CP Photo Shoot

I got out to the Hinckley Sub today, and I caught the CP exercising trackage rights from the Twin Ports back down to Saint Paul. CP 9007 was on the point, still working hard!

"What's that? The SCXY just called the BNSF dispatch, let's head over to the Skally to see what the power is today!"

Canadian Pacific Locos

Well, my locomotive reduction plan is behind schedule (when doesn't that happen). I have been working hard on a couple of Canadian Pacific units. Both have a slew of detail parts on them, from MbE to Sandro to things I had to make myself. I hope to get them outside for a natural light photo shoot tomorrow, but I figured I would share the progress:

CP 9007 is a Southern Alberta Rail SD40-2F kit. I mounted it on a Kato Mid-Pro SD40-2 chassis, mostly so i could get the ditch lights going. I modeled this one as it looks recently, the solid front door was replaced with one that had a window and the striping wasn't replaced afterwords.

I had fun weathering this one to match the prototype.

CP 3015 is a GP38AC, this one looks easy, but I had a bunch of time in relocating the headlights to the low short hood. The fibre optic tube just didn't want to fit in the already full nose. I also gave it the Canadian plows, sand hatches fixed the brake to be more accurate and weathered it to look more realistic.

I gave this one the small Pac-Man scheme. It was fun making the rear black stripes.

This is always one of my favorite views, looking down on the fans.

I hope to get these two up on eBay before the end of the long weekend. By then the Skally SD40M-2s should be close to done and I should have some progress made on my next fleet reduction engines (CN is next).

CN 9007, the "Red Barn"

While I'm making a little progress on the Skally SD40M-2s, I needed to keep my SD40-2 fix going. I had the Kaslo SD40-2F kit and I decided to get some progress done on it.

I cleaned up the shell and got it fitting nicely on a Kato Mid-Production chassis. I had to do a little trimming on the fuel tank, but it ended up sitting pretty well.

I shaved off the molded on grab irons. If you are going to build an engine like this, why not go all-in? Then I attached the front and rear pilots. I'll leave the grabs off until after decaling.

Up front I added the grabs I could, a MbE bell, sand hatches and Sandro Sinclair antennas. I also fit and installed the separately applied snow shields. I had to add a little styrene to the engineers side to made it wide enough in the back, but you'll never notice once it gets painted.

Random MN Railranning Pics

This month will be a little quiet on the modeling side. I just finished a work trip that had me going from Minneapolis to Vegas to L.A. to Portland to Atlanta and back to Minneapolis, and that was the easier half of the month. So I don't go too long without a post, I thought I would share some random shots I took last time I was home.
Independent Locomotive Service in Bethel is getting a new office, er... should I say depot? It looks like construction was well underway so hopefully the office staff can stretch their wings a little in this new building.

Down on the Minnesota Commercial the late January snow slowed down the Hugo Line a little. Here, some gondolas bound for Hugo are left on the run around track at Structural Wood Products in White Bear Lake. A crew would run them North another day. The three leased high-side gondolas are a nice change from the usual low side MNNR gons.

Up in Cambridge on Feb 3rd, congestion at Northtown Yard had sidings plugged all over the Twin Cities Division as trains couldn't be processed over the NTW hump fast enough. Here we can see the SB CP manifest passing an idle BNSF SUPNTW. CP SD30C-ECO #5017 passes INDR (CEFX) SD60 #6011.

Back down in Saint Paul, a BNSF Z Train just backed out of Midway Yard onto the main. A very clean BNSF ES44C4 #7183 and BNSF C44-9W #5468 prepare to depart for Chicago.

At the same time the Z train was getting ready a nice 3 pack of MNNR power was getting ready to take the cars for BNSF interchange from the MNNR "A" Yard over to NTW. MNNR SF30B #42, MNNR B39-8E #84 and MNNR B23-7 #43 were all looking great in their new colors.

Tuesday at the Bluff

I finally had a little sunshine on a day off, so of course I ran down to Daytons Bluff. Any day at Pigs Eye is a good day. I followed a BNSF Oil Can down the hill. I got set up in time for the DPU, it was BNSF C44-9W #4955.

Waiting to come into the Pigs Eye was CP SD30C-ECO #5005 with DME SD40-3. The look of the new ECOs is growing on me.

I've noticed DME 6095 has some interesting modifications. The blower intakes are patched over and there are some extra louvers at the rear of the long hood. I like it, a lot.

 The BN-UP Transfer came down the hill with some good looking power on it. BNSF SD40-2s #1832 and #1922. These two are still flashing the Cascade Green.

 CP ES44AC #8863 was getting a little tune-up at the shops.

And a special surprise hidden on the BNSF side of Pigs Eye, BNSF GP35u #2639 was working the auto unloading facility. There were 6 tracks full of autoracks in the yard, it looked like it was going to take a little time to sort it all out!

Pigs Eye Code Blue

I had an half an hour to spend around Pigs Eye Monday, and it was possibly the finest half-hour I've ever had railfanning. It started with a chase down the hill. There were 2 NS SD70ACes on the point of an EB Manifest:

I looked south to the yard and I could see a WB CSX fertilizer train getting ready to roll out with a triple header of CSX power.

