Snowplow and Spreader Info update

February 15th, 2011

After a comment left on my Snowplow, Spreader, SOO post by Steve Boyko from the blog Confessions of a Train Geek, I figured I should take a peek in my 2007 Trackside Guide and see what info there is in there about these two pieces of equipment. This is something I should have done in the first place. Oh well, better late than never I guess!

According to the guide, CP snowplow 401034 is a single track plow with wings and was built in November 1950 at CP Angus Shops in Montreal. Apparently all CP snowplows were built there. It was assigned to duty in Revelstoke.

The CP spreader 402853 was built in February 1928 by O.F. Jordan Company with Serial Number 698. It was built as a standard air-operated spreader type B for Ballast Spreader. The guide also says that it is assigned to Alyth(stored). It was numbered 406253 until 1930.

the CP snowplow 401022 that was to be sold for scrap/surplus on CP's website, it was built in October 1930 as a single track plow with wings. It was assigned to duty in Red Deer.Here is a link to the auction page. I can not guarantee how much longer it will be active.

Cheers,

Snowplow, Spreader, SOO

January 28th, 2011

That Friday after work on my way to my watering hole, I spotted something of interest in the yard at Alyth so I decided to stop to check it out. It was a CP snowplow and spreader.

The light was not good, so the pictures are a bit blurred and I tried to compensate as much as possible without increasing my ISO too high to prevent any graininess.

When I arrived at my observational headquarters, the hump was just pushing past my objective. On the hump were 6611 and 6614, both were SD40-2’s and both former SOO locomotives having retained their numbers when repainted with CP colours.

On the far siding were a few items of interest, some more than others.

For beginners, idling on the siding were SOO 6617 and CP 6609 which is a former SOO loco. Both are SD40-2’s and both were coupled together.

Next in line was bulkhead flat car number CP 421202 that was coupled to the nose of 1641 which is a GP9. Coupled on the back of 1641 was a GMD SW1200RS numbered 1154.

After that were the most interesting items there that evening, a snowplow and a spreader. The snowplow is numbered CP 401034. After seeing an identical snowplow, CP 401022, on CP’s website that was dated 1930 and being sold as scrap, I’m assuming that this one is also 1930’ish. The spreader was number 402853 and the interesting part about it was that there was no cab on it.

After that the light was quite insufficient for anymore pictures, so I headed towards my favourite watering hole for some prime rib, a cold beer, some pool and random chit chat with friends.

Cheers,

Lunch Time Track Work

October 5th, 2010

I decided to head down to Alyth Yard at lunch to see what was going on for train traffic. When I got there, there was no hump and no waiting trains. There was however a track maintenance crew working on the ballast down from the 12th Street Tower. I pulled out my camera and started shooting.

There was no action coming from the tamper so I turned to the ballast regulator who was spreading and, well, obviously regulating newly dumped ballast. Those suckers sure make a hell of a lot of noise. The attachment on the front is basically used to spread the ballast. Inside are many long rubber rods, I think they are rubber, that are attached to a spinning shaft. And as you can see in the second picture, rocks bounce around as it was spreading the ballast more evenly for the tamper. In the third picture the driver is making use of one of the “wing” plows to spread ballast.

Further up past 12th Street Tower were 3 ballast dumpers. I couldn’t get the complete reporting marks for all three, but the first one is CP 455162, the second is CP 4553## and the third is CP 455###.

These two pictures show the difference in the newer ballast and the existing lighter ballast.

The ballast regulator had stopped what it was doing for a few minutes and I saw that the tamper revved up and started moving towards me, so I walked down to meet up with it. In the background of the first picture, the two guys standing are the surveyors. One is behind the tamper’s laser levelling equipment and is holding the receiver of an RTK GPS surveying system. The little white space ship above his head is the GPS receiver mounted on a surveying rod. The control pad is out of sight. In picture two, the tamper is about to vibrate the ballast into place at one of the many switches in Alyth Yard. In the last picture the rods are still vibrating as they are pulled out and lowered a second time.

Shortly after that, an intermodal train came through from BC heading to the Sheppard Intermodal facility. In the lead was CP 8873 followed by CP 9732, an ES44AC and AC4400 respectively. Bringing up the rear was CP 8517 which was an AC4400.

I took several shots of some of the containers and also a few of some of the couplers as they flew by. The last two pictures of the couplers are interesting. They are used to keep sets of three well cars always coupled together. I knew they existed but never really noticed them before or ever thought of looking for those particular types of well cars. That is until I bought a set of Walthers 3 unit CP well cars when I was attending the Edmonton model train in September with my model railroad group.

As the train was going by, one of the supervisors that was talking with the tamper crew, walked over to me and said that rail traffic was really busy that day. Before he could escape me I took the opportunity to ask what exactly they were doing. He told me that they were doing preventative maintenance before winter on the track ballast and raising it up by 6 inches to raise the switches out of the “holes” or the low areas. This is so water does not collect and freeze at the switch leads and operators. As some may know, because of the chinooks, Calgary goes through some pretty drastic freeze-thaw cycles, sometimes a couple in the matter of a few hours. Temperatures can below 0 Celsius in the morning, 15 Celsius in the afternoon and back to below 0 again. After the ballast work is done, a surveying crew surveys the rails to make sure that the rails are at the right elevations.

