Change of plans

We left winnipeg Monday morning, travelling through more of the prairies. It’s mostly flat, but not completely, there are some hilly areas. Our destination was Calgary for the weekend, where we were finally going to get the other boxcar. This boxcar contains the DGRMS (Deployable Gauge Restrain Measuring System), which drops a bar down that puts lateral pressure on the rails as we are moving, and by measuring the position before and after the stiffness can be calculated. It has been under repair this whole time, which is why we haven’t been doing it. We were originally supposed to get it in Sudbury, but there was still work to be done on it so it got postponed one week later, and then until Calgary. I was excited to go there, and was planning to go to Banff for the weekend and climb a mountain. I haven’t been to the Rockies in recent memory. My parents claim I was there once when I was small, but I don’t remember it so it doesn’t count.

Well, we found out on Wednesday that the boxcar isn’t moving as fast as they were hoping (it wasn’t in Calgary yet, but somewhere in the states) so instead we were going to finish our testing that week and then move as fast as possible to Montreal where we’d meet the boxcar and attach it there. I’m not completely sure why they changed it to Montreal, it’s kindof the opposite end of the country.

We were testing yards on Thursday and Friday, so we would go back and forth on every track in the yard and then travel to the next one. Both days we were scheduled to start at 7:00, so we were up at 6am, but didn’t get moving until 10am and 11:30am. Lots of waiting around. We finished Thursday at 3ish and parked in Medicine Hat, so I went out for a walk. Found a path on top of an escarpment type thing that had a pretty nice view of the town. Walked down another one and found a park/nature preserve, and walked around in there down some pretty nice snow-covered paths. Was walking around a corner and came across a deer less than 10 meters away that was just standing there and staring at me. I stood still and stared back and snapped a couple pictures before it started running off. Walked back to downtown and wandered around for a bit until it got dark and headed back to the train. 

After testing the yard on Friday we started heading back to Montreal, and pretty much ran non-stop, even through the night. We stopped sometimes for a crew change or for a train meet, but never for more than an hour. We finally arrived monday at midnight, which means about 82 hours of almost straight travel. I’m surprised at how well I slept, I thought I would hardly get any sleep with the train bouncing around all the time. I slept alright the first night, and only woke up a couple times the other nights.

There isn’t much to do on the train, we don’t get any satellite signal or internet, and it’s hard to do precise movements with a mouse, so a lot of computer games are out as well. I’ve found that reading bothers me when the book is jumping around all the time, and it’s hard to focus on the small letters. There are a fair amount of movies on the train which I’ve watched quite a few of now. There’s also standing between the cars and looking at the scenery, but it’s a lot colder now, especially with a 50mph wind chill (it’s been below zero a fair amount, there’s snow in pretty much the rest of Canada except for southern Ontario).  I’m also working on making a monopoly game using excel and macros and userforms. It’s a lot of fun, I like programming. I’ve already made one that can solve easy sudokus, and one that can create and solve mazes of any size. It gets frustrating when I’m trying to put my cursor somewhere to edit and it’s jumping around all over the place, so I have to use the keyboard as much as possible. (Note: not all train travel is this bad, it’s probably really smooth. Our car is a converted boxcar that’s almost 50 years old, so there is minimal suspension)

I really have no clue what the plan is for the rest of the week, and I’ve given up trying to figure out what the master plan is, as it has changed over 5 times while I’ve been here. We are supposed to be getting the boxcar late this week, and after we’ve done some basic maintenance and moved stuff from the old boxcar I’ll be in a hotel in Montreal until the boxcar comes. Even then I’m unsure of exactly what my role will be, as I don’t know very much / nothing at all about the new system.

I just hope we still get to go through the rockies, but from what I understand there’s a chance it might not happen. Dang. Guess I shouldn’t complain too much though, I still got to travel over most of Canada by train J

Winnipeg (and bridges!)

After dropping George off at airport for his flight home we went to hotel. Our rooms were on the 18th (top) floor with a balcony and a pretty sweet view. On the elevator ride I saw some pictures of a pretty cool looking cable-stayed bridge, and right away knew that that would be the first thing to visit. Went to an indian buffet restaurant with anthony, and came out completely stuffed with some pretty excellent food. Went back to the hotel, got my camera and took off to find the bridge. And it was totally worth it - an impressive cable stayed bridge that also had a restaurant hanging off one side, all balanced precariously on a single pier. Went on a 2 hour photoshoot of the bridge, walking all around it and up and down both banks on both sides. I probably get too into bridges, but they're so cool!!

