Canadian Railroads > MLWs Still Working in 2019 - Pt. 1

The days of taking a 45 minute drive from Halifax to visit the Windsor &Hantsport to see working MLWs have been gone for more than 10 years now.  It now requires a bit more effort, travelling all the way to Matapédia, Quebec, but the effort was worth it last Friday when Société du Chemin de Fer de la Gaspésie (SFG) ran their regular roadswitcher job 565 from Matapédia to New Richmond under mostly sunny skies.  Until recently, SFG had four RS-18s (ex-NBEC, née CP) on the roster, but that has been supplemented with two more from the Charlevoix Rwy.  We arrived about 07:00, before the crew did, but another employee in the area told us they would be running that day, and there would also be a windmill train in the opposite direction later in the afternoon (that's why this is only Part 1).

The pair of RS-18-3bs was sitting in a stub track inside the wye, coupled to some cement hoppers, but once the crew arrived they uncoupled 1819, and proceeded out the west leg of the wye to the CN main line to pick up 3 empty cement hoppers and 11 empty woodchip cars (still bearing faded Southern Pacific lettering).  Once that task was accomplished, they headed back the way they had come and the 1868 was coupled onto the front of the train, giving us a low-nose leader.  Departure was a bit after 09:00, and the train made pretty good speed, about 25 to 40 mph, as far as I could tell from my pacing in the car.

We got pictures at numerous locations, aided by the speed limit on parallel Rt. 132, which is mostly 90 km/h.  Train 565 made stops at Escuminac to drop some woodchip cars, Nouvelle-Ouest to switch the lumber mill and drop the rest of the woodchip cars, and then they picked up another cement covered hopper at the transloading facility near Drapeau.  The images here were taken at Cross Point Sta. and Escuminac, while the video was shot coming past the VIA station in Carleton.

GTD

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Excellent photos. Thanks for sharing these.
Bob

Very nice..!!

Nice photos, and stellar conditions, too. You can't always count on that on a trip.
Fred

Gotta nominate # 1 for IOTD. Really nice. I like the paint schemes.

Ed