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Caption: Back when the Wawa sinter plant and the Michipicoten sub still existed, @1998; the scene this day was WC 6590, 6001, 2052 and 2252 brought train of empties to the Harbour, where they were switched out and loads picked up. The power split up; on the right is the empties and the track on the left goes down to the docks. The train will return to Wawa with WC 6001, 6590, 2252 and 2052 in that order. The WC 6001, still in Algoma paint, was formerly the ACR 181. Within the year all this activity would be history. (Mile 26 was the end of the "main".)
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What a great shot! I didn’t know any of the ex. FRV/CNW GP30s made it up north of the border.
Thank you, Mr. Smith. Yeah, the limited time I had only saw that one unit; but what was there; only a handful?? I was more surprised to see SDL-39 (#589) while in the SOO, Ont than anything else on that trip.
The SDL-39s made it in to the Sault fairly regularly because for a while there was a weight restriction on the bridge from the US.
Weird. Wonder why they split the power for switching there?
Chris: I wondered why they split the power too. But as I was writing up this lame caption, I thought back at your knowledge of the area and hope you would have the answers. I can only guess they wanted the same pair on the lead for the return trip……..but why?
Unfortunately most of my knowledge is researched and not first hand, so a lot of things might have eluded me that you just wouldn’t think of.
I’ve seen some video of the switching at Michipicoten and there the train arrived and ran around using the siding on the high line, and then proceeded to run cuts of cars up and down the hill to switch out the dock. By the time they finished, the train would be built in the siding ready to head out the other way. In each of those videos they kept the power together, but that’s just a handful of samples compared to the hundreds of times they ran this job. Also, the examples I’ve seen they did have SDs on both outer ends of the set, so there could be something to that idea. You’d think they would have set that up properly at Hawk Junction before departure though.