Sunday, March 26, 2006

Saint John sightings 2006/03/25

I returned to Saint John on Saturday with my daughter to do some shopping, and of course to do some railfanning.

When I arrived at about 12:15, I quickly found out that the yard switcher pair CN 7000/7010 had split a switch and the front truck of 7010 was off the track.

Several people examine the front truck.

I ventured down the yard to find CN 7015 bringing six trailers-on-flat-cars (TOFC) to the piggyback ramp (NBSR 687331, 687370, 687317, 687315, 687430). The very friendly brakeman was the one who told me about 7010's misadventure. The trailers were apparently empties, and soon afterward I saw a tractor pulling them off to replace them with trailers full of fish from Connors Brothers.


Lauren and I went into Tim Horton's to have lunch, and the crew of 7015 came in for coffee shortly afterward.

Soon afterward 7015 ran light to Tim Horton's. What's more Canadian than CN and Tim Horton's?


I returned to the main Island Yard to find CN 7000 and 7010 bringing a local to the Irving Refinery and Irving Paper at 13:12. I guess 7010's problem wasn't very serious!

7000 and 7010 pushed 13 tank cars and 7 boxcars.

At the east end of the yard, I found the NB Southern transfer freight waiting to get into the yard at 14:00. They had a mixed bag of NBSR 3702 (SW1200RS), NBSR 3701 (GP9), and NBSR 2317 (GP38-3) for power.



The friendly crew invited us into the cab of 3702 and we chatted for a while.


We took a break from railfanning after that and did some shopping, then went out to Rothesay to visit the model train store. On our return, we found CN 305 was getting ready to go. I chatted with the carman and we went up to the head end of 305 to give them a roll-by. They left at 16:30 with 81 cars, a mixed bag of boxcars, tank cars, and about 20 doublestacks. Apparently they were delayed by three bad-order boxcars and of course 7010's problem. CN 2430 led 2666 and 5702.


We headed home after that. It was a great day!

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