Grunt Work

After Saturday's catch of an ex-UP Dash-8, I thought my day was complete. I headed back down to the CP main in Ogden to wait until my wife was done with her conference for the day, expecting the usual AC4400 "toasters" and perhaps a few switching moves.

After a few minutes, I heard the familiar rumble of engines. Behind the fence in Ogden I saw the silhouette of a couple of units moving. Was one of them in MAROON?

Sure enough, after a few minutes, maroon CP 3084 and red CP 3101 came out towing a gondola.



You can see that it attracted other railfans. There were two others that I saw.

CP 3084 is painted in the heritage CP maroon scheme for use on the Royal Canadian Pacific train. Normally CP 4106 and 4107 are leaders but 3084 seems to lead the train now and then.

They went back and forth a few times, bringing out gondolas and taking others back. I believe this is where CN interchanges with CP in Calgary.

It was a little surprising to see such a lovely unit being used for grunt work. I guess since the Royal Canadian Pacific is shut down for the season, CP might as well get some use out of 3084.