This Day, 27 Years Ago

Greg Brewer took this slide of CN 2338 in Moncton, NB on June 17, 1984.

CN 2338 has had a bit of a charmed life. It is an MLW M-636 (class MF-36b) built in 1971. It was retired on June 4, 1996 but unbelievably was un-retired twice in 1996 before finally being retired on January 23, 1998.

It was configured in 1999 to be an emergency generator for the MacMillan Yard diesel shop in Toronto, Ontario as part of CN's Y2K preparations. It was not needed, but remained in the yard for years afterward. There was a lot of railfan discussion about what would be done with CN's last big MLW unit.

Amazingly, CN 2338 was sold in late 2010. It was sold to Railroad Power Leasing and became RRPX 2338. It arrived in Buffalo, New York on November 9, 2010. RRPX already had three other M636s among other Alco products. I believe RRPX 2338 is going to the Claremond Concord Railroad in New Hampshire but I could be mistaken.

The new CN 2338 is a GE ES44DC. I haven't had the pleasure of shooting it yet, as it is pretty much brand new. Here is the new CN 2338, photographed on July 31, 2012.

CP 8743

In honour of the cold day outside here in Winnipeg, here's a shot of CP 8743 on a cold day in Fredericton, NB. This slide was shot by Greg Brewer in January 1984. You can just imagine the crisp snow crunching underfoot. There are a few long icicles dangling from the former shoe factory in the background.

CP 8743 was built in May 1957 for CP by the Montreal Locomotive Works. In 1989, a few years after this slide was taken, she was rebuilt with a chop nose and renumbered to CP 1865. 1865 soldiered on for a few more years until she was sold to the Ottawa Central Railway in December 1998.

She was captured in OCR livery in May 2008 at Ottawa Central's Walkley Yard by Mark Chouinard.


Anyone know what the eventual disposition of Ottawa Central 1865 was?

The current CP 8743 is a GE ES44AC built in late 2005.

CP 1814 Revisited

I wrote about CP 1814 back in December 2008. I found another slide of 1814 that I wanted to share. Here's a slide by Greg Brewer showing CP 1814 in Fredericton, NB in the Canadian Pacific yard, back in January 1984.

Clearly it is late in the day, as the sun is low and in the west. CP 1814 is wearing the white flags of an extra. In fact, it looks like the white classification light above the number board is lit as well. A crewman is visible on the other side of the short hood.

I like this slide, because readers know I love MLW/Alco units, but I also like the slide because of what is on the left side of the slide - a glimpse at the yard itself. Here's that portion of the slide.

You can see an engine house? just peeking out on the left side of the image. The foundation of the engine house was just broken up last year when the station was being refurbished. I was told the workers couldn't believe how thick the concrete was.

Next is a small building, purpose unknown, with what looks like a snowplow roughly in the middle of the image. There are a few other tracks back there, including one that goes to what appears to be a loading ramp just to the left of the engine railing.

The large building in the back was the Palmer-McLellan Shoe Company, and the building still exists today as a general purpose office building, facing on Aberdeen Street. A major tenant is the Grand & Toy office supply company, and it holds a Salvation Army thrift store as well.

EDIT: Peter Gough told me what the large building in the back of the slide was.

This Day, 27 Years Ago

This slide was taken in Fredericton, NB 27 years ago today (January 17, 1984) by Greg Brewer. CP 4221 is in front of the Devon station just north of the train bridge linking the south and north sides of Fredericton.

There are a few things to note. CP 4221 is flying white flags indicating that it is an extra. Based on Greg's slides it seems that the C424s were around Fredericton during this time, prior to the arrival of the RS18s and later the RS23s.

Also note the block signals behind the unit, which appear to be turned parallel to the tracks. I wonder what they were protecting, pointing that way?

CP 4221 was built by the Montreal Locomotive Works as a C-424 in 1965 and was owned by Canadian Pacific for its entire career. It was retired in March 1997 and scrapped.

