Canadian Railroads > Miserable Monday's...A Not So Bad Afternoon at Jasper

Once in a while, between October and June of each year, the sun actually might come out for a few moments in Alberta.  January 24, 1970 was such a day; and perfect for catching one of my favourite lash-ups. An F7 leading a SD40, typically used on CN's hotshot 217 & 218 trains of that era. Bonus for me was 9132, still in classic green and gold, flying white flags, and stopped at Jasper for its crew change. Richard Yaremko

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Great catch. I like the freight cars too, with an express box on the head end. Thanks for sharing.

F-7 9132 retained its original color   until retirement in 1972

We should all have such a miserable day train-shooting.
Fred

The white flags on 9132 are interesting. I'm trying to recall when CN finished installing CTC west of Edmonton AB. 

For a time, CP and CN had different interpretations of the "display flags" rules in the Uniform Code. If there was any train order territory on a subdivision of track, CP required all Extra trains to display white flags or markers, in CTC territory, no flags or lights. CN was different, white markers and sometimes flags were displayed in CTC territory.

My recollection of the CN west of Jasper in the early 1970's was that CN had installed power switches at one end of many sidings, making the sidings directional. Whether they had a spring switch or a hand throw switch at the other end I don't know.

A few of the signals from that era survive on the CN, searchlights on a tall mast for the main track, with a subsidiary arm on the same mast close to ground level with a single aspect for trains leaving the siding.

The Albreda (Jasper to Blue River), Clearwater and Ashcroft subs were converted from ABS to CTC between 1970 and 1972.  The Yale Sub had been CTC from Port Mann to Boston Bar for many years already, with a spring switch at the west end and a power switch at the east end.  So eastbounds always got the main at a meet and the westbounds took the hole.

Chris Rye,
Atlin.