Stewart Southern Railway 1010 gets ready to pick up empty tank cars at Fillmore, Saskatchewan, on September 17, 2012. The development of the Bakken Formation has transformed many of these prairie towns overnight, shifting away from grain production to harvesting crude.
interest in Stampede I chose to set up for five nights at Kenmare where there were reasonably priced motels. Ken- mare is also on the Canadian Pacific (former Soo Line) main line, which of- fers plenty of freight action.
The second thing that must be con- sidered is the dangers present at transloads. The smaller ones are essen- tially “team tracks” for trucks carrying about 150 barrels of oil for loading into tank
cars (roughly traffic.
trucks per train car). This creates heavy
Noxious
two-and-a-half fumes,
and
many other safety hazards make transload managers understandably reluctant to have visitors on the prop- erty. As a result, security is very tight. However, it is usually possible to get good shots from public locations. A tele- photo makes this even easier. Security
is also tight at CP yards. Again, good photos are available from public spots. Having a real dislike for flying I used Amtrak’s Empire Builder to Minot and then headed for Kenmare (MP 518.8 from Minneapolis) on U.S. Route 52, which parallels the ex-Soo main line. Good luck came my way almost im- mediately at Foxholm (MP 486.5) where I found a westbound way-freight heavy with oil tankers carrying the “1267” placards indicating crude oil. Dispatched
by track warrants
(161.370/AAR 84 on your scanner) it quickly became apparent that the dis- patcher had a westbound manifest to run by the way freight. However, he al- so had an eastbound manifest on the horizon. Once the manifests had met, the eastbound came on through Fox- holm. When these two trains had
cleared, the way freight went on to work the Centennial Energy transload at Donnybrook (MP 504.1).
The facility at Donnybrook handles crude oil as well as natural gas byprod- ucts. Split in half by the town’s main street, there are very accessible public places from which to get photos. How- ever, because Donnybrook is a “team track” facility there is a lot of traffic in and out so it is important to watch out for the heavy trucks coming and going. Then it was on to Stampede, located 16 miles west of Flaxton (MP 540.5) on the former Soo Line Whitetail Sub, op- erated by the Dakota, Missouri Valley & Western since 1990. The first thing I noticed at Stampede was how much ex- pansion had taken place since I was there just a year ago. Stretching from MP 556 to 557, security at the Global
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