Nostalgia & History > Last shot of a 630 on BC Rail

On a wind-blown night (note the flag)in October of 1990, I set up the tripod for a night shot outside the depot at Lillooet, BC. The Subject for the shot was M630W #723 and an SD40-2. This was the power set that had handled the day's Squamish-Lillooet wayfrieght and was tied up for the night in the yard.

By this late date, the once large fleet of MLW built 630's (C630M. M630, M630W) had been reduced to just 8 units, the others having been traded to GE as credit against the new -8's. Just a couple weeks after this photo was taken, the remaining 8 would also leave the property.

As it turned out, this would be the last photo I would take of a 251 powered 6 motor locomotive on the provincialy owned railway.

Brian E
http://elclip.net

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Cool Schtuff Brian!

Wasn't it fairly rare on the BCR to have a widenose M630W on the point?

I recall taking a night photo of the 720 North at Lilloet one evening as well!

Cheers,
Harry

Yeah Harry

The crews on the south end of the system in particular didn't seem to like those M630W'a on the point...

Yes yes, I know about you and the 720 Harry ... You need to save up your pennies and buy an OMI one for your collection.

As for this shot, just a few minutes before, I was on the other end of the station shooting a meet between this guy and Work Extra 715 rolling by with a ribbon rail train. Probably not the last meet of 6 Motor Alcos on the line, but not long before the last.

Brian E

One of the stories about the MLW wide cabs was that they did not have RCL equipment. Much of the BCR strategy included mid-train radio remotes. Was there some other reason for them not being on the point?

TCnR Wrote:
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> One of the stories about the MLW wide cabs was
> that they did not have RCL equipment. Much of the
> BCR strategy included mid-train radio remotes. Was
> there some other reason for them not being on the
> point?



Well, there is that. None of the 8 had RCL gear in them, but not all trains used remotes. By the 80's the crews on the mainline south of PG really didn't want these units used on the point. They complained of visiblity problems and also that they seemed to ride different than the std cab 630's...

I shot BCR a lot and only saw W's on the point of trains south of PG a handful of times. Up north was a different situation. The crews liked the big cab on the M420's...

Brian E

Check out the Video on the Crash National action on the ex BCR, middle page to the right side: http://news.yahoo.com/i/737;_ylt=AjeuTu8Wn8xHynZCPxTcLYqFM1IB;_ylu=X3oDMTA2NWJlcmlsBHNlYwN0bg--

Quite a bit of action with the wood chip cars being uprighted, almost brings tears to your eyes, awfie cold though.