Making the grade......subgrade that is!

Well with traffic increasing through the Port of Prince Rupert, CN is upgrading two sidings (Amesbury and Tyee) between Rupert and Terrace from 6000' to 12,000' bringing the total to three from just the one at Salvis. The first photo looks like a scene from the summer of 59 with the gravel highway paralleling the rail grade and that's what it is, CN is laying track over the old highway grade I use to travel on as a kid. The ribbon rail can be seen in the left hand side of the photo. The second image is of crews installing the control cables for the CTC system and the third is of the prefab switches waiting to be set in place.

CN distributed power on coal train

July 3rd started with a trip to Terrace for the day. Along the way I caught up to an empty coal train headed East around Kwinitsa (midway point between Rupert and Terrace) with BC Rail 4648 at the rear of the train pushing. I first saw this combination about 2 years ago. It seems CN is practicing this quite frequently on there longer trains coming into Rupert. A single locomotive on the front and another at the tail end.

Mile Post 58 "Skeena" on the Skeena Subdivision

Well it's been awhile since my last post so I thought I'd share some photos I captured at mile post 58 on the Skeena subdivision on Canada Day. The first 3 images are of the view looking West towards Rupert, South across the Skeena river and East in the direction of Terrace. The next 3 photos show an East bound empty coal train lead by Locomotive numbers 2231 and 5736.