Canadian Railroads > First (Sunny) Sighting of a New 8300

A few of the eagerly anticipated SD75IACC rebuilds were in Halifax earlier this month, but either the weather didn't cooperate, they were buried in the consist, or ran as DPU, making the coveted roster shot an impossibility (yes, there's a little bit of sarcasm in that statement :-)

However on Tuesday this week, 8314 was on Z120 as the DPU, and due to a shortage of yard power, 522's crew grabbed it to do some work after they had finished yarding the rest of the train.

8314 is the former SD75I CN 5796, which I happen to have a picture of, leading Q120 across the fill at Birch Cove on January 26, 2011.

On February 25 the new AC conversion locomotive was sandwiched between two well cars at Moirs Mills, and then later in the morning posed for its roster shot after spotting 120's intermodal traffic at the Halifax Intermodal Terminal.  In the background are the three stacks of the Tufts Cove power plant, and various windmill tower parts on Pier 9.  The conversions appear to have kept the original Whisper Cabs they were delivered with.  The most noticeable changes seem to be the red marker lights front and back for DPU operation, PTC antennas on the roof, and small inverter cabinet on the walkway behind the cab on the left side.  I would guess they also had air conditioning added, but I haven't had a report on that yet.

GTD

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Nice shots, Geoff!  I was hoping UP would have rebuilt their massive fleet of SD70Ms.

texchief1

 

Nice. Anything that prolongs the life of a non-GE unit is a good thing.
Fred

What are those white  "things" above the front coupler, and why are they there ?

SZ

texchief1 Wrote:
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> Nice shots, Geoff!  I was hoping UP would have
> rebuilt their massive fleet of SD70Ms.
>
> texchief1
>
>

Same.  Wish BNSF would've rebuilt their massive fleet of SD70MAC's too... 

Steinzeit2 Wrote:
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> What are those white  "things" above the front
> coupler, and why are they there ?
>
> SZ
Those are chunks of snow, the unit has done some drift busting recently.

Posted from Android

Darren Boes
Lethbridge, AB
Southern Alberta Railfan

Well, since the unit arrived in town as a DPU, I don't think the drift busting was too recent, and it certainly didn't look like the usual front end accumulation [ see top photo ].  But you could be right about it being snow, in this case packed chunks of snow/ice knocked off the well cars or their contents, and transformed into shinier, more rounded forms by subsequent wind shaping and sunshine.  There's some evidence of the earlier state in the second photo.

Best regards, SZ

The good news is the rebuild did not sinificantly change the looks like some rebuilds.

Nice shots!