Canadian Railroads > MLW Monday RS-27

MLW never produced the RS-27. That dubious honour fell solely to Alco. The RS-27 was a 2400 h.p. pre-Century series roadswitcher that was not known for its reliability.

But in 1971 MLW did acquire a pair of RS-27 units from Union Pacific. MLW had received an order from the Aluminum Company of Canada's Roberval & Saguenay Railway for a pair of M-420TR units. This new model would have a switcher style end cab and be the first units to ride on the new two-axle MLW/Dofasco ZWT-2 truck. Delivery of the TR's was delayed and to placate the customer MLW acquired the pair of UP units and shipped them off to R&S as loaners.

The first photo shows the two UP units, which were former Alco demonstrators, arriving dead in tow at CN's Montreal Yard in the spring of 1971. This photo is from my collection and may have been taken by Chuck DeJean.

The second shot shows one of the units emerging from the paint shop at MLW a few weeks later. Because the units were going to the Roberval & Saguenay MLW painted them in what it thought was the R&S paint scheme. The maroon and silver (aluminum) colours chosen were those of the original R&S diesel scheme of 1950. Never mind that by 1971 R&S locomotives were yellow. Interestingly at that time MLW was using an ex-National Harbours Board unit to switch the plant while its normal switcher was down for repairs.

When the M-420TR units were finally delivered, R&S returned the RS-27 loaners to MLW. They were then sent to another favoured MLW customer PGE/BCOL. There the pair operated for a couple of years until again being returned to Montreal.

Thus we come to the third photo taken in 1975. MLW sold the units to the Devco Railway on Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. This time the units were repainted into an attractive green and yellow scheme. One of the units is shown here being delivered from the MLW plant in east end Montreal. The unit sits on the interchange track to CN with the MLW plant in the background. Devco was the fianl home of the units. They were scrapped there in 1984.

Ken Goslett

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Great recap...!

YY

Cool and fascinating post! Explains a little of the surprise I got when I was following a BCR freight from Squamish back towards North Van, and I stumbled across the 675 on a siding with a work train. I'll post the photos when I can. Thanks again!

Lee Hower - Sacramento



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/17 09:45 by mcfflyer.

Great shots and history. Unbelievable how it looks like they could have been taken today.

Michael

Great photos, interesting story.
t4p.

Terrific post Ken; amazing to get three different paint jobs on such rare units. I only managed a poor B&W shot through the fence at MLW, and a boxed in shot on the Devco after they were retired from service. Well done.

Brian N.

Thanks for the photos and info. Somewhere, I have a trade slide from a buddy's trip to Devco, and I'd always wondered where the RS27 came from.

The image of the Devco unit makes MLW look much larger than it was. It shared the site with General Electric which made large things like heat exchangers and possibly transformers in the buildings to the right of the picture.