The world of trains according to cdlu
Welcome to railfan.ca!
June 23, 2010: Please note that this site will be in a skeletal/non-functional state for a few weeks. The content is not missing and will be restored as soon as possible, but it may take until the middle of July. Thanks for your understanding.
This site archives every photo and video I have taken of trains and related railroad paraphernalia since I was introduced to the hobby on the fundamental philosophy that I do not have the right to choose what you consider to be a good shot of a train; what one person considers a bad or useless picture may be exactly what someone else is looking for. Please enjoy your stay and please refrain from mirroring or mass-saving the content of this web site. I hope you enjoy browsing these photos and videos as much as I enjoyed taking them.
This site has been redesigned and semi-integrated with my blog. Some features are still to come and some bugs are still being worked out. I appreciate any and all feedback.
This site currently archives 74149 pictures, 2005 videos, and totals 266 gigabytes.
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June 3rd, 2010
I stopped at Guelph Junction for a few minutes, missing 243 and catching 421 with 3 SD40-2s.
May 29th, 2010
The evening of the 28th, Mischa and I went to Guelph station to watch GEXR 432. Months after the arrival of GSCX 7362 and 7369 from the NECR, I still had not seen them running. True to form, the unusual happened right in front of me. We decided to watch the train from the east edge of the Walker Building parking lot at the west end of the Guelph viaduct. Right in front of us, about 6000 feet back, we heard a pop and saw the hosebag separate between two cars. Moments later, 432 was stopped in emergency and, being the good foaming samaratins we are, we took off to try and find the head end to alert them to the reason for their emergency brake application. After rendering the crew assistance in moving around the two kilometre long train to repair it, 432 set off for Toronto with 3 cars jettisoned in the out-of-service Guelph siding. The next day, I shot a very short X432 lifting the cars which were repaired over night after stopping at the farmers' market for my week's vegetables.
April 18th, 2010
CN #525 passed through Georgetown station with mostly new boxcars from NSC as I waited to pick a friend up on the GO bus.
April 1st, 2010
Travelling to visit family for the long weekend, we stopped at Belleville to shoot CN #369, and took a few minutes at Dorion to see the AMT commuter train rush.
February 20th, 2010
Mischa and I went down to Hamilton for the morning. We didn't find anything in Hamilton, owing largely to a pub that took nearly an hour to bring burgers to the table, but did get two at Guelph Junction.
January 30th, 2010
Steve needed to go down to Hamilton to pick something up, so he picked me up and we hit the Steel City's industrial tracks. We shot 3 QNSL SD40s parked in the harbour area, CP 426, CN probably 421, and SOR working at Stelco with three geeps. Not bad for an unplanned outing!
December 30th, 2009
I went to Terrebonne to meet local railfans Sam and J-F. They took me on an excellent adventure along the CN Lac-St-Jean subdivision to chase CN 369 with DPU south back to Shawinigan and catch VIA 601 with ex-GO units. We caught both of those and CN L522 in Shawinigan, finding out only after returning to Terrebonne about a wind turbine train on the QGRY that we silently passed in Trois-Rivières. Excellent, if extremely cold, day over all. The time between shots and videos was mostly taken up warming the camera batteries so they would have enough strength for the next set of shots, not always succeeding as the video camera frequently gave up from the cold -18C + windchill chase.
November 29th, 2009
Got a scramble wakeup call at dawn that a Canadian Forces extra was westbound by West Toronto. Went to Puslinch for it, but was fogged in, so shot it (no video) at Galt bridge.
November 26th, 2009
Trevor had American Thanksgiving off and so picked me up first thing in the morning to head up to Goderich and see what was happening. We left the house a little after 9, catching Via 84 at P&H in Breslau. P&H's sign is gone and there's a rezoning application at the facility, but the backtrack is still full of grain hoppers. After that, we hopped over to the bridge coming into Kitchener and saw GEXR 580, found nothing at the station in Kitchener, and went on to Stratford where we found 433 with 4001-6061 preparing to head east. We went back to Shakespeare to shoot 433 on the bridge over Highway 7, got out of the car, and heard a loud hissing noise. We abandoned the chase and returned to Stratford to rectify the rapidly flattening tire and have lunch. It worked out well, as when the car was ready and we had eaten, 433 returned from Kitchener. We shot it working and then shot 85 at the station, then pushed on to Goderich, where we happened upon the two CN units GEXR is using moments before they headed into the salt mine. Don't know the last time CN power worked that mine...
November 16th, 2009
I was downtown at the right place at the right time for OSR heading southbound with three rockets by the River Run Centre, and then caught GEXR 431 with 2 CN units at last light at the station before going home for the day.
November 8th, 2009
I went flying over lunch hour and saw the Guelph Junction Express, then later went back out for GEXR X431 with the recently arrived FEC unit at the Alma St crossing.
October 8th, 2009
With a few hours to kill on a rare beautiful but cool day, I went to mile 30 and Guelph Junction to meet Mischa and see what would come. CN #392 was first up with a BCOL C40-8M, then saw CP #525, #426, #242, and #421.
September 3rd, 2009
I received a scramble for an EMD extra coming into Guelph with assorted export units and got it just after sunset at Guelph station along with Steve, Chris, Bill, and Trevor. The train had: HLCX 6091-HLCX 6522-EMDX 11002-Veolia Transport (France) 077501-077502-077503-Egyptian Railways 2157-AAST2-2161-2159-2154-2150-2151-2155-2152-2158-2160-2162-2156-2149-2153-2163-EMDX 11001.
August 1st, 2009
I went up to Sarnia for Mischa's wedding, stopping for 394 just short of the city, missing 383 and 397 and getting 385 and 301 at the Via station, all back/cloudlit.
July 26th, 2009
A 'blue banana', a Babcock and Wilcox 505-ton steam generator component, the first in about 5 years, spent 9 days sitting in the yard at Guelph. I received a report shortly after waking up in Parry Sound that it had left Guelph at 08:40. With the help of MDC, I was able to intercept it at Bramalea GO station with about one minute to spare. It spent the rest of the day winding its way down to Toronto harbour. While I had originally planned to chase it, the extremely bad weather dissuaded me.
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