Canadian Railroads > MLW Monday C-424 Quintet

CP Rail's Sherbrooke Sub, which connected Montreal to Saint John, NB, was once a busy route.  During a spring day in April 1977 we chased four big freights between Farnham and Sherbrooke.  The second westbound is shown here speeding through Shanks with five C-424 units.

Ken Goslett



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/17 04:49 by kgmontreal.

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flying along, and "flying green".                 Doug

Boy, those were the days! I remember shooting 5 or 6 RS18's with a freshly chopped 1800 leading at Brookport one time.

I bet that sounded good!

Alec

dh1205 Wrote:
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> I bet that sounded good!
>
> Alec

Actually, as built, the C-424 didn't sound particularly good.  Unlike the 12cyl 244 and 12cyl 251 engines of RS-3 and RS-18 fame respectively, the 16cyl 251 in the C-424 didn't make much noise.  The C-424s just kinda went WHOOSH.  They sounded like the back end of a vacuum cleaner.  There wasn't the chug, bark or cough we associate with the Alco engine.  Those more interesting sounds didn't occur until the C-630, C-630M, M-630, C-636, M-636 and M-640.

Note that I said that the C-424 sound was flat as built.  Many such units received new governors as they aged and the electric governors do bring out the Alco bark a bit.  This is true of the C-424 and C-425 units on the Delaware Lackawanna.  They sound better now than they ever did.

Ken Goslett

kgmontreal Wrote:
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> The C-424s just kinda went
> WHOOSH.

So did the C628's. I remember pacing a wide-open Lehigh Valley 628 that sounded like that.

Oh, those 5" stripes sure livened up the nose, didn't they? Really nice use of the stretch of tangent.
Fred

CPR_4000 Wrote:
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> kgmontreal Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The C-424s just kinda went
> > WHOOSH.
>
> So did the C628's. I remember pacing a wide-open
> Lehigh Valley 628 that sounded like that.

Agreed.  The D&H C-628 units sounded like that too.

KG