Canadian Railroads > MLW Monday's-Out Of The Dark

The last week of April 1970, finds MLW M630 4579 exiting the west portal of Connaught Tunnel at Glacier BC to a winter landscape. This five mile long bore under the Selkirk Mountains was the longest in North America, when opened for operations on December 16, 1916, then eclipsed by Great Northern's eight mile new Cascade Tunnel in December 1928.

In 1970, control of Connaught's ventilation system was managed at its west end with an operator and fuelled by bunker oil. New Crowsnest Pass to Robert's Bank coal train operations have only been running for a few round trips and already trackside snow is getting black from dust whipped off loaded cars by the tunnels draft.

Richard

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What a great shot sir!

Locotrol2

The M-630's cooling system didn't do well in the Connaught tunnel. Even when new, the radiator water would heat up and boil over during the 1% climb westward through the tunnel.

These locomotives had a large and very loud gong (just like a high school fire bell) on the back of the control console.

I worked many trips as a head end brakeman on coal trains through the tunnel. Usually about halfway through the tunnel, an overheat sensor in the cooling system would start an alarm. At first, it was subtle, just the odd "ding" on the gong but usually this was followed by a constant loud ringing. Once out of the west portal, there was about 1500 feet to the water hose attached to
Glacier station. We always lived in hope that the massive intake of fresh air would reset the overheat sensor, but this was not usually the case.

Very early in my railroad career, I learned how to refill locomotive radiators with a garden hose, reset various reset buttons and restart the prime mover.

I should point out that in the early 1970's, there were still a few locomotive firemen around. Sometimes they would do this, other times they simply refused. CP had removed all the gangways between locomotives in the 1960's in order to prevent firemen from going back to service the locomotives, and although the gangways were restored after some fatalities, many "protected" (pre-1955) firemen refused to go back.Note that the lead unit has no gangway. The trainmen were paid nothing for servicing and restarting, however by 1968, engineers were promoted from the trainmen ranks, and if we wanted the engineers to train us later on, we needed to be known as "helpful" train crew.

Getting back to the M-630'S and Connaught tunnel. Usually, at least one locomotive on the head end would have boiled over and shut down. Early on in the 1970's, head end trainmen did not have portable radios, so we had to "spot" the trailing locomotives next to the garden hose spigot using hand signals. Next, you had to climb deep into the carbody to remove the pressure cap off the radiator filler. This was exactly like taking the radiator cap off an overheated car or truck, only larger and more awkward. Often, you got soaked and nearly scalded doing so. Then it was, put the garden hose in the radiator and watch until water was visible in the sight glass.

While water was trickling into the radiator tank, you would restart the locomotive. Making sure the locomotive was isolated and various reset buttons in the operating cab and carbody were reset, you would then go to the "start station" on the side of the carbody. These locomotives had "air start", which let out a very loud shriek. If the 251 Alco prime mover was going to start, it would roar to life, pumping huge clouds of black smoke out the exhaust stack. Although filling the radiator was a miserable task, starting the engine was fun, although I'm sure I lost some of my hearing doing so.

With luck, the rest of the journey to Revelstoke would be without incident.

Stalls and delays involving M-630's in coal train service caused CP to transfer them to Eastern lines as soon as the GMDD SD40-2's had proven reliable. The SD40-2's also starved for air in Connaught tunnel, but they usually kept pulling.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/15 07:57 by eminence_grise.

It appears that there is somebody in the right-hand window of the building. Was there a watchman at the tunnel ventilator, what were the tank cars for, fuel for power supply to the ventilating fans??? Doug

Great photo! The tress and power lines have taken over the shot now...
-Trevor

When the tunnel was built in 1910, the Illeillewaet River was diverted west of the tunnel portal. Of course, rivers have a tendency to return to their original course. To the right of the tunnel portal is a break in the rock cutting. That is the original course of the river, and in the early 1930's, the river broke through the banks of the diversion and flowed into the tunnel, filling it with rubble and closing the line for a few days.