Canadian Railroads > Some MLW and a lot of other stuff Monday

This is a seres of 15 pictures taken on December 15, 1976. They show a CP westbound freight at Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC. You'll have a hard time to match this kind of variety in any locomotive and train consist today. You will also not be able to find a manifest freight where three-quarter of the cars (or more) are not laden with graffiti. Here none of them are.

There was a set of six locomotives at the head of this train. Picture #1 shows the leader, SD40 5504, followed by the M-636 4700, the first unit in that series for CP.

Picture #2: the third locomotive in the consist was SW1200RS 8112, still in the maroon and grey paint. It may have been being deadheaded.

The 8112 was followed by a set of three C-424 locomotives, 4215, 42xx (number not discernible) and 4218 (Picture #3).

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Picture #4 is a going-away shot of this terrific consist. The St. Annes station is in the background.

Now for the freight cars.

Picture #5 shows CP bi-level open autorack 540137. To me, these cars were much more interesting than the bland vandal-proof ones we have now.

Picture #6: 4-bay aluminum flat roof covered hopper CP 385529 (note the special limited-area washing applied to the reporting marks and data) and extended-side triple hopper CP 356014, probably loaded with coke.

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Picture #7 shows B&M 50' boxcar 78550 followed by a short CP gondola (the number seems to be 553462). Note that it has only three full panels in the centre section.

Picture #8 shows a short tanker, NLX 71206 in Allied Chemical markings. The product in the car has caused a frost layer to develop on the outside.

Picture #9 shows a couple of CP 40' boxcars, a car type once as common as dirt, and now you don't see them anymore.

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Picture #10 shows insulated/heated 40' boxcar CP 35637 plus a new BN 40' boxcar.

Picture #11 shows more coke (or coal) in two cars, a 348000-series coal gondola with drop-bottom doors, and another triple hopper like the one in Picture #6.

Picture #12: more tankers of styles long retired.

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Picture #13: Slab-side covered hopper CP 380865, followed by some intermodal flatcars.

Pictures #14 and #15: CP baggage car 27xx making what is probably its final journey (its number has been stricken), followed by caboose 434531, standard fare then but now very rare.

Hope you liked the variety!

Ray



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/15 15:02 by Ray_Murphy.

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The freight car photos are the best part of the post. Love the 348 series car ahead of the triple hopper with extended sides. If indeed that is coke, I wonder if it came from Lasalle Coke? Was Lasalle Coke still operating in 1976?

KG

kgmontreal Wrote:
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> If indeed that is
> coke, I wonder if it came from Lasalle Coke? Was
> Lasalle Coke still operating in 1976?

I think LaSalle Coke was pretty much defunct in 1976 (another source says it closed down completely in 1977), and I never saw cars like this along St. Patrick. Possibly they came from the port.

If the loads were coal, the only in-Canada sources of coal to the east of Montreal I knew about were in Nova Scotia, and I can't imagine they came from there. So again, the port is the probable originating point.

There were several of those drop-bottom gondolas in the Sortin yard awaiting scrapping at the time, so my photo may have been one of the last times I ever saw one in service.

Ray

Great photos Ray. Really like the variety in the cars. Great history lesson. Is the flatcar portion of the auto rack a NSC built car?

Thanks for posting!

Mike N.

Helo-Mech Wrote:
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> Is the flatcar portion of the auto rack a NSC built car?

The Morning Sun Color Guide states the 550000-series (tri-level autorack) flatcar was, and, although it does not state it explicitly, the flatcar of the 540000-series looks to be identical.

Ray