I came to a crossing of the CP Rail mainline just north west of Barrie, Ontario, Canada where the line comes down the East side of Georgian Bay from the north, through Sudbury and Thunder Bay and on its way to Brampton and Toronto. I was a good 1 Km away when I say the intermodal cars across the intersection and it took me a minute or so the get to the crossing to wait. I did not see what was heading the freight but it was travelling rather slowly, maybe about 20Km/H. So sitting waiting for the for the freight to pass I got the impression that it was very long as I had waited for a few minutes and it had already passed awhile before I got to the crossing. Everything was intermodal well cars packed with trailers. Mostly 40 footers but a few 60 footers and some double 20 footers, and all stacked 2 high, No empties. SO I got to thinking about the length and where it was coming from and I assumed, probably came in from Vancouver, BC, bringing freight to the big TO from China.

Then I saw a GE ES-44 coupled into the mix and more full intermodal well cars. I figured a pusher put into the middle for help. Now this was after at least 200 intermodal well cars had gone by on the lead section. So more full well cars went by and after another 75-100 cars, another GE ES-44 and another 75-100 well cars. Then it changed to a string of tri-level car carriers, all full. That confirmed it for me that it had come in from Vancouver, bringing in freight and asian made cars. AND, at the end was another GE ES-44 facing backwards.

Now that really got me thinking and here is what I surmise.

CP Rail put this train together out west as 1 long unit, had to be easily 400 cars. That has to be 5 miles of train operated by 1 crew as all the other engines were MU'd to the front unit . The interesting thought is that they pre-sorted and broke this up into 4 sections each with their own engine so that when they got closer to destination they would simply break off at each engine, put a local crew on board and send that shorter section on its way. In the case of the rear section, they would break at the point where the well cars and the tri-level met. All put together, organized and ready to head out. The rear section of Tri-level car carriers was headed the opposite way as the front end 3 units so I figure the first 3 sections were heading the same way to final destination and the last was going the opposite direction to the first 3.

Pretty interesting operating and sorting scenario especially for anyone with a big layout modelling intermodal operations. Might be something for some of the huge club layouts to think about especially those that set up at conventions and shows. Would certainly be a show stopper and point of discussion.