR interchange track.

June 27th, 2003

This was another routine trip to the Junction.

July 1st, 2003

Canada Day 2003, we went on a large circle route catching both CP and CN over the course of several hours.

July 5th, 2003

The 8th annual CNet meet.

July 11th, 2003

The Guelph Historical Railway Association's caboose was moved from its parking place in Guelph to Guelph Junction for an NMRA presentation of Guelph Junction and GHRA's possessions's on July 14th.

July 14th, 2003

The National Model Railroad Assocation took a tour of Guelph Junction. The Guelph Historical Railway Assocation and Ontario Southland Railways strutted their stuff, but CP was nowhere to be found...

July 17th, 2003

After suffering cabin fever, we went to to kill a few hours at Guelph Junction and saw two trains on the Hamilton sub and one on the Galt sub.

July 23rd, 2003

Laura had to go the license bureau on Woodlawn, so we stopped at CN Guelph Junction on the way back to catch GEXR 580 heading up the Fergus spur.

July 25th, 2003

I went to downtown Guelph to get some pictures of bridges to help a friend model similar bridges.

July 27th, 2003

Three of us headed out to the Halton sub just south of Milton on the CN Halton sub to see what we could see. We sure saw. The day started with a train with dragging equipment, and, in exchange for fetching coffee, we got a tour of an SD75i cab, and didn't get worse for the next 6 hours.

July 30th, 2003

Laura and I had to go to the license bureau again on Woodlawn. On the way home, we stopped to watch GEXR and OSR trade freight cars on Edinburgh.

August 3rd, 2003

This year's GuelphFest celebrated Guelph's 176th anniversary. I was there with the GHRA and our caboose and baggage car. Unfortunately we got rained out this year.

August 4th, 2003

Laura and I stayed in the GHRA caboose posting security while it was parked down town.

August 5th, 2003

Laura and I had posted security in the GHRA caboose through the night. In the morning we watched OSR move the van back to its home base at Crompton Uniroyal.

August 10th, 2003

We brought one of our housemates to the Hamilton airport and stopped for a few minutes of railfanning on the way back.

August 17th, 2003

Laura had a 10:17 am train from Aldershot, so we spent the day after that railfanning. It was made more interesting by a derailment near Ingersoll on the CN Dundas sub.

August 20th, 2003

I decided to spend a full work-day at Guelph Junction working on my laptop with GPRS and watching whatever came through.

August 22nd, 2003

I decided to spend a full work-day at Guelph Junction working on my laptop with GPRS and watching whatever came through.

August 24th, 2003

Babcock and Wilcox sent a 500 tonne generator up the GEXR Fergus sub. Steve found it wyeing at the seldom-used Fergus sub wye in Guelph on GEXR 432, en route to Toronto Mac Yard, and let me know. The two of us chased it, leap-frogging eachother along highway 7.

August 26th, 2003

Laura returned from Brattleboro and I went to get her at Aldershot station.

September 13th, 2003

Laura, Chris, and I went to the hobby shop at the North end of Guelph and picked up OSR working on the scanner. We went to watch them and then waited for GEXR 431 to return from Toronto before going home.

September 21st, 2003

We went to Guelph Junction at the end of the afternoon and tried to set up a lan networked by packet radio from the parking lot at the Junction. It didn't work, but it was fixed so it would the next time.

September 27th, 2003

Laura was learning to drive my car, so she drove us to Guelph Junction, we watched one train go by, and then she got us home.

September 28th, 2003

Steve, Laura, and I went on a planned trip to Komoka's Melrose Junction, where we watched trains all afternoon, and met the owner of the property in the junction who was very nice and friendly, and invited us to watch from his property. Chris joined us later and we moved on to Hyde Park.

October 3rd, 2003

We made an absolutely insane drive from Guelph to Montreal to Ottawa and back over two days. On our way through Toronto, a freight train passed over us and paced us through heavy traffic for a little under an hour. I took the opportunity to take a small number of pictures while Laura drove.

October 5th, 2003

St. Thomas Central Railway's Essex Terminal Number 9 0-6-0 switcher ran an excursion from Hespeler to Guelph and back three times. The first one I slept through, the second one I chased, and the third one I volunteered on.

October 6th, 2003

St. Thomas Central Railway's Essex Terminal Number 9 0-6-0 wrapped up three days in Guelph with a one-way excursion to Kitchener.

October 19th, 2003

Chris, Steve, and I went on a general railfanning tour for a couple of hours in the afternoon.

October 21st, 2003

Steve called. GEXR 431 was approaching Guelph and a track-side inspection by a foreman revealed there was a dimensional load on board. Scramble! We met up at CN Guelph Junction.

October 22nd, 2003

GEXR 580 went on the ground at the London/Edinburgh grade crossing on the ex-Fergus sub.

October 23rd, 2003

On October 21st, a dimensional load came to town. On October 22nd, it derailed. On the 23rd, Pacific Northern Rail showed up to fix the tracks.

October 24th, 2003

Laura went to a horse back riding lesson in Moffat, so I headed South and spent an hour at Guelph Junction, leaving just before CP 9144 came through. Grumble.

November 1st, 2003

A derailment in Aldershot yard sent at least one detour passenger train up the Guelph sub, along with a parade of Eastbound special moves. The first was a GMD move of UK-bound 6-axle units followed shortly by a Babcock and Wilcox generator move. The derailment consisted of a few passenger cars being shipped and several other cars in various states and interesting angles.

November 12th, 2003

Certified as unsafe to drive and too expensive to fix, my car - my most important railfanning tool, beating the scanner, the camera, and the trackside guide - is sold for parts.

November 17th, 2003

Unscheduled Via train number 689 came through Guelph on its way to pick up a passenger car at Kitchener station.

November 29th, 2003

Steve, Chris, and I went up to Ingersoll to meet up with Walter and learn our way around the not exactly quiet area of Ingersoll and surrounding area.

December 7th, 2003

Chris suggested we railfan. So we did, though both CP and CN proved quiet.

December 13th, 2003

Steve and I spent a few minutes track-side on the Galt sub and then went up to visit the Toyota plant at Cambridge.

December 20th, 2003

Steve had to head up to Sarnia and I got to tag along. We took 11 hours to get back because there were train tracks on the way...

December 23rd, 2003

A day of railfanning, hell or high water. That was the plan - and high water we got! It poured all day but we started at about 07:30 and went through until about 19:30 - 12 straight hours of railfanning in, mostly, Ingersoll.