While I was trying to see the bridge from all angles I also found some other cool things - a graveyard, cool waterfront areas, and some other bridges :). The big white thing at the end of the one on the left is a huge chunk of concrete used as a counterbalance to raise up the bridge to let ships pass. I thought it was a large sign from the distance until I walked under it and saw that it was a couple meters thick. I had a much larger appreciation of the small steel columns holding it in place after that. Oh, there was also the future museum of civil rights in that area, which is a pretty impressive structure. The engineer who designed the glass structure/cladding used to work for MTE, an engineering firm in waterloo that my dad works for, and with whom I spent a co-op term working for.

Decided it was getting pretty late, and we had to be back at the train at 9:00 Saturday morning cause a fuel truck was coming to fill up the tank for the generators. So I started heading back to the hotel, and eventually came to a large intersection that had no pedestrian crossings. I didn’t want to turn around, and saw a stairway going down with a sign that said ‘pedestrian underpass’. So I headed down, and turns out it was the beginning of an extensive network of tunnels and bridges (Even more bridges! Hurrah!) between buildings that allowed for travelling through most of downtown all while staying indoors! It was probably a couple kilometers in length in total. It meandered through an underground shopping mall with food courts and offices and boutiques, then went up a couple stairs and passed through more office buildings and malls and shops with bridges over streets between the buildings. Was walking along the second level of a mall when suddenly there was a big ‘whoosh’, and a jet of water blasted up beside me through an opening in the floor up past the third floor, then fall down again. Pretty cool! And the best thing about this place was that it connected to the hotel I was staying in.

Decided again that it was getting pretty late (close to midnight at this point), so I headed back to the hotel. But then I found a grand piano sitting right by the elevators to go up to my room, so I stopped and played until someone came by and said I should move on. After that I finally went to my room.

Saturday morning there was supposed to be a fuel truck for the generators between 9 and 10 at the train, and they were supposed to call and give me a 30 min warning. Anthony and I decided to go to the train for 9 and do chores until he showed up, and good thing we did cause we were almost at the train at 8:50 when I got a call from him that he was trying to find the train. So much for a 30 min warning. After he filled up the fuel we went to the casino that was right by the train yard. Our plan was to go to the roulette table, bet $20, and then walk out. He put it all on the middle third, I put all on the last third but decided last second to move $5 to the first third so we had them all covered. Too bad I did, cause it landed on the last third. I still walked out with $45, a 225% return. Not bad for my first time in a casino. We went out for lunch, then I went to the Manitoba museum. I had been to a couple museums at this point, and was starting to think that most were pretty similar – some stuffed animals, pretty rocks, arrowheads, broken pottery, etc. But I was very pleasantly surprised at this one. There were lots of exhibits about the tundra, which was completely new for me. Also a fair amount about the railroad, which was cool to see how important it was for the economy of an entire province. Most impressively there was a full sized ship complete with mast and sails and rigging. They also had an exhibit where the floors and ceiling and walls were all made out of mirrors, and it was really cool and disorientating.

After going through that museum I decided that going to Churchill is pretty high on my bucket list – tundra, polar bears, the arctic ocean, and northern lights. Walked around some more, visited the cable stayed bridge again, and went back to the hotel.

I set my alarm for 9:00 Sunday morning, but the stupid thing didn’t work and I woke up at 11 instead, which meant my whole morning was wasted as I had chores to do in the afternoon. We did our shopping and cleaning up and finished around 5ish. It was still light outside, so we decided that I would take the rental car, go explore where I wanted to, and return it when I was done and take a taxi back. I went back to the bridge area and walked around the market and walkways and paths that were in the area. It was getting dark, so I went back to the bridge and said goodbye, dropped off the rental car and went back to the train.

Transitions

We were back on CP lines this week, which means we were running the joint bar picture station again. But with two of us, it’s not that much work. We left Sudbury on Monday and travelled to Chapleau, where we ran into some trouble. There’s a lot of water running through pipes to cool the train engine, and if it gets cold it could freeze and bust the pipes. So there’s a plug that if the temperature gets close to freezing it will pop off and dump all the water out. That happened Monday night, and we lost all the water in the engine, so the engine wouldn’t start. There’s supposed to be a smart start that starts the engine up if it gets cold, but I guess it wasn’t working. They noticed it in the morning, and one of the guys saw some oil and though there might be an oil leak, so they weren’t allowed to move the engine at all, even if they brought another engine to push it out of the way. So we spent the day stuck in Chapleau with no internet or tv. I had gone for a run the night before, and pretty much saw all of Chapleau – it’s a pretty small northern Ontario town. They found out during the day that there wasn’t an oil leak, so we kept going on Wednesday. 

