Canadian Railroads > In The Aftermath of the Storm

After last Sunday/Monday's blizzard, we had a good run of cold, but clear weather for the rest of the week.  Tuesday's 120 was late enough that I was able to intercept the train at the East Mines Trestle west of Truro, at 12:21.  CN was late to the whole AC traction and DPU thing, but they seem to be slowly trying out "new" concepts, such as placing a DPU in the middle, and then another at the end of the train, as they did on this occasion.

GTD

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Just before 2 pm, train 120 had reached Bedford, NS on the approach to Rockingham Yard.  GP38-2W 4768 behind the single ES44AC was going to become a new Rockingham switcher, but the crew used it for one day, it failed, and spent the rest of the week sitting at the yard office, waiting to be sent back to Montreal.  At the rear of the train was track inspection boxcar CNIS 412060 just ahead of 2888.  CN has a fleet of these continuously inspecting the track geometry in certain critical corridors, one of which is Halifax to Chicago.

GTD



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/21 06:30 by cn6218.

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Nice series.
JB

Those "towers" of rocks are interesting...do they mean anything ?

DTrainshooter Wrote:
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> Those "towers" of rocks are interesting...do they
> mean anything ?

No, it's just somebody's little "project".  Some of them are as tall as I am, and quite a bit skinnier!

GTD

How do the inspection cars work? Do they do a digital recording which is analyzed live or later? I'd assume they don't print out the old paper tapes with graphs. Since the car was coupled to the locomotive, was there a way to make readings from the Loco?

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

Edit: I see you captioned them as "continiously" inspecting".



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/21 13:28 by wabash2800.

Here's some info from CN's website:  CN’s Autonomous Track Inspection Program | cn.ca

I suspect it records data continuously and then uploads it when it has a connection, flagging any problem locations.  By "continuously" I meant that one car was assigned to each corridor, shuttling back and forth on one train or another.  The car doesn't have to be next to a locomotive, it probbaly just makes switching easier if it isn't buried in a block of traffic.

GTD

Thanks for the information and the link GTD.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com