Canadian Prairie Railroading Series - Part 1, CP Portage la Prairie MB - Wolseley SK September 2022

In September 2022, I spent a week railfanning on the Canadian prairies primarily in Saskatchewan but going as far east as Portage la Prairie, MB. In this first part, I spend a morning in PLP catching a number of CN and CP trains in this very busy area which sees the CN and CP transcontinental mainlines cross each other at grade. Mid-day I headed west toward Saskatchewan and managed to spend the afternoon chasing a pair of CP westbounds across the Carberry, Broadview, and Indian Head subdivisions before wrapping up the day at the very quaint town of Wolseley, SK.
The plan for the morning was simply to take in the action in PLP, and both CN and CP were very busy. Each railway contributed several freights and intermodal trains and it was interesting watching the coordination between the railways. PLP is quite open and it was an easy place to railfan. West of town, the CP transcon heads roughly due west through Regina and Moose Jaw, whereas CN's transcon points northwest to Saskatoon and eventually Edmonton. Also at PLP, each railway has a secondary mainline that splits off to the west, the CP's calling on the towns of Yorkton and Saskatoon, and the CN's passing through Dauphin and Lloydminster before both reaching the Edmonton area. It ended up being that I followed a PLP-based CP local slightly west of town to Coney, where they would use the siding to run around their train before switching a couple local industries; I was pleased to see one of CP's old GP38AC's still in revenue service, something basically nonexistent back home in Ontario these days.
The plan for the afternoon was to drive the Trans-Canada highway, which parallels the CP, to Brandon and see what the yard there had to offer. "Not much" was the answer, and I only stopped in town long enough to see an eastbound potash train pull in. On the way out of town however, on the scanner I heard CP's RTC talking to train 411, one of the trains I had seen earlier in the day in PLP. They would be meeting two westbounds at Oak Lake, so I set up in the very pleasant small town of Alexander, MB, which still hosts a grain elevator and a railway-served siding. Two fast eastbound stack trains later I was on the road again chasing 411; as I was staying in Moose Jaw this evening, this was a great way to spend the afternoon and make the miles roll past!
I caught up to 411 at Fleming, MB, and noticed that the train had lifted a number of OCS cars at Brandon, including two gons that had pieces of chopped-up railcars in them heading to scrap (from a derailment). I again shot the train at Whitewood, SK, another pleasant prairie town with a trackside elevator. Here the train encountered an unexpected signal which necessitated a pass-stop authority allowing me to get ahead of it once more west of town. By the time I got to Broadview, SK, I caught up to 105 who had stopped to meet an eastbound; this meant that I now had an SD70ACu to chase west, a nice break from the endless GE's! I caught this train west of Broadview, at Grenfell, and finally at Wolseley, SK. I waited here at the nice curve next to the small row of grain elevators until I was nearly out of light but no sign of 411; I suspect they stopped to work at Broadview, but still, this was an excellent day of railfanning.
As always, thank you for watching. Stay tuned in the next few weeks/months for additional parts in this series.
00:00 Intro & Map
00:47 Morning at Portage la Prairie
22:04 CP Local PLP to Coney
24:46 Fast Eastbounds at Alexander, MB
29:27 411 Chase Fleming - Whitewood
34:48 105 Chase Broadview - Wolseley