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Caption: CN SD40-2W 5243 is the unit in charge of CN's Fibreplow train today, sitting at St. Mary's Junction awaiting their next call to duty.
The Fibreplow (or Fibre Plow) was used by CN's Signals & Communications department to install fibre optic cable along CN's mainlines all across southern Ontario, starting in the mid-80's. Power was usually one SD40-2W, pulling a pair of specially modified flatcars (one equipped with trenching/ditching equipment, including the "plows" that cut deep trenches alongside the track and fed fibre optic cable down), and a few specially-modified gondolas equipped with racks that carried fibre optic cable reels that were fed to the plow. An assortment of work cars usually followed. At the time, they were plowing and laying fibre optic in the St. Marys and London areas. Photos from 1986 show trackage around Guelph, Burlington, the Halton Sub, the Weston Sub, St. Marys and London was all done. I suppose it's fitting that some of the "old tech" codeline/telegraph poles are included this shot.
For the modellers out there, two of the orange gondolas used on the Fibre Plow were done as part of one of Rapido Train's Canadian gondola releases, sans racks of course (I wonder who it was that tipped them off about those cars...hmmm!)
Gord Taylor photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection.
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A shot of the train in action taken by S.Danko a few years later can be seen here: http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=9626
There were two plow trains which installed fibre and signal cables system-wide. One of them was later sold to 360 Networks and used for their fibre builds on CN and CP property. At the time the first southern Ontario plowing jobs were done in the mid-late 1980s (there were several builds for different fibre customers), the other train was plowing between Edmonton and Vancouver.
360 networks now Allstream – this was the foundation for major commercial Internet/private data connections still used today. Plenty of allstream facilities trackside for fibre maintenance.