Canadian Railroads > Fix It Friday - CN GMD1 Splits a Switch at Sarcee Yard

The subtitle could be "How many 'Men at Work' signs does it take to cover this off?" On April 25, 1982, I spent a glorious day shooting at CP's north-south Alyth Yard. When the sun swung around to the south around mid-day, it was time to head to CN's east-west Sarcee Yard to see what was available to shoot. I had read about split switches, and experienced them on Atlas Snap-Track turnouts on the model train, but never seen one before.
GMD1 1074 had apparently accomplished the feat in a WB move through the points, and was grounded. Three flags covered the approaches to the site, and you can see how much pull the moving locomotive applied to the ties as it caught the north rail on the wrong side. As you can tell, a kinder, gentler time when I could walk up to the site and take photos. I have no idea how long it took to rectify.
The only other one of these I ever saw was an empty bottle car at Algoma Steel; one of the members of TO was with me on that occasion, plus a third party who managed to get a spare shot. I don't know about posting that one.
Fred

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Looks like its taking a nap on the switch.............

The scary part is being the engineer that takes the throttle getting thoset things back up on the rail....they rock back and forth as you try to climb the reraling frogs and tie butts. Ideally you cut out the air in the truck you are working on so any use of independant brake won't slide the wheels.