Happy New Year, everyone! I’m glad to be bringing you the first post of what should be an eventful 2012. New stuff on the way, but a brief trip back into 2011 as I was fortunate enough to spend the Christmas extra long weekend with my wife, my parents, my sister, her husband and three month old baby in the old city of Quebec. While our flight from Toronto to Quebec was delayed several hours on the 23rd, the rest of the trip was a complete success. I spent the majority of the time with my wife and family, but on the 26th I had a chance to wander around and try and find some trains and such. I started off along the bank of the river, where I saw a long ship being tugged out. Here it is after the tug had released it.
Near this spot I also shot a memorial to those from Quebec who served in the navy and the merchant marines during World War Two.
Quebec is the home to the deepest natural harbor in the world, so it is a logical destination for ships and rail cargo to meet. In this case, there are huge grain elevators in the port and many grain cars to go with it. Here’s the widest shot I was able to get:
It’s quite something to see up close. During the summer, they project images onto the side depicting the history of Quebec from it’s founding in 1608. Also at the dock was something that may be familiar to some rail fans: the Algoma Central Corporation, still kind of alive in boat form.
Moving along the road, I crossed a narrow bridge and got right up close to the grain elevators. As far as I can tell I was in a public space, as there was through traffic from both cars and a few scattered pedestrians. I avoided getting too close to the cars, as I saw them moving the day before and couldn’t see if there were any engines around that might start them moving around. Here’s an old favourite to some, the Illinois Central:
Moving further along, I found another from that old road:
and the Alberta car a few down from it:
A fence started up a little further down, blocking my wider view. I walked across the street and into the snow, standing at the edge of the fence to get a few shots of the Canadian government cars in the clear sun of the mid-afternoon.
I got to a level crossing and shot a wider angle of the elevators and the cars, sitting silently in the cold.
When I went further along the road, I saw what I expected to see: a small engine with her back to me.
An extended zoom and a crop later, it turned out to be Quebec Gatineau 1505, an SW1500. Here’s a video of 1505 moving some cars around and a side shot, which I couldn’t get due to the position of the engine in the yard. Around 4:43 in the video the person is driving the opposite direction that I was walking to this point, so you can see how the road it directly beside the tracks with no barriers. Anyway, I continued on and spotted the CN signage for my present location (the photo for which is at the top of this post). From there, I spotted a small area where there was almost a lookout spot. It was uncleared, but I went up anyway and spotted a few CN engines sitting in a yard a fair distance away. With no obvious way to get onto the sidewalk from where I was, I wandered until I found a walk way that went under the boulevard and out the far side so I could continue to the north east. As I approached, I saw that there were at least two engines there, but probably more.
It turned out to be two sets of three engines. 5648, an SD75I, lead a set containing itself, 5600, an SD70I, and 2703, a former Illinois Central Dash-9. Illinois Central seemed to come up a lot on this trip! This set was powered up and manned. I knew this, since as I approached, it started to move towards me. It seemed like they were adjusting the set onto the correct tracks to do something. As it moved past me, I got shots of the non-lead units.
When they lined themselves up right, they sped off around the corner and out of sight. I crossed the tracks (at a pedestrian/bicycle crossing) and attempted to give chase, but they moved too fast for me to get anything. I concentrated then on the other three engines, which were much more intriguing simply because of their condition: awful. 4762 looks like it’s seen better days, as has 4706, both GP38-2s.
GP9u 7256 looked to be the best of the bunch, but according to what I could see online, she’s had her share of run-ins as well.
Group photo!
While I was doing this, I heard rumbling to my right and noticed that the other three were moving some grain cars out of another yard and heading out to the mainline. Difficult to tell from this angle, but there are heading to the north on what would be a wye.
I assumed that would be the end of that, so I checked the time and saw that I had enough time to get to the Gare du Palais and use the washroom, then get back to the bridge to catch the Quebec-bound VIA when it rolled in after 4pm. When I was finished there and walked back to the bridge, I was surprised to see that my friends hadn’t taken off for the rest of Canada as I assumed, but had pulled out onto the main and pushed backwards into the yard by the grain elevators. The dying sun of the afternoon was just high enough to catch the side of some of the cars and engines.
It was at this point I was close enough to really catch the front of 5648 and saw that an engineer had placed a small stuff animal on the nose. Adorable!
Well timed as well, since they pushed back into the yard a few minutes before the VIA arrived. Tracking in early according to the VIA website, I heard the whistle from a distance and saw the lights as it approached.
It was a rebuilt F40, 6436 leading a batch of LRC cars.
A freshly rebuilt LRC car was on the end, 3319. This is not the same car I shot in TMC a few weeks ago, which I think was 3317.
Satisfied I had caught everything I could, I went back to the Gare du Palais and got a few shots. Here’s the front of the train terminal.
And here’s the ceiling, which is quite beautiful.
With that, and having spent almost two and a half hours at it, I headed back to my hotel and my wife. It was a wonderful Christmas time and I’m glad I was able to spend it with my family in the beautiful old city of Quebec.