There is a really interesting photo of it on Railpictures.net showing it leading a picnic train on my birthday in 1991 in New York state, with some passenger cars and RDCs trailing.

CN 1765

Happy new year!

This slide from Greg Brewer shows CN 1765 and the rest of a plow train in the Devon yard in Fredericton, NB in January 1984. You can see that the plow is on the long hood end, which is the Front of an RSC-14.

Like many RSC-14s, CN 1765 noodled around the Maritimes on various branch lines. It did a stint in Newfoundland at the Port-aux-Basques standard gauge yard. As you can see, it was in Fredericton in 1984 and I have a Bill Linley shot of it in Millville near Nackawic in 1983. I also have a record of it in Halifax in September 1990.

CN 1765 holds the distinction of being the power for the last CN train to Woodstock, NB on March 26, 1987. It had just a caboose on the way to Woodstock, and came back with two empty flour cars from Karnes Bakery and a covered hopper. CN service to Woodstock ended on April 1 of that year when ice from the spring flood took out the east span of CP's bridge at Upper Woodstock (credit to Brian Barchard, I think, for this information).

The CN Cyclopedia shows that CN 1765 was built as RS-18 3864 in 1960. It was rebuilt and renumbered in 1975 by replacing the 4-axle trucks with 6-axle (middle un-powered) trucks and reducing the horsepower from 1800 to 1400. She was retired on September 30, 1993 but served a short second life with the Cape Breton & Central Nova Scotia Railway before being retired again in late 1995. CN Lines says she was used for parts, and presumably she has been scrapped.

Going For A Spin

Here's a great Greg Brewer slide from November 3, 1984.

CN 2519 is taking a spin on the turntable in CN's Island Yard in Saint John, NB. It looks like Greg was shooting facing east, just south of the yard.

You can see where the turntable was, on this car control manual page.


CN 2519 was built in 1973 as an M-420(W) (W for wide) and was put into class MR-20a by CN. In 1986-87 it had its weight and fuel capacity reduced to enable it to run on branch lines. I believe those were reversed in late 1994.

CN Lines says it was leased to RaiLink of Southern Ontario in 1997, and retired from CN on February 13, 1998. It was sold to the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad in New Hampshire in 1998, and sold again the Southern Railroad of New Jersey in early 2004. The site referenced still has it and two other ex-CN M420s on the roster.

Anyone know when the turntable was removed from the Island Yard? There is no trace of it now. Locomotives are turned on the nearby wye, just as the Acadian passenger train was when it was in operation.

Backgrounds

I received my scans back from ScanCafe yesterday, so expect a batch of old photos to start appearing here soon.

I am starting to rename the files with meaningful names, and I noticed something interesting in the background of this otherwise normal slide of CN 2531 in Moncton (by Greg Brewer).

Notice the passenger cars in the background? Here's the relevant part of the slide:

The scan didn't quite work out for this slide. The cars really don't have a big bend in them!

I thought, "yellow cars, yellow cars, I've seen those before."

Then I remembered - a couple of the Salem & Hillsborough passenger cars were painted yellow when they were received. Here's a bad scan of an Al Howland picture:

This makes a lot of sense, because Greg's slide was shot on June 17, 1984, just prior to the start up of operations for the Salem & Hillsborough Railway.

Moral: Keep an eye on the backgrounds!

CP 1814

Brian Barchard, another Alco-MLW fan, sent along this photo of CP 1814: "Here is a photo I shot of 1814, April 29th, 1989, at MP 37 of the Gibson Sub., near Stone Ridge, leading 1842, with 21 cars.......9 for Florenceville and 12 for Nackawic."


Compare that to this Greg Brewer photo of CP 1814 in Devon on the north side of Fredericton, in January 1984.


1814 eventually joined the NBEC, becoming NBEC 1814. Who knows what it will become now that NBEC has been purchased by CN?