Postscript: Sudbury 1985

Bob Fallowfield was guest operator at the Waterloo Region Model Railway Club recently. Between switching moves, Bob snapped a photo of stored CP plows in the club's Sudbury yard. When I subsequently posted a photo of double-track (one-sided!) plow CP 400823 that I photographed after temporarily detraining from VIA No 2 in 1985, club member Ted Kocyla mentioned an interesting fact: that the club had used my original 1985 photo as a prototype reference for these models. And Ted said 'thanks' for taking the photo so many years ago.

One need not wonder why a layout in Maryhill portrays Sudbury any more than one wonders why a layout in 2019 models the 1970s. The fidelity of their modelling, especially rolling stock modelling, to that specific era is what most interests me. Photos of CP plows are a dime-a-dozen, but based on the photos I took, I was lucky to see a double-track plow stuffed and mounted like this! In plow times, CN also stationed double-track and single-track plows at Belleville, ON.  Look at the big, black, expansive between-tracks side:

Gak! If only I'd posted the other photos in that original post, for the club's benefit! The post that included the single CP 400823 photo was only the third post I'd published on Trackside Treasure back in August, 2008. At that time, I was focussing on Retro Railfan Reports, sharing consists and other fun facts noted trackside. I had not yet decided to showcase more photos and theme-type posts. At the time, I considered the other photos of this unique piece of snowfighting equipment to be poorly manually-exposed. Modern photo-editing software to the rescue! I'm pleased to share more photos in this post, taken during that same brief visit.

No shop personnel were visible, and I was free to walk purposefully, safely and carefully around the shop's outdoor ready tracks happily snapping photos of well-lit, separately-spotted plows. Though film was precious and expensive at that time, I was nearing the end of my trip West and seemed willing to expose several frames to these snow-hungry subjects. Maybe to finish the film off!

I apparently took no notes of the numbers, so they're what you can see in these photos. I don't know whether the plows were receiving a pre-winter once-over, or if they were always spotted on these tracks. I suspect the former. (That's former, not foamer!)

The business end! (above) and rear views (below). Notice differences in cab styles, details and appurtenances, and even block versus CP Rail lettering.

At the time, these plows were still vital to CP's track maintenance in Northern Ontario. Today, not so much, and the expertise to operate such equipment is likely vanishing quickly.

On the same track as CP 400823 were these roofless woodchip boxcars (amazing how many former International of Maine boxcars were in this service throughout Northern Ontario at the time - but that's another post for another day) and ore cars:

Script-lettered at the shop:

The original post included leased Conrail units and CP Rail switchers at the shop tracks, but these larger MLW cousins are posted here for the first time:

I wish many happy additional years of truly prototype-based modelling to modern-era CP Rail modellers like Bob Fallowfield and the members of the WRMRC!

Running extra...

It's just around the corner...one of my favourite days!