MKN 2121 North, Manning, Alberta; Sept 2002
Mackenzie Northern was a company operated by RailLink Canada that in 1998 took over CN lines in extreme northern Alberta and reaching into the Northwest Territories. It was quite a chore to get up here as even from Havre, Montana, to this area is 900 miles! This was in my crazier dayz as we tried to make even further north and just missed getting a train at the border with the Northwest Territories this day. No cell phones, not much for maps, and no satellite pictures to aid us. Just good old fashioned exploration as there was no networking info to go by because not many were dumb enough to go up here for train pictures.
This track was built in the early 1960s as the Great Slave Lake Railway and is the northernmost trackage of the contiguous North American railway system. I think there were two GP9s lettered for the GSL but for the most part it was always an arm of the CN until the sale to RailLink. After increases in traffic brought on by the tar sands oil discoveries in these parts CN repurchased the line in 2006.
Here is a Grimshaw to High Level, Alberta, run behind a BL20-2 and a leased CN GP38-2. The BL20-2 is one of three that were EMD demonstrators rebuilt in 1992 from BN GP9s. EMD was attempting to crack into the GEEP rebuild market. Not much interest was generated by these BL20s and I'm not sure where they are now. RailLink even operated an SD18 and a pair of F-Units up here, but of course those had been recently moved out just prior to our visit.
Half way up the line was the northern most reaches of grain growing country and the tank cars in the train are loads of fuel used by consumers in the secluded Northwest Territories. For the most part the track was good for 10 MPH with not much but a gravel roadbed underneath.
MKN 2121 North, Manning, Alberta; Sept 2002
Mackenzie Northern was a company operated by RailLink Canada that in 1998 took over CN lines in extreme northern Alberta and reaching into the Northwest Territories. It was quite a chore to get up here as even from Havre, Montana, to this area is 900 miles! This was in my crazier dayz as we tried to make even further north and just missed getting a train at the border with the Northwest Territories this day. No cell phones, not much for maps, and no satellite pictures to aid us. Just good old fashioned exploration as there was no networking info to go by because not many were dumb enough to go up here for train pictures.
This track was built in the early 1960s as the Great Slave Lake Railway and is the northernmost trackage of the contiguous North American railway system. I think there were two GP9s lettered for the GSL but for the most part it was always an arm of the CN until the sale to RailLink. After increases in traffic brought on by the tar sands oil discoveries in these parts CN repurchased the line in 2006.
Here is a Grimshaw to High Level, Alberta, run behind a BL20-2 and a leased CN GP38-2. The BL20-2 is one of three that were EMD demonstrators rebuilt in 1992 from BN GP9s. EMD was attempting to crack into the GEEP rebuild market. Not much interest was generated by these BL20s and I'm not sure where they are now. RailLink even operated an SD18 and a pair of F-Units up here, but of course those had been recently moved out just prior to our visit.
Half way up the line was the northern most reaches of grain growing country and the tank cars in the train are loads of fuel used by consumers in the secluded Northwest Territories. For the most part the track was good for 10 MPH with not much but a gravel roadbed underneath.