Canadian Railroads > CP diesel pilot question

Diesels by design are bi-directional regardless of the position of the control stand. I was always curious why CP road locomotives in the late 60's to late 70's had no pilots on the rear of the locomotive. Often on the road, for multiple reasons, the engineer might be forced to run the engine in reverse. This lack of a full pilot not only looks dangerous, but leaves the trucks and traction motors vulnerable to damage from debris on the track.

An example is this GP35 I photographed in Windsor, Ontario in Aug 1978. 

Did any other RR's follow this practice? Just curious

Brian N.

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/21 15:53 by briancdn.

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My guess is that it was in for servicing...maby a combo changeout...and it was being moved around in the terminal. FRA (and I'm sure Canada) requires pilot plates between three and four inches above the rail on both ends.

Dick Samuels

EMDSW-1 Wrote:
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> My guess is that it was in for servicing...maby a
> combo changeout...and it was being moved around in
> the terminal. FRA (and I'm sure Canada) requires
> pilot plates between three and four inches above
> the rail on both ends.
>
> Dick Samuels

Nope, this is the way they were built and operated for many years.
Operating LHF was almost an emergency procedure!

PHall Wrote:
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> EMDSW-1 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > My guess is that it was in for servicing...maby
> a
> > combo changeout...and it was being moved around
> in
> > the terminal. FRA (and I'm sure Canada)
> requires
> > pilot plates between three and four inches
> above
> > the rail on both ends.
> >
> > Dick Samuels
>
> Nope, this is the way they were built and operated
> for many years.
> Operating LHF was almost an emergency procedure!

Does that mean they would normally turn them in service then?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/21 02:44 by Hexagon789.

Does that mean they would normally turn them in
> service then?

I would presume so. You simply couldn't run a train long hood forward on the road engines with no rear pilot. As I said, I don't know why the locos were built that way. All the big CP MLW's came with no rear pilots. See this photo from RRpicure Archives (by Joseph Bishop) as an example. I thought I could easily find shots from my own collection, but of course like any good roster shooter I never shot them from the back! I've seen C-424's with and without the rear pilot. I don't remember if the first SD40's had them or not.

As far as FRA rules, the big MLW's were used on the D&H to Bingamton and to Chicago to Soo's Bensenville yard in the 1980's, so I guess as long as they were pointed in the right direction it was acceptable. Trailing units could be faced either way. 

It made no sense to me, it didn't save much weight or cost, and limited the use of the power. I guess it was to discourage the crew from trying to run a train long hood forward, but if there was a good reason CN would have done it as well.

Brian N.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/21 05:51 by briancdn.

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On CP there was a distinction between locomotives with rear pilots and ones without.  A locomotive with twin headlights, classification lights and a pilot was classified as a DRS "Diesel Road Switcher" while one with a single headlight, no classification lights and no rear pilot was a DRF "Diesel Road Freight" locomotive.

When leading long hood forward, a DRF was limited to 25 mph, and 15 mph over road crossings without gates and lights.

Several incidents took place on CP regarding road crossings and DRF's on CP.  The family of an elderly couple who were killed at an ungated road crossing in BC succesfully sued CP by claiming they could have survived if they had been struck by a locomotive with a rear pilot which would have deflected their car away from the tracks, instead the car remained crushed under the rear deck of a DRF (an CP SD-40 in this case) 

After that date, CP added pilots and twin headlights to locomotives not so equipped.

The pilot could be simply a flat plate added to the rear of the locomotive. CP used a formed steel pilot plate on the front of the locomotive, visible on the front of the GP35 and later added a flat plate onto which as small snow plow was attached.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/21 15:17 by eminence_grise.

"After that date, CP added pilots and twin headlights to locomotives not so equipped."

Any idea what that date was? I never saw a CP C-630M, M-630 or M-636 with a rear pilot. I know many of the C-424's got one. So I'd guess that date was late 80's or early 90's?
Brian N.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/21 10:46 by briancdn.

And none of the true CP SD40 and -2 family ever got twin rear beams

Charls Wrote:
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> And none of the true CP SD40 and -2 family ever
> got twin rear beams

The SD40's got a flat plate pilot.

briancdn Wrote:
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> It made no sense to me, it didn't save much weight
> or cost, and limited the use of the power. I guess
> it was to discourage the crew from trying to run a
> train long hood forward, but if there was a good
> reason CN would have done it as well.
>

I remember seeing some M-636s in Moncton without any sort of rear pilot too, so it wasn't just a CP thing.  Of course I can't find a photo. ;-)

