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Caption: ...another ho-hum Sunday morning at CP Rail Agincourt: lots of GMD / MLW power at the diesel shop...until those black and white striped units popped out from behind that string of CP Rail vans....
Thirty one years ago...Bombardier (BBD) was interested in the North American diesel locomotive business...
...but it was not to be...the only BBD sales (that I know of) were to CN: the HR616 model for twenty units (2100 to 2119) and ten HR412W (2580 to 2589).
James Adeney summed up the situation succinctly: “In 1983, MLW (by then Bombardier) made one last all-out effort to return CP to the fold and demonstrated their latest six-axle offering, the HR616. Borrowing four that had already been delivered to CN, they applied Bombardier logos to the sides of the nose, and removed the CN logo. Other than that, they were pure CN. It was all for naught, as CP still had a bad taste in its mouth and was in the middle of a love affair with the SD40-2. “
A. W. Mooney provides additional quality comment: (the units were) “reacquired by Bombardier along with (2100) 2101-2103 to operate as demonstrators 7001-7004 on CP between Feb 1983 and May 1984. The BBD HR616 3000 HP units were rated 3200 HP while on CP. After the trial, the units reverted to their old slotting on the CN roster. CP did not take an interest, and just as well, this model was associated with aggravations and the CN fleet was off roster by 1998.”
...so what could have been never was....nevertheless....What's interesting:
Some perspective as to the relative size of the north american rail market:
As at the end of the first fiscal quarter 2014 BBD has a rail rolling stock backorder of U.S. $24.8 Billion !
Primarily urban transit and hi speed passenger rail orders, here is a selection of the larger backorders, included in that total are orders for electric locomotives:
240 TRAXX locomotives for Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) of South Africa: US$1.2 Billion
130 TRAXX locomotives for Deutsche Bahn AG (DB) of Germany: US$573 million
plus
150 TWINDEXX double-deck trains for Deutsche Bahn AG (DB) of Germany: US$434 million
585 AVENTRA trains for Transport for London (TfL) of U.K.: US$1.4 Billion.
Plus many EMU orders: 234 units for France; 384 for Sweden; 450 for Australia; 775 for BART; 180 for Germany; and on and on...
back to May 1983 > note in the background the string of open double-deck auto carriers.
May 1 1983 Kodachrome by S. Danko
More 1983 reminisces
The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed, this is considered to be the beginning of the true Internet. So there! The internet is not THAT new !
More BBD in action:
Rust Buster !
York Sub
CP Rail 937
BBD on CN
sdfourty
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Were you in the Internet in 1983 Steve?
TCP/IP took over a good portion of the Internet in 1983 but there was still no HTTP! Just things like Telnet, FTP, UUCP and e-mail – even the use of .com .net .org was not in effect in ’83..
It’s fascinating how much Pacman is in this photo. The only pieces of rolling stock I can see that are not labelled for CP are the two BN boxcars on the far left and of course, the zebras. Nowadays this would be unheard of!
The number of cabooses in the photo is amazing.
What’s a caboose ?