A collection of recent weeks

A lot of my time is taken up working on some renovations so running and certainly hanging around crossings have been curtailed for the time being.  I have managed a few outings, mostly early on weekday mornings.

A couple of weekends ago I got a lucky break a caught an early arriving VIA Canadian train #2 trundling down the Bala on it's way into Union Station.  I've hung out at this trail crossing a few times but with limited success.  There's not much warning for approaching rail traffic and the noise of the nearby DVP tends to drown out the growls of throttled-down engines.  Occasionally they wail a horn for someone near the lines where they shouldn't be and that offers some advanced warning.  On this day I had to scramble to get the camera ready as I had just arrived.  Some sprinkling rain kept me from prepping the camera settings as I usually would have done.  A sudden rumble north of the crossing and a gleem of lights off the rails told me it was the Canadian approaching the turn and I wasn't one the side of the tracks I wanted but had to make do with the location to avoid crossing during the warning lights.

Later that week I got up and out bright and early a couple of mornings and put together this sequence of VIA train 52/50 to Montreal and Ottawa followed by regular GO service into Danforth Station off Main Street.  The VIA and GO units have similar departure times and often end up side by side on this stretch.  No luck catching them that close on that morning but I am hopeful that I can get some footage of that very situation one day.

On Friday before the long weekend I took some time on my return home from work to catch a scheduled GO Stouffville service heading north.  The GO trains have a lot of level crossings to deal with on the Uxbridge sub and make generous use of their horns to let traffic know of their approach to these busy roadways.  I used my older Sony SD camera which lacks the better image stablization of the CX-250 and shows a bit of wobble, especially when the engineer laid on the horn when exactly next to me.

I also moseyed down McCowan towards the western end of the CP Toronto yards in Scarborough as I've not gone around that area before and it was on the way.  Locations are inconvenient but I did catch a pair of GP9Us doing switching duty and shot a bit of footage from a lower level, but not very good positioning at all.  I'll need to find more time to scout out a better location sometime.  I can't really run out to that area, a further than my current long runs encompass.

And finally I tried some footage off the biking trails in E T Seton park near the high CP rail bridge that crosses over the Don.  This location is outside the end of the fence of the Tremco plant near Thorncliffe Park/Leaside and sits high above the valley below and level with the rail crossing for a different angle than most people will see.  In late fall to spring it's pretty barren up there and the view is much better, but the summer has lots of foliage in the way.  I didn't stay very long but managed to catch a pair of eastbounds with likely empty returns heading for the yards in Scarborough.