Lafarge Winnipeg

My family and I went to the excellent Fort Whyte Alive centre to walk and see the wildlife. While we were walking over boardwalks and past marshes, my wife spotted some train cars in the distance. Fort Whyte is adjacent to the Lafarge cement plant and there was an industrial switch engine there too.

This pretty little engine is a GE 50-ton engine, built in October 1954.

The Lafarge facility is served by both CN and CP. It is at mile 7.4 of the CP La Riviere subdivision and is also on a spur from mile 5.0 of the CN Rivers subdivision.


As you can see, Lafarge has quite a few rails.

New Units for Windsor & Hantsport

Two "new" engines have been acquired for the Windsor & Hantsport Railway in Nova Scotia. These are Conrail painted GE B23-7 units. The two former Conrail engines (now relettered WHRC 1968 and 4069 under the numbers) arrived in Halifax this morning on train CN 120. They had spent several days in Moncton.

Here they are at Bayview Junction in Ontario.


Here they are in Tennessee, I believe.

The discussion on their journey is here.

"Two GE B23-7's are destined for the Windsor & Hansport RR. WHRC #1968
and 4079 both arrived in Louisville,KY on CSX on March 6, 2010. Both were most recently owned by the Nashville & Eastern RR and as far as I know never
turned a wheel in service. Both are in Conrail blue, with #1968 in nearly pure CR paint and markings while #4079 had the original number patched while in operation on NS and later had CR markings painted out when acquired by National Railway Equipment."

GE B Units On The Prairies

I had the distinct surprise of seeing GE B23-7 units in Regina last week. On June 11 I pursued CN 1412 to the CN yard in Regina. Once I crested the berm at the south end of the yard, I saw these two units.


The Savage Alberta Railway was a shortline created in June 1999 as Alberta RailNet, owned by North American RailNet. In 2005, CANAC purchased the railway, and on December 1 2006 CN bought it back.

I don't think I've ever seen a GE B unit before. It was a nice surprise to see two of them.

More mundanely, CN GP9 7261 was also there behind them. 7261 is a "mother" to "calf" or "slug" units. Note the extra hardware above the pilot to control "calf" units.