Montreal - Quebec, Alstom, Cap Rouge

[railwaybob]

Last Sunday, I travelled from Ottawa to Quebec City via Montreal on the VIA1 for a week in QC on business. Not many photo ops between Ottawa and Montreal, but a real treat leaving Montreal. Normally, the trains from Quebec and Ottawa have to be wyed for their return trip, either on arriving or on leaving. In the case of the train to Quebec, the wyeing was done leaving Central Station. This took us right past the old Point Ste Charles (now Alstom) shops. There was quite a lineup of old locos.

But first, some shots of the "Tank Train". I don't know the details but this is a unit tank train with connections between cars for quick unloading. Does anyone know what it is carrying and how it's unloaded?

 

[railwaybob]

Here's a closeup of the pipeline between the cars.

 

[railwaybob]

Next came the Alstom shops with a bunch of CN GP40s? (correct me if I'm wrong cause I didn't bring my trackside guide with me.)

 

[railwaybob]

A closeup of two of the locos

 

[railwaybob]

Here's a lineup of quite a few CN locos on the shop tracks. Are they being reworked or are they being resold?

 

[railwaybob]

There were a couple of strange ones at the eastern end of the Alstom shop tracks - a forelorn ex-Conrail and a grey unit which I didn't recognize but was marked HCLX (Helm Leasing?) in a "freelanced" paintbrush style.

 

[railwaybob]

And something that was marked GTW but looked like it might have come from one of the iron ore roads that CN recently bought.

 

[railwaybob]

I managed to get some shots of the high-level trestle at Cap Rouge which is at the western end of Quebec City. This steel trestle bridge was part of the National Transcontinental and provides access to the Quebec bridge for trains coming in from the west. What I didn't get some photos of was the junction where the line from the Quebec bridge connects with the line from the trestle and the line into Quebec City (which my VIA train is on). You wouldn't believe the radius of this wye. In MR terms, it's got to be the equivalent of an 18" radius.

 

[railwaybob]

And finally, right outside of the station is the Cascades paper plant (I missed a lot of action leading up to this photo) and the grain elevators with at least 100 grain cars.

 

[railwaybob]

On Tuesday evening, I decided to explore the area around the station. I managed to find my way around the back (no trespassing required). I had no sooner crossed the tracks when I heard the sound of a two-way radio that sounded like chatter between the brakeman and the engineer. Coming across the bridge leading into the Old Basin was a 42-car grain train being shunted into the sidings for the grain elevator. There was an SD40 on the back end pushing the cars so it was almost impossible to hear the train coming. Unfortunatley, I got stuck for 20 minutes waiting for the grain train to finish going by (sob, sob, sob). Unfortunately, it was dark and snowing so I couldn't get any photos. Or rather, I'd left my digital camera at the hotel.

Oh well, we're back again next week so we'll see what photos we can take.

Enjoy!

 

[Matthyro]

An interesting group of photos Bob. Thanks for posting them. Will look forward to more from your next trip.