Comments on: I went out to Thunder Bay to see a couple of things I never get to see in Southern Ontario – grain trains and coal trains. I got treated to this Union Pacific coal train for three days while it was being unloaded at Thunder Bay Terminals Ltd. TBTL is owned by Russel Metals, and it would seem that it handles quite a bit of coal and potash, which comes in from the west and is loaded on ship.

By: jknott86

jknott86 — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 23:28:39 +0000

very informative! Thank you. I really appreciate it. I was quite curious as to its origins and other such matters.

By: David Young

David Young — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 23:25:46 +0000

This would have been a CN coke train that appears to have already been unloaded by TBTL staff.

A couple notes:

The train originates at Roseport, Minnesota at KCBX terminals and can have any assortment of power on it. The inbound loads are designated as a “U701″ and the westbound empties are “U703″. Kind of interesting numbers since eastbound/southbound trains usually run even numbers. However due to the northbound and westbound originating routes the respective trains get the odd number train designation.

We can see some POTX potash cars behind which would have been brought in by CP. When CN brings a potash train into town they are unloaded at the end of their Mission Spur, at “Valley Camp”.

By: Driver8666

Driver8666 — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 17:16:50 +0000

We being CP.

By: jknott86

jknott86 — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 15:27:41 +0000

Not sure what you mean. Who is “we” in this context? This train was actually a three UP consist, with 7418 and 4279 trailing 3056. I imagine this train came in from the States given its power and the fact that it had all leasing hoppers (whereas a CP coal train from out west the following day had all CP hoppers). I was told by a CP crew member later on that CP ‘delivers’ the trains to TBTL, who then has their own engineer to run the train during unloading.

By: Driver8666

Driver8666 — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 14:54:52 +0000

Are we testing out that SD70ACe-T4?