The Last Yellow F40

VIA Rail has been rebuilding its engines as part of the most recent capital renewal project. The F40PH-2 engines have been upgraded at CAD Railway Industries to modernize the locomotives and make them more fuel-efficient. I went into detail on the upgrades when I visited the Winnipeg Maintenance Centre. CAD delivered the first upgraded engine in July 2009.

Railfans have been watching the engines go in for refurbishment, and now there is only one "original" yellow F40PH-2 roaming the system, VIA 6453. All of the other engines have either been refurbished or are at CAD now being refurbished. The second-last unit was VIA 6440 but it went into CAD in late April.

VIA 6453 has been rattling around Ontario and Quebec for the past couple of months. Here are some car traces published on CanPassRail for this engine. Note that these are read at 9 AM every morning so they are not tracking every movement of the engine, just the last reader it passed before 9 AM.

VIA	6453	MONTREAL CENTR	PQ	03 24 0929	Arrive In-Transit	P63021
VIA	6453	DE BEAUJEU	PQ	03 26 2022	Departure	P03921
VIA	6453	DE BEAUJEU	PQ	03 29 2042	Departure	P03921
VIA	6453	DORVAL	PQ	03 31 0909	Departure	P63021
VIA	6453	MONTREAL CENTR	PQ	03 31 0929	Arrive In-Transit	P63021
VIA	6453	CABIN E	ON	04 06 0623	Departure	P74031
VIA	6453	TORONTO UNION	ON	04 06 2326	Arrive In-Transit	P08831
VIA	6453	TORONTO UNION	ON	04 07 2315	Arrive In-Transit	P08831
VIA	6453	TORONTO UNION	ON	04 09 0621	Arrive In-Transit	P74031
VIA	6453	TORONTO UNION	ON	04 14 0621	Arrive In-Transit	P74031
VIA	6453	TORONTO UNION	ON	04 14 2320	Arrive In-Transit	P08831
VIA	6453	TORONTO UNION	ON	04 21 0621	Arrive In-Transit	P74031
VIA	6453	TORONTO UNION	ON	04 21 2320	Arrive In-Transit	P08831
VIA	6453	OTTAWA	ON	03 27 2232	Arrive In-Transit	P03921
VIA	6453	DE BEAUJEU	PQ	03 28 2021	Departure	P03921
VIA	6453	DE BEAUJEU	PQ	04 02 0713	Departure	P05121
VIA	6453	CABIN E	ON	04 03 0623	Departure	P74031
VIA	6453	TORONTO UNION	ON	04 04 0621	Arrive In-Transit	P74031
VIA	6453	TORONTO UNION	ON	04 05 0621	Arrive In-Transit	P74031
VIA	6453	TORONTO UNION	ON	04 10 0623	Arrive In-Transit	P74031
VIA	6453	TORONTO UNION	ON	04 10 2353	Arrive In-Transit	P08831
VIA	6453	COTEAU	PQ	05 08 2016	Departure	P03921
VIA	6453	OTTAWA	ON	05 09 2232	Arrive In-Transit	P03921
VIA	6453	COTEAU	PQ	05 10 2017	Departure	P03921
VIA	6453	MONTREAL CENTR	PQ	05 12 0927	Arrive In-Transit	P63021
VIA	6453	BLOOMFIELD ROA	ON	05 14 0944	Departure	P07231

Most of this should be self-explanatory. The fifth column has the month, day, time of reading. The last column is the train number P039 = train #39, a Montreal-Ottawa train. I think the last two digits are CN designations for what region the train is in. You can see 21=Quebec and 31=Ontario.

There's a photo of VIA 6453 on Railpictures.ca from May 14 here. I'd embed a thumbnail but their linking policy is very strict.

I know railfans have complained in the past about the many advertisement-wrapped VIA engines such as the CBC engine, the Spiderman 2 engines, and especially the hated Loto-Quebec engine, but I suspect the complaints will return about the uniform appearance of the refurbished engines. Personally I always liked to see a wrapped engine as it was "something different". Now VIA 6453 is the only "different" engine around and soon it will have its turn to get a make-over and look just like everyone else. It's a little sad.