Canadian Railroads > CP SW1200RS with Deflector Boards - Story Continued

On May 14, hoggerdoug posted up a TH&B Tuesday at
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?15,4792485
with the first photo showing a pair of CP SW1200RS units, 8164 and 8144 [?], in the background, with some sort of plate attached to the front handrails. Phil, eminence_grise, noted that these showed up on a few of these units running on the Grand River Railway/Lake Erie and Northern. hoggerdoug wondered if these were for safety, or for wind deflection, eminence_grise noted they were black and yellow stripes on the old paint, and red and white on CP Rail schemes. I made a few comments, and it took me longer than I thought it might, but here's some follow-up.

The pair of photos has the only shots of my own of such units, in this case 8143 and 8108, plus 7034, EB on a light engine move (likely Lambton to Agincourt) in the vicinity of Davenport and Dupont Streets in Toronto; November 20, 1976, time not noted. I have in the last few years discovered that this location is Howland, I think. By the way, 8143 sports small-diameter pipe, with conical cap, on the top of the hood, ahead of and to the right of the exhaust stacks; a roof shot I have of 8106, which also has this vent for whatever, shows it tight to the rear of the right-side radiator grille. The function is unknown; the huge roof vent just above the numeral 8 is surely for Avenue Collision's shop.

From my own collection, plus a quick perusal of the photos on the excellent Mountain Railway web site, I can put the following observations together. As to purpose, they are almost exclusively seen in the late October to March range, so it's not safety but weather, and likely a form of winterization. In most photos you can't tell, but one shot I have of 8130 shows the paint chipped, revealing plywood (maybe 3/8"), with the laminations evident at the edges.

Being set out on the handrails, apparently attached by u-bolts, they aren't as close as canvas shrouds, or the slats seen in hoggerdoug's photo of TH&B 55 in his original post. So maybe wind deflection, to prevent buildup of snow on the front platform/radiator intake, rather than simply temperature control, was the purpose. These are not seen on the SW yard units, so presumably an issue at road speeds. Thinking of how air moves past the edges of such a thing, I'd expect eddies around the edges to lead to snow packing in here anyway, I don't know.

They were variable as to paint style and matching with "host" locomotive. So the older tuscan and grey schemes had these boards in black and yellow, as Phil noted, but in some cases, inverted V-style, as on 8149 (block lettering; 1/13/74) and 8157 (script; 1/18/70), and in at least one case, diagonal only, on 8150 (script; 1/21/73, see Mtn Rwy site, with inverted V pilot; looks very funky). I have not seen any photos to show whether the back side was all black or all yellow.

Other sightings are in 5" diagonal red and white stripes; no examples in 8" stripes are known to me. In 5" stripes on a 5" stripe CP Rail locomotive, I've seen 8123 (3/23/78; but note on 6/03/79, an opening has been cut through this board at the pass-through, see Mtn Rwy site), 8136 (1/12/86), 8149 (2/01/75), 8151 (12/16/78), as well as the pair in my photos. Then there is 8150, which in Script on 7/11/76 had no board, on 10/22/76 had a red and white board (obvious mismatch with the Script paint!), and on 7/09/84 was in 5" paint with no board (supporting the seasonal interpretation of the board). Lastly, 5" stripes on the board, mounted to an 8" stripe locomotive, I've seen shots of 8108 (11/08/81), 8124 (1/12/86), 8130 (1/04/81), 8133 (12/14/85), and 8153 (12/01/84). As seen in the two photos I've posted, the back side is plain red; I've not posted photos that aren't mine, and thus permission for which I do not have.

One last note is that there is another winterization style seen on the 8100s, or 1200s as they became when rebuilt. So 8133, noted above with a board mounted to the rails, instead had a plain red, metal shroud mounted on the front radiator intake at Hantsport, NS, many years ealier, on 3/24/79. Such a shroud is also seen on 1272 at St. Luc on 3/26/88, and on 1273, again at Hantsport, on 3/01/94, suggesting the DAR portion of the CP system had these around for winter service (the high number series 1200s were assigned to those lines, I believe). Corrections and additions welcome.
Fred



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/19 09:55 by feclark.

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Fred, thanks for the explanation and info regarding the deflector boards.  8143 and the vent pipe you mention could very well be for a "watchman heater" to keep the unit warm if shutdown for a period of time..
Doug

hoggerdoug Wrote:
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> Fred, thanks for the explanation and info
> regarding the deflector boards.  8143 and the
> vent pipe you mention could very well be for a
> "watchman heater" to keep the unit warm if
> shutdown for a period of time..
> Doug

Makes sense; the Alco/MLW units carried them outside the hood, just ahead of the cab on the right side, but I guess the layout of the relevant features might make a difference. As an edit June 2, I ran across CN SW1200RS (1248, 1249) with watchman heaters installed outside the hood, just ahead of the cab, but high up off the walkway, unlike CP's MLWs. So maybe 8106 and 8143 are still a mystery.
Fred



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/02/19 10:59 by feclark.