As those two clear I see a BNSF manifest and an Earthworm holding to head East. As I admire them a BNSF Ore MT rolled up. That covered my Dash-9 fix as well as ES44DCs and SD70MACs.

The UP made there standard appearance, putting together a manifest to send down to Shakopee.

I headed over to the shops and looky-looky! More of the new CP GP30C ECOs!

And the pair of out of town guests that have eluded me all year! The Indiana Railroad SD9043MACs!

As I was getting ready to leave, I caught a CP transfer at the bluff with some great looking DME power on the point!

Shortly there-after the TCWR rolled through.

Not too shabby, eh? And people wonder why Minnesotans would put up with Sub-Zero temps half the year. The railfanning makes it worth it!

Patched ICE

How many patch jobs can one engine take? This one has suffered an identity crisis for years, going from CP to NREX to ICE, the ICE stencil had started to fade, so it looks like the Pigs Eye shops applied a new tag of their own...

I love the CP for its flavor!

The Ford Yard

While my camera is off getting looked at by the manufacturer I figured I would take a look back at photos from days gone by. I decided to take a look today at shots from the Ford Yard in St.Paul. This CP yard used to serve the Ford Ranger plant until its closing last year. Now CP uses it for storage and crew training. CP has their own parking lot and two story office at the East end of the yard.
In May of 2009, CP SD40-2 6061 made the run up the hill. There would often be two GP's switching the yard and 2 SD40-2s or GP38s delivering more cars daily. The caboose was almost always in the yard.

Here is what the yard looked like in September of 2011 under a normal work load. Flatcars of Ranger frames and boxcar loads of parts would arrive daily, they would go into the plant via the southern side of the yard (right in this photo). Outgoing loads of Ford Rangers would leave in Autoracks on the North side of the yard. You can see the caboose hiding in the back of the yard by a flatcar load of frames.

In December of 2011 the end was near, but the yard still was in motion. Typical of the power assigned to the yard SOO GP38-2 4409 and another SOO GP38-2 paused for a short break.

 In July of this year CP GP9u 8275 was the training vehicle of choice.

And recently CP GP39-2 4599 and SOO GP39-2 4598 were helping a crew of new hired learn the ropes.

It's nice to know the yard is still seeing use, it's to bad it is not for its intended purpose. Maybe someday there will be new life in those buildings, but it won't be anytime soon. I used the little map gizmo on this post, so if any of you ever want to take a look at the yard, you'll know just where to find it.

Pigs Eye

I live a short hop from the Pigs Eye Yard in St. Paul Minnesota. The yard is named for the landfill the railroad built on top of. [Useless Fact Alert!] When the CP built their new office here they had to run pile 160 feet down through garbage to hold the structure up. It is always a hot spot and there are plenty of great things to see. Last Saturday was no exception.
CP 6243 was one of two freshly painted SD60s on the property today.

There was a lineup of MP15ACs, notice all three are in different paint schemes. There are also still SOO white and some bandit MP15s working the yard here as well.

 UP 3236 was pulling the UP-TCWR transfer uphill toward downtown. The TCWR power was chasing behind running light.

 TCWR 40155 is one of the best patch jobs I've seen in a while, I just had to share...

On the left is the CP-UP transfer in UP's Hoffman Yard which runs right next to Pigs Eye Yard. The TCWR GP30C #4302 is getting ready to head back to Hopkins.

 A BNSF manifest (with a UP engine) approaches Pigs Eye on the BNSF mainline, pulling some wind turbine nacelles. These loads are cool in that they are bolted to the cars at their base, notice there are no straps or cables over the top.

 DME 6050 was one of the ICE/DME SD40-3s at Pigs Eye, this one just happened to be passing through.

CP 5485

I love the Skally Line, the motive power that comes through can be awesome some days. Today I happened to catch the run through of CP 5485. This ex-NS high hood SD40-2 is truly one of the best looking engines I have seen in a while. The sun was out today so I took some better shots.
I used a Kato SD40-2, added a M4D tall short hood, GMM lift rings, BLMA horns, wipers, cut levers, plows and mu hoses. This one turned out so nice I'm almost temped to keep it.

CP 8270

Layout updates are coming, I promise...
but I've been doing more work in the chop nose section of the world. I've started resin casting chop nosed GP9 shells for various projects (GP8s, 9, and 10s). Here is a unit I just finished up. CP 8270 started life as a high nose Soo Line GP9. After being involved in a wreck, the Soo Line shops converted it to a GP20 style short nose. The CP has kept many of these Soo Line conversions on the roster across the US and Canada.I used BLMA grab irons, cut levers, lift rings, mu hoses, a J&J winter hatch, a Gold Medal cab shade and all-weather window. The Sinclair is a Sandro 24" piece. The paint was Badger CP Action Red and the decals were Micro scale. The engine is a new Atlas unit that I installed a Digitrax decoder into. The front light had to be removed to fit inside the cab. The nose on this unit was actually off a Life Like GP-20 (why reinvent the wheel when you have the parts just sitting there?). I finished it off with some MT-1015 couplers. The weathering was done with Tamiya chalks.