Canadian Railroads > "We'll Get Around to Painting It Eventually"

121 gets out of Halifax at 19:56 on June 26, 2015.  The former UP (née CNW) C40-8 has been hastily renumbered 2019 by somebody at the shop with a spray bomb, and the GE has been pressed into service without waiting for a corporate paint job.

The engineer is getting a run on Bedford Hill, a few miles of 1.5% grade leaving Halifax.  Surprisingly, this is the steepest mainline grade on CN's "traditional" system (BC Rail grades are much heavier).  It was built at a time when getting the railway built at minimal cost, rather than long term operating costs, was the governing principle.  This was unlike many of CN's lines in the Rockies and out west (see Photobob's post from yesterday), which were built after the CPR and needed to be able to compete on operating cost if they were going to survive.  As it turned out, they all went bankrupt and became wards of the State (CN creation in 1919), but the superior engineering is now paying off a century later with lower operating costs.

GTD



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/20 06:25 by cn6218.

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give that unit a 5 gallon paint job, it'll be good as new.
Doug