Canadian Railroads > Snow Shield Sunday

Somebody on another site was asking about snowshields above the central air intakes on GMD locomotives, which reminded me that there were at least 3 different variations on CN (not including the locomotives that were modified for plow service).

On a drab August 2, 1997 I photographed the 3 different types at the Fairview Roundhouse in Halifax.  Class GP40-2L 9400 sports the version that was used on the Canadian Cab locos, while SD40 5186 has the original spartan cab model.

The third type was only fitted to SD75I 5722, and only for a short while.

Something tells me not all the Dash-2s came from GMD with the snow shields, but that they were added later.  What about the SD40s (and GP40s)?  CP didn't seem to have them on their SD40-s, or they removed them after delivery.  What was different about CP?  I think Algoma Central had the shields.  What about QNS&L and other buyers.  CN did add them to the US SD40-2s they bought second hand, but the Grand Trunk SDs and GPs didn't get them.

GTD

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Here's a repost that had been one of my favorite photos of what I like about Canadian railroads, but turned out to be an anomoly in many ways. This is Boston Bar in the early 80's, before double track and some of the modernization projects for example. Note no snow shields and every locomotive has dynamic brakes, so many changes ahead.

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The shot of 5722 is new to me; never saw it, so that's neat. As for CN practice, all the SD40 and GP38-2 came with factory snowshields that followed the roof profile. This necessitated a little bulge on the engineer's side to accommodate the open door. All the -2 crew comfort/safety cab locos were retrofit with something CN appears to have developed. They cleared the rear cab doors just fine, but then needed a little notch for the top of the wiper arm, I think. QNS&L had no snowshields on their first batch of SD40, but had them on the later run that had the larger fuel tanks. As for CP, they got them factory-installed on the GP38ACs, and any other examples were retrofit. They didn't think the shields were that effective, so ditched the idea. It's somewhere in my CP SD40/40-2 book.
Fred