|
|
|
Welcome Visitor. First time here? Like what you see? Bookmark us for when you are bored, and check out 'top shots' and 'fantastic (editors choice)' in the menu above, you won't be dissapointed. Join our community! click here to sign up for an account today. Sick of this message? Get rid of it by logging-in here.
Full trains on the Foothills. When I was working there both Foothills and Mountain Park trains were broken in half at Bickerdike. Are they running full trains to Cadomin?.
It was a bit of a different case on this day. C766 came into Holloway with 224 empties (they picked up a stored 112 car set at Jasper on the way). Today they split the inbound train in half and went to the mine at Coal Valley with 112 empties. Nowadays on the mainline, CN is running their coal trains at 150 cars (+/- a car or two). The usual plan for Coal Valley bound trains is to split in half at Holloway and head to Coal Valley with ~75 cars load them and then return to Holloway and yard the train. Then another crew will come and load the remaining 75 cars and then double the train back together at Holloway and a Jasper crew will take over and bring the train west on the Edson Sub. Due to the steeper grades on the Mountain Park Sub and Luscar industrial spur, Leyland bound trains depart Holloway at ~100 empties. Once at Cadomin they leave half of their train (~50 cars) in the yard and head to the mine to load. Once loaded, the train heads back east to the siding at Embarras where they are generally re-crewed. They’ll leave the first cut of the train there and then head back to Cadomin to get the 50 cars left behind earlier. Those are then loaded and then brought back to Embarras where the train is doubled back together (now at ~100 cars) and brought to Holloway. Next, a 3rd crew comes and brings the remaining 50 cars to the mine loads them, brings them back to Holloway and doubles them over onto the 100 loads already there and a Jasper crew takes over for the trip on the Edson Sub… get all that?!
In 1982 (I think that’s when it was), it was 104 car trains split in two at Holloway (thanks for the name), and 3 SD40′s would take them to Cadomin, load them and come back down the hill; often taking rest at Leyland. They usually brought 5 SD’s from Jasper and left 2 with the train. A crew would bring one light from Edson, tie on and meet the loads on the way back. Foothills trains came to Holloway with 4 units and spilt 2 units, 52 cars. How the world has changed, although I still think coming down that hill from Cadomin is a nerve-wrecker
.
Those would’ve been the days! I’ve seen some shots of solid sets of GCFX (Alsthom) units on the branch – sure beats the hell outta solid GEVOs!