Canadian Railroads > Shortline Sunday on the CBNS

Once the MLW era ended on the Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Rwy., many fans wrote it off as any kind of destination. Having ignored most of that era myself, and since it was practically in my back yard, I was determined not to miss any other "era" on the CBNS, no matter how dull it might seem at the time. The ex-BN GP50 phase was next, and then RailTex (or was it Rail America by then?) became a Helm leasing customer, with four ex-CSX SD45-2s running on the road freights (305 and 306) between Truro and Sydney each day. I think these are still the only 20-cylinder diesels to have operated primarily in Canada to this day (not counting CN's WC SD45s which weren't really regulars anyway).

A friend and I headed out early from Halifax one Saturday in July, 2001 to chase the freight from Stellarton to the meet and then back west again. We didn't have any idea what the power would be, except that it would likely include the 45s on one train or the other. As it turned out, we were very lucky to get all three SD45-2s that were actually in Helm paint on the eastbound that morning. We started with the fresh crew in New Glasgow and shot multiple locations, including my favourite, at Merigomish shown here.

As 306 was rolling east, its westbound counterpart 305 departed from Sydney with 24 loads of coal. We got wind that the meet would be at River Denys Siding, so jumped ahead to shoot them coming up the grade. The most memorable aspect of this scene was the sound the engines were making as they climbed the grade past us. Long before they came into view, we could hear a howl off in the woods, and once they got next to us, it was obvious that it was the GP18 making most of the racket. The meet itself was at the inaccessible west end of the siding, so this was the only shot of this power we would get that day since the crews swapped trains, but kept their power. BTW, the 912, still in Seaboard paint, was my nemesis. It ALWAYS seemed to be leading when I visited the CBNS, so I was quite happy to see it in behind the GP18.

This was also the last time I saw the GP18 running. Years after I took the slide, I was looking at it more carefully and noticed that the rear radiator fan is missing! Could they have been running this thing with only half the cooling system operational? It was in the dead line in Sydney in 2006, and scrapped on site some time after that. The SD45-2s ran until about 2008, and then were delivered to CN to be taken to a scrapyard in Moncton, NB. A friend of mine was working as conductor on 407 the day they picked up the Helm units in Truro. He said they got a message from power control to take one of their units off line because they were picking up two 3600 HP units from the CBNS. I guess power control didn't get the memo that they were now just 200 tons of dead weight.

GTD



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/17 17:44 by cn6218.

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Well-done photos. Your backstory made them even better.
Bob

Great shots. The missing rad fan on the Geep is really odd. As you say, how did it cool itself adequately?

As for your comment about 20 cylinder EMDs in Canada, I think you're forgetting the years of WC ownership of the Algoma Central. There were SD45s and F45s assigned to the ACR.

Ken Goslett



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/17 04:09 by kgmontreal.

kgmontreal Wrote:
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> I think you're forgetting the years of WC
> ownership of the Algoma Central. There were SD45s
> and F45s assigned to the ACR.
>
I wondered about that. Thanks for the definitive answer.

GTD