2274 results for 2006-01; refer to date index:

January 6th, 2006

Happy new year to all! I ended 2005 by shooting London Pickup, and, unintentionally, started 2006 by shooting none other than London Pickup on the first nice day of the year. I heard some traffic going by on the Galt and Jay reported 9116 was the last unit on 424. We shot London pickup, CP #424 with the SD90, CP #153, CP #525 ham turn, and London pickup going the other way for good measure.

January 7th, 2006

Laura and I drove down to St. Catherines to meet up with Brian and explore the CSX and NS mains South/West of Buffalo. We caught 23 trains of various descriptions and went home happy as clams with 511 pictures and 21 videos.

January 8th, 2006

We went to the yard at Alma street to shot GEXR #431 coming back from Mac yard for the sake of it. We also found three tracks full of grain cars there, which is unusual.

January 12th, 2006

I shot GEXR #432 at Jones Baseline outside Guelph on highway 7 to the East, then OSR at PDI, and then went to the Junction to see what was brewing there.

January 13th, 2006

This Friday the 13th saw an unpatched SP unit on CN #148. We went to catch that and also caught CN #398, #392, #435, #422, CP #525 and #424 with 8 units. My camera decided the battery was dead as CN #435 approached, though it wasn't interesting power anyway.

January 14th, 2005

Laura and I got up at some ungodly hour to head to Paris for what promised to be a BNSF-filled day on the Dundas sub. We got to Paris and found the South Service Track plugged up making shooting there impossible, so we spent the day at Brantford station instead. There we caught CN #392, #587, #399, VIA #70, NS #327, #328, VIA #71, CN #278, CN #271, CN #331, CN #148, CN #385, VIA #72, CN #330, VIA #73, and CN #394, which we chased to Hamilton West as it had a BNSF GP30 leading, and then shot CP #424 at Killean on the way home. CN #399 had CN 8018 leading, which I believe is the first time a CN SD70M-2 has led on the Dundas sub, and most of the rest of the trains today were well worth the trip.

January 15th, 2006

Steve called, suggesting we go to Goderich to see GEXR #581 working around the salt mine. We headed up to Stratford, and found them getting ready to leave. They called themselves GEXR #431 for some reason, but no matter. We chased it as far as Seaforth before it got too dark to continue. Chasing on the GEXR Goderich sub is relatively easy as the train only goes between 5 and 15 miles per hour for the most part.

January 16th, 2006

I hadn't flown in a month with the weather and my travels, and needing to keep my skills up, Laura and I went to Agincourt yard with my instructor for an evening scenic flight. Laura and I shared the SLR and Rob and I shared the controls. Laura also took some shots on the older point and shoot Powershot S70. The photos at the end (numbers 5832-5858) are out of sequence, taken on the old camera by Laura.

January 21st, 2006

We heard CN 8014 leading GEXR #432 approaching Kitchener and were... rather surprised. The alarm was sounded and every railfan in the area descended on the Guelph sub to shoot it. After, we got word of CP 8745 leading 7 units on CP #424 and booted it down to the Galt sub to catch that. Not bad for a day that I wasn't railfanning...

January 22nd, 2006

I wanted to see CN's new GEVOs, numbered in the 2200 series and likely to be forever lost to our various coasts for DPU service. We spent the day at Hamilton West catching 3 BNSF leaders and a CP GEVO leading a CEFX SD90/43MAC on the way home, but never did catch the CN GEVO we knew was supposed to come at some point. At one point during the morning, it had been so long since we had heard or seen any trains that we decided it was time to move West to Paris. As soon as we were committed to highway 403, 394 with its BNSF leader showed up on the scanner and we had to go all the way up to the top of the hill, turn around, and come back down, only managing to catch it at Burlington West.

January 30th, 2006

We went to the railway museum in downtown Nairobi to see what was there. Among other things was a motorised bicycle on railway wheels, a set of 4-8-2+2-8-4 steam locos and a variety of other interesting equipment. We then checked out the adjacent yard from a busy pedestrian overpass and saw 2 yard switchers working too far away to shoot.