Morant's Curve, in Banff National Park, is perhaps the most well-known railroad photo location in the Canadian Rockies. So, of course, we paid homage to Canadian Pacific photographer Nicholas Morant (June 29, 1910 - March 13, 1999), for whom this curve is named, and stopped here. Of course, they way my luck goes, we had a westbound train approaching (CPKC 301, a grain train headed for Vancouver BC from … well … we’re not sure, as the CPKC uses 301 for a number of grain trains with different origination points, that that part of this train's journey remains a mystery). But from the line-up we got, there were no eastbounds (the ideal trains to photograph here) due for several hours, so we were left to do the best we could with the situation. Train 301, however, didn’t disappoint, as it had an eclectic collection of locomotives powering it: Canadian Pacific AC4400CW 8576 and Union Pacific SD70ACe 8942 on the point, with CP ES40AC 8750 and Norfolk Southern AC44C6M 4330 (ex-NS Dash 8-40CW 9101) as the mid-train Distributed Power Units, and CP AC4400CW 8600 for the rear DPU. (Morant's Curve, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada – April 17, 2023)
