Saved the Day
Upon learning that a trio of GP9s had been paired for one of the Hamilton sets, there was only one reasonable and logical thing to do. Wake up at 3am and drive to Hamilton for sunrise of course. When I arrived in Hammer town I was greeted by a group of friends who had driven overnight from even further away than I, who stayed the night at a rest stop. In these days, the 0700 worked the industrial sector of Hamilton called "the hole", and the 0800 just switched the yard on the weekend. When the 0700 job crew walked over to the less desirable GP38 duo (crazy to think that's undesirable) there was a unanimous "groan" from the crowd. The trio was not a guarantee, and it was a gamble that we all chose that looked like it wasn't going to pay off. We chased the duo into the hole to Bunge where they started switching food grade tank cars. While watching them switch we all came to the conclusion that to salvage the day, we would shoot mainline trains with the searchlights on the Dundas Sub. We were about to leave when we heard "0800 job CN 4116 looking to enter the hole". We all looked at each other with smiles and "hell yeahs". A few minutes later the 0800 crew passed the 0700 crew next to Bunge, and the morning chase of a somewhat rare 0800 hole morning commenced. Photographing two CN jobs in the hole at the same time is also a fairly rare occurrence. Moral of the story, stick it out. The line "so you're telling me there's a chance" from Dumb and Dumber is sometimes truthful. Later that afternoon we still ended up on the Dundas and got a nice SD75I leader on 271 at Paris. www.flickr.com/photos/130272127@N07/53344865097/in/photol...
Train: CN 0800 Job with CN 4116 (GP9rm), CN 7052 (GP9rm), and CN 7016 (GP9rm).
Train: CN 0700 Job with CN 7512 (GP38-2) and CN 4709 (GP38-2).
Hamilton, Ontario
CN N&NW Spur
Saved the Day
Upon learning that a trio of GP9s had been paired for one of the Hamilton sets, there was only one reasonable and logical thing to do. Wake up at 3am and drive to Hamilton for sunrise of course. When I arrived in Hammer town I was greeted by a group of friends who had driven overnight from even further away than I, who stayed the night at a rest stop. In these days, the 0700 worked the industrial sector of Hamilton called "the hole", and the 0800 just switched the yard on the weekend. When the 0700 job crew walked over to the less desirable GP38 duo (crazy to think that's undesirable) there was a unanimous "groan" from the crowd. The trio was not a guarantee, and it was a gamble that we all chose that looked like it wasn't going to pay off. We chased the duo into the hole to Bunge where they started switching food grade tank cars. While watching them switch we all came to the conclusion that to salvage the day, we would shoot mainline trains with the searchlights on the Dundas Sub. We were about to leave when we heard "0800 job CN 4116 looking to enter the hole". We all looked at each other with smiles and "hell yeahs". A few minutes later the 0800 crew passed the 0700 crew next to Bunge, and the morning chase of a somewhat rare 0800 hole morning commenced. Photographing two CN jobs in the hole at the same time is also a fairly rare occurrence. Moral of the story, stick it out. The line "so you're telling me there's a chance" from Dumb and Dumber is sometimes truthful. Later that afternoon we still ended up on the Dundas and got a nice SD75I leader on 271 at Paris. www.flickr.com/photos/130272127@N07/53344865097/in/photol...
Train: CN 0800 Job with CN 4116 (GP9rm), CN 7052 (GP9rm), and CN 7016 (GP9rm).
Train: CN 0700 Job with CN 7512 (GP38-2) and CN 4709 (GP38-2).
Hamilton, Ontario
CN N&NW Spur