Canadian Railroads > Switcher Saturday - Cando 4021 (ex-CP) at East Edmonton

Last Saturday, May 12, I was at East Edmonton and pleased to see Cando Rail Services CCGX 4021 outside the Imperial Strathcona refinery, sitting on CN's team track, with all doors closed and the unit intact. Cando not infrequently has a unit parked here, but in some state of disassembly as repairs are in progress.
1. This was the nicest roster shot, with nearly broadside, early morning light on the trucks. The nose was still in shade at this point.
2. To paraphrase from Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer", I say "Still a man he sees what he thinks he sees, and disregards the rest". I have seen several Cando chopnose GP9s over the years, 4000-series, all ex-CN GP9RM. So I didn't register the obvious spotting feature, the CP eyebrow number boards over a flat cab face. As I was looking at the details on the side, I saw the tell-tale metal strip that used to carry the yellow stripe across the air intakes behind the cab. Bingo, ex-CP. As indicated in the 2018 TSG, this is former CP 8246, nee CP 8825. Some of the red still shows here and there, especially on intake shutters, and some peeling black paint, as you'll see in the third shot.
3. On the step fairing ahead of the cab there is a plate; the close-up shows it to be a CEMR rebuilder's plate, quite nifty with the bison head logo. I'm not sure what CEMR/Cando did by way of rebuilding, though I'd guess the concave plow pilot is theirs, rather than CP's characteristic two-stage convex plow. One more shot to come.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/18 12:41 by feclark.

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4. I returned to the spot a couple of hours later to shoot it once the sun had swung around to light the nose and cab face; the trade-off, of course, was that the frame now casts shadows on the top part of the trucks. Drop equalizers on the Alco/MLW trucks work better in this light, but there you go. On the first visit, I was there just long enough to draw the usual visit from a red Imperial Security pick-up truck as I was returning to my vehicle. He seemed okay with me just taking a few pictures; they aren't always that broad-minded.
Fred



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/18 15:29 by feclark.

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Nice work!

611

Posted from iPhone

Fred, I was trying to find this location (the team track) on Google Earth, and did locate a couple possibilities (24th St.?), but what really caught my eye was a series of concentric tracks a bit south of the refinery. What is it and how does it work. Do you have any pictures of the operation? The satellite views didn't seem to have any cars present.

GTD

cn6218 Wrote:
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> Fred, I was trying to find this location (the team
> track) on Google Earth, and did locate a couple
> possibilities (24th St.?), but what really caught
> my eye was a series of concentric tracks a bit
> south of the refinery. What is it and how does it
> work. Do you have any pictures of the operation?
> The satellite views didn't seem to have any cars
> present.
>
> GTD

Geoff,
Sorry for the delay responding, but although I've checked off to be e-mailed about replies, I've just discovered that Gmail has been thinking this stuff is spam. So I've checked back a ways and found your reply. It is indeed on the east side of 24th St., accessed from Railway St. off 17th. St. If you mean the big oval of tracks in the SE quadrant of the diamond, it's the Kinder Morgan oil train transloading facility that serves both CN and CP. I posted some shots of a CP oil train backing in, at https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?15,4493644,4493644#msg-4493644.
Fred



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/18 12:47 by feclark.