Trains don’t like changes in elevation, as that requires a lot more fuel and energy. They like to stay as flat as possible, and water also likes to stay as flat as possible, so we’re usually travelling beside water. And when there’s a huge lake nearby, like Lake Superior, we travel along it for quite a fair ways. Some of the area is pretty hilly, resulting in the train track clinging to the side of these hills, with a rocky cliff on one side and a steep rocky slope down to the water on the other side. I had always taken it for granted that the train stays on the rails, but on this track with such a steep slope on either side and no guardrails of any kind at all, I realized how precarious those two thin strips of steel seem. The wheels did their job though, and we passed through the spectacular scenery safely.

I really wanted to go climb one of those hills though… it looked like it would be a lot of fun plus a good view. I think I’m going to start a list of places I should come back and visit again and spend more time. So far it would be here and moosonee. And northern Ontario in general, but I’m for sure returning there this spring to do some white water kayaking, which will be awesome.  

Saw a fair amount of wildlife this week. Finally saw a beaver after seeing countless beaver huts. Also saw deer three times – first time they were running through a yard, but they disappeared into the bush just as I was able to snap a picture. The second time I just caught them running away. But the third time there was a bunch of them in a field with nowhere to hide while I snapped a picture.

We crossed over into Manitoba, but was still seeing hills and rocks, we were still in the Canadian shield. It flattened out a bit into some large marshes, then got rocky again, and then within a couple miles it got really flat. I was surprised how quick the transition was. I’m finding it a lot less interesting to look out the window, you look once and you’ve seen everything you’ll see for the next 10 miles. Before there were trees and each curve had mysteries and unknowns behind it, and at any point the trees could open up into a picturesque river or lake or marsh. Here I know what’s coming well ahead of time. Oh, and there aren’t any curves anymore. It’s straight for miles.

We’ll see if it gets better this week, we’re going from Winnipeg to Calgary. We are finally swapping boxcars to get the DGRMS (Deployable Guage Restraint Measuring System) which measures the lateral resistance of the rails. We have the whole week scheduled for maintenance, and I don’t know how long it will take or if we’ll get more free time. 

The end of the World

The end of the world... That`s what Don calls moosenee, located on the tip of James Bay. He said that if we get off the train we have to tie a rope around our waist in case we fall off, and that if we look down we can see Australia and China.

Seriously though, it is pretty remote. the only way to get there is by train or airplane, so any cars they want to drive around have to be brought up by rail. 

We started in North Bay, went up through Englehart and Cochrane with a small trip into Quebec, over to Hearst, back and then up to Moosenee. It`s different scenery up there, the Canadian shield ended, and trees became shorter and stunted, but they still looked old. I`d never been to the tundra before, so this was all new for me. On the track up to Moosenee there were some power lines for a bit, but for the most part we would go 30 or 40 miles without seeing any signs of civilization at all. 

We went by spots where all the trees were very short, and you could see overtop of them for a fair ways. We stopped for the night at 9 or 10 at night, and started again at 6 or 7 in the morning, so I never really had a chance to get out and walk around any of the towns we were in. There was also snow on the trees on the way back, which made for some nice scenery. We also passed a fair number of abandoned buildings, which I really wanted to get out and explore them. But the train always travels on…

Due to some confusion and switching between rail companies, it didn’t look like we were going to get to Sudbury for the weekend, which was the plan. But somehow it came together, and we pulled into Sudbury on Saturday at 6:00am. After doing chores I got a chance to walk around a bit, although it was raining and cold. Found a really nice walkway with large rock outcroppings along a lake, which also conveniently lead to Science North.

I got to hold a tarantula and have him walk over my hands (they’re surprisingly light), pet a skunk and a beaver. The beaver had really soft fur, despite looking really bristly. 

Wandered around a bit more, climbed some of the larger rocky outcrops in the town that had some pretty nice views from the town. Was graciously hosted by my aunt and uncle who live just outside of Sudbury, attended their church on Sunday, went grocery shopping, and that was pretty much it for the weekend. We're heading west next week, and scheduled to spend the weekend in Winnipeg. Hopefully I'll have more time to visit next weekend, this one felt like there wasn't much time available. 

