1970s CN Power

Here are a few slides I’ve purchased recently off an online auction site. All of them depict CN diesel electric locomotives and were taken in the 1970s. I don’t know who any of the photographers were, unfortunately.

The lead photo shows CN 7179 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on July 19, 1976. 7179 was one of 34 GMD SW8 locomotives built in ~1951. I feel like this photo was taken in the “east yard”, which is now the Forks. I think that might be the St. Boniface hospital visible above the trees at far right.

Derailment in Halifax

This photo shows CN 1784 being rerailed by a CN crane on October 13, 1975 in the Rockingham Yard in Bedford, Nova Scotia. Several “white hats” are watching the operation with interest. Two tracks over, switcher CN 1331 is coupled to a long string of old passenger cars that have been painted boxcar brown and repurposed as maintenance-of-way cars. I imagine the crane was part of that “wreck train”.

CN 1782 was photographed on the same day, probably by the same photographer, and it appears to have been in Rockingham Yard as well judging by what is probably Bedford Basin behind it.

I find it interesting that 1782’s cab number appears to have been recently painted on. The gearing “65/18” and the class “MR-14c” is particularly clear.

CN 1785 at Fairview

CN 1785 was photographed at Fairview Yard in Halifax on March 28, 1976. I know this is Fairview because of the Fairview Lawn Cemetery in the background, well known as the final resting place for 121 victims of the sinking of the Titanic.

There’s a scrawl on the slide holder that notes that 1785 used to be CN 3891 (an MLW RS-18) before it was remanufactured into an RSC-14. CN had 38 of their RS-18 units rebuilt into RSC-14s by reducing the horsepower from 1800 to 1400 and replacing the 4 wheel trucks with 6 wheel trucks from retired RSC-13 units. This reduction in wheel loading allowed them to work on light rail branch lines in the Maritimes for years to come.

Speaking of light rail branch lines…

CN 1803 in Bridgewater

Oh, the year was 1778…. er, 1973 when CN 1803 was photographed in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. The unique Bridgewater station is visible to the left, and the turntable to the right. Sadly the station burned down in December 1982.

I believe this may be a David Othen photo – the identical photo is on the Nova Scotia Railway Heritage site. I might have a copy of that slide instead of an original.

1803 was an RSC-24, one of only four locomotives (CN 1800-1803) of that kind. These bastardized locomotives were built in 1959 on a switcher frame with six axle trucks (with the middle axle unpowered), and used the “cranky” 12-cylinder 244 diesel engines from MLW FPA-2s, derated to 1400 horsepower.

The RSC-24 locomotives were not successful, due to the 244 engine, so no more were made. CN 1802 was wrecked at Pointe-à-la-Garde, Quebec and the other three spent the latter part of their life on the southeast coast of Nova Scotia working the light rails around Bridgewater, Liverpool, Middleton and Lunenburg. They were retired not long after this photo was taken.

Although there is no railway anywhere near Bridgewater today, the turntable was saved and is now at the Middleton Railway Museum, which is quickly growing into the premier Nova Scotia railway museum.