I then asked him why the ballast was a different colour that the current ballast and where did it come from. He explained to me that with all the derailments and washouts that apparently there is a serious shortage of ballast, so the ballast that they were using that day was recycled ballast. It was just dirty from being dug up and would wash off after a couple rainfalls. As they dig up old ballast from removing unused switches and abandoned lines, they run it through sifters to remove the small unwanted rock, then ship it to where it is needed. By that time the train had gone by and he then indicated that he had to go check up on the other crew.

There were two locations that came to mind immediately as to where that ballast probably came from and both are on the MacLeod Subdivision. Some of it is probably from near the Azure grain elevator where they’ve removed the rail ties and dug up the ballast. This happened sometime between May 2010 and September 2010. The other location I’m thinking about is further south on Highway 2 near Nolan. Back in July I was heading to a wedding in Lethbridge and noticed that there were work crews digging up ballast and sub-roadbed.

The following two pictures taken back in September show the reclaimed grade crossing near Azure. The first photo is heading towards High River and you can see the auto racks I posted about back in September and October. The second is looking towards Azure and you can just see the top of the grain elevator.

Just before I left I took a shot of some of the workers driving spikes after the tamper had gone by.

At that point I was running out of time and headed back to the office.

Cheers,

Hang Out At Alyth

October 2nd, 2009

On Friday I did something that I haven’t done in several months. Railfanning! Man did it feel good to do it too. I wasn’t flying around the county side chasing down some train, I was just casually hanging out at Alyth yard checking what was going on.

I got there around noon, parked my car, grabbed my camera and walked along a grassy area on the backside of a warehouse parallel to the tracks. I got near the end and there was a guy sitting in a CP pickup truck, I think he was a yard foreman. When I came near he asked me if I was out take train pictures and I said yes. He went on to explain that he was waiting for container train to come in so he could take readings on the fuel tanks to determine how much fuel the train had consumed from its previous stop in Fields.

He explained that CP had been experimenting with longer trains lately. I know not the reason why except to move more freight. Earlier this summer, they experimented with 10,000 foot long grain trains. Now they are experimenting with 10,000 foot and longer container trains.

The day before, Thursday October 1st, train 110 came through and was a 12,000 foot container train on it’s way to St Paul, Minnesota via Winnipeg from Vancouver. It had five locomotives total, two at the front, one about a third in, the other about a third from the end, and one pushing at the rear. On Friday the 2nd, I got to see train 110 roll by, a 10,500 foot container train, which was the one that the yard foreman was waiting for, with four locomotives total. There were two at the front, one about half way and the fourth pushing in the rear. This train had the same destination as the train 110 from the previous day.

The locomotive roster was 8702 in the lead, an es44ac, followed closely by 9824, an ac4400, then lagging further back were 9750 midway and 8514 pushing, both being ac4400’s. In the first photo, the building you see in the distance to the left is 12th Street Tower. I wish I would of thought of getting a car count on this train. I’ll have to keep my open for the next 10,000 foot 110.

Shortly after that, the hump made its appearance at about 12:30. At the lead end was 6603 and 5795, both SD40-2’s, then there was 75 cars in the string and 6612 at the end another SD40-2.

When it stopped half way on its return in and didn’t move for a while, I decided to get and oil change and tire rotation done on my car.

When I returned shortly before 16:00, the hump was already pulled out. I didn’t get a car count but it was well over 70 cars judging by were the two lead locos were and the fact that I couldn’t see the other locomotive at the end.

I walked down to the end of the grassy area again, and on my way back I saw some headlights coming down. It was a loco trio with a sandwiched SOO unit. Locomotive 3124 was the first, then SOO 4420 and then 3115 at the end. All three were GP38-2’s. They went several times doing some switching. From what I could tell it seemed like they were making a train or two.

There was a crunched up Government of Canada grain car in the hump.

As the hump made another stop as it was pulling in, 8217 pulled up from around the wye. It stopped and waited for the switch to be thrown so it could make its way up and around the hump to end up on the eastern side of the yard and head towards the diesel shop.

At 16:10 the hump that was already out was finally on its way in. Pushing the cars into the hump were 6611 and 6065, both are SD40-2’s.

At 16:20, a local switcher was coming in from the north line with 7 tankers. The locomotives were two GP-9’s numbered 8232 and 1568. The north line comes in on the far side of the hump track. Most of the switches in the yard are controlled from the tower, so they waited a minute and were on their way to the yard that is near the downtown core to which the name eludes me at the moment.

About ten minutes later, a couple locos came out from the classification yard. They rolled back and switched around the hump to end up in one of the diesel shop tracks to be prepped for the next shift. The two locomotives were a GP38-2 numbered 3066, and 3013 being a GP38AC.

There was no action for about twenty minutes, then another hump being pulled out by a familiar looking 6603 and 5795 came rolling by. I can only assume that 6612 was probably on the other end. I could only count 71 cars visible to me. This trio pulled out a hump in my presence earlier that afternoon.

When they didn’t move for a good length of time, I decided to call it quits and said my good byes to a fellow railfanner and his wife who showed up about an hour prior. I then finished my day with a visit to my watering hole for some friendly chit-chat, a game of stick, a hot bite to eat, and a cold one down the gullet.

Cheers,