Everyone who has ever railfanned has had one of those adventures where You sometimes have to question the sanity of the "sport". Here is the setting for one of my big ideas, daylight train action around my home in Trout Lake, MI has dwindled to the point that one may see 3 or 4 movements a month in winter time. WC stubbornly seems to run everything under cover of darkness. How about we take a "one" day trip to the CP mainline in Cartier, Ont. Departure from Trout Lake is 3AM, arrival at Cartier 8:30AM just as day is breaking. Lots of smoke from chimneys and vehicles confirm its cold, real cold. My wife and I check in with Jim at the station. There is a line-up full of trains, all of which are having problems due to the extreme cold. Oh did I mention it was -34F on our arrival! To make a long story a little shorter we only managed to bag two trains in the daylight. In this photo by Sonya we have #482 coasting into the station for a real quick crew change. Note the frost on the fuel tanks of these units. Power is 5907,4715,5535,4723 leading 62 cars. A couple of hours later we were able to get a #404 and then were faced with the long drive home. Was it worth it, at the time we figured no, but looking at these shots nearly 20 years later we would have to answer with a resounding YES.