North Bay

Northern Ontario is so far my favorite place of the term. I’ve always loved trips and canoe expeditions to that area, and traveling by train I got to see some pretty spectacular scenery. And now I had a long weekend where I could take time to see what I wanted to see, instead of travelling on as I would on the train. The supervisors were switching this weekend, so it was just Anthony and I for the weekend. We cleaned up on Friday, got the rental car, and checked into our hotel. I also rented a bike for the weekend.  I like touring by bike a lot more than car – it’s faster than walking, but not too fast that I miss stuff or have to pay attention to the road, I don’t have to worry about parking, I like keeping fit, I like being outdoors instead of in a cab, and I can go more places and along more trails.

I biked around the downtown area Friday afternoon, which surprisingly had cobblestone streets. Found the beach along lake Nipissing, and took off my shoes and ran in the water along the beach as far as I could. It was very nice to feel the sand between by toes, as I have to wear steel toed boots all the time on the train.

Found a used bookstore that finally had a copy of the hobbit, and so I started it that night. Saturday I biked north to Nipissing university, as I had heard there was a waterfall behind it. Walked through a forest full of reds and yellows and oranges,

and found the waterfall. It was more a sequence of smaller ones, full of rocks to climb and jump around. It’s one of my favorite things in life to do, running along streams with lots of rocks spaced at good jumping distance, crossing as often as possible, getting to hard to get places.

Walked back to the university, getting slightly lost and finding a lookout point with a nice view. Watched half of a varsity soccer game that was going on, then biked along the rest of the bike path until it started to rain. Went to a pool hall with Anthony that evening, and bowling after. Attended a United church Sunday morning, did groceries, returned the bike, played some more pool, went looking for a restaurant that was closed, and finished the hobbit. What a great book, can’t wait for the movie. Monday we checked out, chilled at the train for a bit, picked up the new supervisor at the airport, and went to see taken 2.

This was probably my favorite weekend so far, especially exploring the waterfall area. After passing by so many places like this that I really wanted to take a closer look on the train, I finally had the chance to explore one fully to my heart’s content :)

Next week we’re doing contract testing travelling even further north up to moosenee, near james bay, which according to don (the new supervisor) is pretty much the end of the earth. I’m actually looking forward to it, just us and the train and wilderness.

Promoted!

Well, I didn’t really get promoted. I’m just doing a different job now, but one that actually requires thinking! There was only one supervisor this week. The other one who was scheduled to be here is busy fixing the other boxcar that we were supposed to get next week. So I was running the data station while Anthony ran the joint bars, and the supervisor did all the organizing and stuff.

This is the main screen I was looking at:

The graphs are real-time data of different properties of the rail, gauge, alignment, superelevation, etc. For a bit more of an explanation, see the ‘hurry up and wait’ blog. If the properties exceed certain values, then they will be flagged as either a priority or urgent defect. And that is where I came in – sometimes there would be spikes in the data, pieces of grass, reflection from the sun, road crossings, that would make the data do weird things. So I would look at each defect and see if it actually was there or not. Sometimes we don’t count certain defects in some areas – like alignment defects aren’t valid going over switches, as the lasers sometimes follow the wrong rail and give wrong answers. At the beginning I was calling Pat (the supervisor) over for each defect, but by the end of the week I was able to tell the difference between a spike and actual defects and taking things out by myself. Most of the time the tracks were pretty good, and there would only be valid urgents every 20 miles. But there was one track that had 15 come up in one mile, and I was frantically trying to see if they were valid or not and fell pretty far behind. But it requires thinking, which is kindof a nice change. It also requires knowledge of what we were doing that day. Before I would just start collecting images when they told me to, and I would have no idea where we were. But now I’m looking at the rail maps and figuring out exactly where we are going and the direction and subdivision names and start/end mileposts. I feel like I’m actually contributing/helping instead of doing a menial task.

The only downside is that I have less time to look out the window. And this week has been some pretty spectacular scenery. We started in Hamilton, went to Toronto, out to Orangeville and back, and then up north to Sudbury and am currently in North Bay for the weekend. Northern Ontario is already one of my favorite areas of Canada, and add into that the peak of the fall season with brilliant reds and yellows and oranges, and it gets pretty hard to concentrate on work. I’ll sort through all the pictures I did manage to take and post some good ones later.

For now though, I finally managed to get a copy of the Hobbit, after trying in vain at other used bookstores in London and Hamilton. The guy who ran the bookstore said that he was completely sold out, and had gone to order more only to find that everywhere else was sold out as well. The publisher had to reprint a whole bunch more to keep up with the demand. I can’t wait for the movie to come out!