GTD

briancdn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Does that mean they would normally turn them in
> > service then?
>
> I would presume so. You simply couldn't run a
> train long hood forward on the road engines with
> no rear pilot. As I said, I don't know why the
> locos were built that way. All the big CP MLW's
> came with no rear pilots. See this photo from
> RRpicure Archives (by Joseph Bishop) as an
> example. I thought I could easily find shots from
> my own collection, but of course like any good
> roster shooter I never shot them from the back!
> I've seen C-424's with and without the rear pilot.
> I don't remember if the first SD40's had them or
> not.
>
> As far as FRA rules, the big MLW's were used on
> the D&H to Bingamton and to Chicago to Soo's
> Bensenville yard in the 1980's, so I guess as long
> as they were pointed in the right direction it was
> acceptable. Trailing units could be faced either
> way. 
>
> It made no sense to me, it didn't save much weight
> or cost, and limited the use of the power. I guess
> it was to discourage the crew from trying to run a
> train long hood forward, but if there was a good
> reason CN would have done it as well.
>
> Brian N.

Yeah, it didn't make much sense to me either but I assumed there was some reason behind it

Posted from Android

As delivered in the 1960's, CP intended the GP35's and C-424;s to be used in fast freight service in multiples . In time, these locomotives were demoted to local freight service where they would operate in single unit service.

eminence_grise Wrote:
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> As delivered in the 1960's, CP intended the GP35's
> and C-424;s to be used in fast freight service in
> multiples . In time, these locomotives were
> demoted to local freight service where they would
> operate in single unit service.

I have some remarks to add to this thread; incomplete, but will steer you in the right direction. Phil's comments about DRF vs. DRS are correct, so the GP30, GP35, and SD40 were DRF, lacking rear pilots. As well, the end plates/end sheets were shallow, barely below the bottom of the draft gear. This was also the case on CN SD40 production, and the earlier QNS&L SD40 (a pair of which became CP 5400, 5401). So it's a GMD thing. CP's similar-looking GP38ACs (3000-3020) had the full rear lights and pilot kit as DRS units. Because of the fitting of the distinctive CP plow pilot, you can't see the end sheets to know their configuration. Phil's response suggests it was a kind of "passage of time" issue, but it's more specific than that. When CP decided to retire the old yard switchers, to replace them with rebuilt GP7/9 units (the 1500 and 1600 series starting in 1980), the consequence was that they found themselves short of properly-equipped B-B road switchers. They solved this in two ways: all GP30, GP35, and C-424 were converted to road switchers, by fitting with plow pilots, installation of horizontal twin headlights in the case of the C-424 (the Geeps already had twin verticals), illuminated number boards (single on the MLW), and single-lens class lights. They started rebuilding GP7/9 in 1980, my earliest shot of an RF to RS conversion is a C-424 in 1981. As this would only produce about 75 road switchers, CP also ordered GP38-2, 115 of them from 1983-1986.
As for a comment that CP's SDs didn't get twin rear headlights, this is generally accurate, but specifically limited. For example, 5824 (and others, I don't have full numbers) was outfitted with twin headlights on the long hood, ditch lights, no number boards (this is a correction from my first posting, once I dug out the scans), and rear pilot. It ran out of Kamloops to Ashcroft as the road switcher, where it could not be turned.
I don't think (I stand to be corrected) that CP ever actually extended the rear end sheets/plates. On SD40-2 production, GMDD (I may have the GMD to GMDD identity change mis-timed here) had started to use the deeper end sheet reaching close to the rail head. They actually started using these in their last SD40 production for QNS&L, some of which ended up on CP as the 5402-5414. If I ever get the frigging thing finished, this will be in my second CP SD book; the shallow end sheets are covered in my first one. For once I can say, "I wrote the book." Not any smarter for it, just made a lot of notes from lots of photos. I always did shoot uncoupled rear-end shots, for modelling purposes. I never ended up modelling any of these! Oh, well.
I hope these remarks are instructive; it will lead to further information and corrections, I'm sure.
Fred



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/21 22:22 by feclark.

Charls Wrote:
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> And none of the true CP SD40 and -2 family ever
> got twin rear beams

Just to add to my previous contribution, and to be specific about twin sealed-beams on CP SD40-2, I found a couple of scanned shots of 5824, and 5708, both SD40-2, and both in service as road switchers at Ashcroft, BC. A few things to note are that the vertical twin headlight is adapted to the base of the old single headlight, which is closer to the top light, there are no number boards installed on these, unlike the B-B road switcher conversions from road freight, and there are no class lights and never were. Those circular blanks near the top are actually for accessing the radiator plumbing. Without looking them up, 5824 was 2010 or earlier (K64), and 5708 is after that, and before 2015, when I got the DSLR.
Fred

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what an informative thread and contributions!

I always wondered about the DRF and DRS distinction

I thank you all for your contributions to this thread, it's amazing the knowledge that is shared on T/O. It's great to learn these details years after taking the original slides.

Brian N.